Live brave, die strong. Seneca, Epistles 3.22.13-17
Seneca
muses with Lucilius on life and death, which he aims to appreciate
better by approaching them in harmony with Nature.
Iam
imprimebam epistulae signum: resolvenda est, ut cum sollemni ad te
munusculo veniat et aliquam magnificam vocem ferat secum; et occurrit
mihi ecce nescio utrum verior an eloquentior. 'Cuius?' inquis.
Epicuri; adhuc enim alienas sarcinas adoro: nemo non ita exit e
vita tamquam modo intraverit. Quemcumque vis occupa, adulescentem,
senem, medium: invenies aeque timidum mortis, aeque inscium vitae.
Nemo
quicquam habet facti; in futurum enim nostra distulimus.
Nihil me magis in ista voce delectat quam quod exprobratur senibus
infantia. Nemo inquit
aliter quam quomodo natus est
exit e vita. Falsum
est: peiores morimur quam nascimur. Nostrum istud, non naturae vitium
est. Illa nobis conqueri
debet et dicere, quid hoc est? sine cupiditatibus vos genui, sine
timoribus, sine superstitione, sine perfidia ceterisque pestibus:
quales intrastis exite.
Percepit
sapientiam, si quis tam securus moritur quam nascitur; nunc vero
trepidamus cum periculum accessit, non animus nobis, non color
constat, lacrimae nihil profuturae cadunt.
Quid
est turpius quam in ipso limine securitatis esse sollicitum?
Causa autem haec est, quod inanes omnium bonorum sumus, vitae
laboramus. Non enim apud nos pars eius ulla subsedit: transmissa est
et effluxit. Nemo quam bene vivat sed quam diu curat, cum
omnibus possit contingere ut bene vivant, ut diu nulli. Vale.
Already
it's time I was putting the final seal on this letter. I must polish
it off with an aphorism worth your attention that will bear some
noble thought in its words. And lo! here comes one whose like for
truth and eloquence I cannot find. “Who uttered it?” you ask.
Epicurus! So attached do I remain to the foreign goods (†) he
offers: “No one has ever departed life in a state different from
the one in which he entered.” Take any state you please: that of
the youth, the ancient, or the middle-aged. You will find it as
fearful of death and ignorant of life as the others. No one possesses
anything real in the present; we've deferred our possessions to the
future. Nothing pleases me better in this aphorism than its
condemnation of the way old men imitate infants. “Nobody leaves
life otherwise than he was born.” This is false: we die worse than
we are born. Death finds us making our own mistakes, where birth
offers only the mistakes of nature. Indeed, Nature ought to lodge a
complaint with us, saying, “What's this? I bore you with no
desires, no fears, no fetishes, no guile—none of that putrid shit
you've gotten yourself into. Get out of it!”
Anyone
who dies as secure as he was born has caught more than a glimpse of
wisdom. As for us: we now tremble whenever danger approaches. Our
mind and color lose their natural tone, and useless tears fall from
our eyes. What is more shameful than to be so worried in the very
threshold of our deliverance from all care? Here is the reason for
our panic: we are empty of all good things; we toil for life, instead
of living. Nor has any part of life found rest in us: her stream has
come across the ages to us and passed through our grasp, uncaught.
None of us cares how well he lives, only how long, even though it is
possible for all of us to live well, and nobody lives long. Farewell.
---
(†)
Seneca routinely refers to Epicurean aphorisms as contraband, poking
fun at the academic conflict between Stoics and Epicureans. As he
tells Lucilius, a good philosopher learns from everyone.