Dying every day. Seneca, Epistles 1.12.8-9

Seneca recommends that we treat each day as a gift, an unexpected addition to our life, which has already ended.

Pacuvius, qui Syriam usu suam fecit, cum vino et illis funebribus epulis sibi parentaverat, sic in cubiculum ferebatur a cena ut inter plausus exoletorum hoc ad symphoniam caneretur: βεβίωται, βεβίωται. Nullo non se die extulit. Hoc quod ille ex mala conscientia faciebat nos ex bona faciamus, et in somnum ituri laeti hilaresque dicamus,

Vixi et quem dederat cursum fortuna peregi.

Crastinum si adiecerit deus, laeti recipiamus. Ille beatissimus est et securus sui possessor qui crastinum sine sollicitudine exspectat; quisquis dixit vixi cotidie ad lucrum surgit.

Pacuvius (†), who made Syria his own by adopting her culture, used to hold funeral banquets for himself. When he had done with the wine and other offerings, he would retire from dinner to a little chamber, where he could hear the mourning of his bereaved lovers punctuated by this musical refrain (‡): "His life is done, is done." He carried out this ritual every day, without fail. His method for assuaging a bad conscience should become ours for expressing a good, and we should go to sleep merry and joyful each night, saying

I have lived, finishing the course that Fortune gave (*).

If our god then grant us another day, let us receive it gratefully. He is most blessed, and most secure in his possessions, who awaits the morrow with no anxiety. Whoever utters nightly, "Now I've lived!" rises each morn to profit.

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(†) Perhaps the legate who prevented Domitius Celer from assuming command of the Sixth Legion in Laodicea, Syria, in the year 19 CE. Celer was working with Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, who was soon to be formally implicated in the death of his own superior, Germanicus (Tacitus, Annals 2.79).

(‡) The symphonia here is ambiguous. It might be a musical instrument, either percussive or wind. Or it could be a vocal chorus (meaning that the Greek refrain was chanted in some kind of harmony).

(*) This line comes from the Aeneid (4.653), where it is uttered by the Carthaginian queen Dido immediately prior to her suicide, inspired by the departure of Aeneas for Italy.