LETTER 57
[An unpleasant journey through a tunnel and the thoughts it prompts]
1 When I was due to return to Naples from Baiae I easily persuaded
myself that the weather was too stormy to try a second sea voyage.1
And yet the whole of my route was so muddy that anyone
would think I had sailed nevertheless. That day I had to go
through everything that athletes endure: after our anointment
with mud we then faced a sand-dusting in the Naples tunnel.
2 Nothing is longer than that prison, nothing more gloomy than the
torches there, which intensify the darkness rather than enabling us
to see through it. In any case, even if the place had any light, the
dust would conceal it. Dust is a serious nuisance even in the open:
you can imagine what it’s like in that place, where it just eddies
around, and since there’s no ventilation it settles on those who
have stirred it up. We suffered simultaneously from two normally
opposing inconveniences: on the same journey and the same day
we had to cope with both mud and dust.
3 And yet that darkness gave me something to think about: I felt
a sort of mental shock and confusion, though without fear, caused
by the novelty and also the unpleasantness of an unusual experience.
I’m not now talking to you about myself – I’m far from
being even a passable man, let alone a perfect one – but about the
sort of man over whom Fortune has lost her rights: even his mind
4 will suffer a blow and his colour change. For there are some
things, dear Lucilius, which no courage can escape – nature warns
that courage of its own mortality. And so this man will contort
his features at sad news, and shudder at sudden occurrences, and
turn giddy if he stands on the edge of a great height and looks
5 down. This isn’t fear but a natural reaction which cannot be
conquered by reason. And so some brave men who are more than
willing to shed their own blood cannot bear to see someone else’s.
Some people collapse and faint at the sight and handling of a fresh
wound, others at an old and festering one. Some receive a sword
6 thrust more easily than they see one given. Well, as I was saying,
my feeling was not really a serious disturbance but a sort of
confusion, and at the first glimpse of the return of daylight my
natural cheerfulness returned without thought or volition.
Then I began to say to myself how foolishly we fear some
things more or less although the same end awaits us all. For what
difference does it make whether a watchtower or a mountain
collapses on somebody? None, of course. Yet you will find people
who are more afraid of the mountain falling, though both are
equally fatal. So true is it that fear contemplates not results but
what brings them about.
7 Do you imagine I am now talking about the Stoics, who
believe that the soul of a man crushed by a great weight cannot
survive and is straightway broken up because there was not a clear
outlet for it? Not in the least: those who say this seem to me
8 wrong. Just as a flame cannot be crushed (for it escapes around
whatever is pressing it), nor can air be damaged or even divided
by hitting and striking it, but flows around that which it gives
way to; so the soul, which is composed of the most rarefied
material, cannot be trapped or crushed within the body, but,
thanks to its fine texture, it forces its way right through any
overpowering weight. Just as however widely a thunderbolt’s
force and flash is diffused it returns through a tiny opening, so the
soul, which is even more rarefied than fire, can escape through
9 any part of the body. And so we must ask this question: can it be
immortal? Well, be sure of this: if it survives the body, it can in
no way be destroyed, since no sort of immortality is qualified and
nothing can damage what is eternal.
LETTER 79
[Seneca asks Lucilius for details about Charybdis, and encourages him to write a poetical account of Mount Etna, as others have done. Literary emulation is possible and desirable, but wisdom and virtue cannot involve rivalry]
what you discovered in your trip around the whole of Sicily, with
full and reliable details about Charybdis in particular. For I am
well aware that Scylla is a rock and not, in fact, dangerous to
sailors, but I want you to tell me whether Charybdis matches up
to the tales about it. Also, if you happen to notice (which is well
worth noticing), do inform me whether it is lashed into whirlpools
by only one wind, or any storm at all stirs up that sea, and
whether it is true that anything caught up by that whirling eddy
is dragged under water for many miles and does not surface till it
2 reaches the shore of Tauromenium.1 If you write and tell me these details I’ll venture to commission you to climb Etna too for
my sake. Some people judge that it is being worn away and is
gradually sinking from the fact that sailors used to be able to see
it from further away. This might happen not because the mountain
is getting lower, but because its fire has declined and is ejected
with less force and volume, causing the smoke too to appear more
sluggishly during the day. Neither possibility can be ruled out,
that the mountain is daily diminished by being consumed, or that
it remains unchanged because the fire is not actually devouring
it, but, starting in some subterranean hollow, blazes away there,
feeding on other material and using the mountain itself not as
3 food but as a way out. There is a well-known region of Lycia
(the local name is Hephaestion), where the ground is perforated
in several places, and a harmless fire plays around the area without
doing the least damage to the local plant life. In fact, the region
is lush and rich in vegetation, as the flames do not scorch anything,
but simply cause a glow without any strength in their heat.
4 But let us defer these questions for consideration when you’ve
written to tell me how far away from the crater are the snows,
which do not melt even in summer, so safe are they from the
nearby fire. However, there is no question of your doing this
investigation as a favour to me: you were going to indulge your
5 obsession anyway, even if nobody asked you to. What could I
give you not to describe Etna in your poem and handle this theme
so well-worn by every poet? Ovid was in no way prevented from
treating it by the fact that Virgil had previously dealt with it fully;
and neither of them deterred Cornelius Severus from doing the
same. Besides, this subject is a rich field for all writers, and those
who have gone before do not seem to me to have pre-empted
what can be said about it, but rather to have shown the way.
6 There is a great difference between taking on a topic which is
exhausted and one which is well prepared for you. The latter is
always expanding, and previous treatments of it do not preclude
later ones. What is more, the latest writer is in the best position:
he
finds words ready to hand which he can rearrange to produce
a new effect. And since they are public property he cannot be
7 said to be doing violence to the words of others. If I know you,
Etna is making your mouth water: you’ve been longing to tackle
some lofty theme in a way to rival your predecessors. Your modesty
does not allow you to hope for more, and it is so excessive
that you actually seem to me to curtail your mental powers if
there’s any risk of your outdoing another writer: so greatly do
8 you respect your predecessors. Wisdom has this among its other advantages, that no one can
be outdone by another except in the act of rising to achieve it.
When you have come to the top everything is equal: they have
come to a halt and there is no room for further development.
Can the sun add to its bulk or the moon exceed its normal fulness?
The seas do not increase; the world preserves the same physical
9 form and limits. Things which have arrived at their prescribed
bulk cannot extend themselves: all men who have achieved wisdom
are equal and on a level. Each individual among them will
have his own natural gifts: one will be more genial than the others,
another more quick-witted, another swifter in repartee,
another more eloquent. But the quality we are concerned with,
10 the one that brings them bliss, is equal in all of them. I don’t
know whether this Etna of yours can collapse and fall on itself,
and whether the unrelenting force of its fires is demolishing that
lofty peak which is visible over vast tracts of ocean. But I do
know that no fire or collapse will bring down virtue: this is one
grandeur that cannot be humbled. It cannot be raised or lowered
as its stature is fixed, like that of the heavenly bodies: let us try to
11 raise ourselves to this height. By now much of the task has been
accomplished – no, if I am to be honest with you, not much of
it. For goodness does not consist in being better than the worst.
Who would boast about his eyesight if he had only a hazy view
of daylight? If the sun shines on a man through the mist, he can
be glad that for a while he has escaped the darkness, but he is not
12 yet enjoying the blessing of light. Our mind will only have
grounds for self-congratulation when it has emerged from this
darkness which enfolds it and sees clearly with no restricted vision,
when it absorbs the full light of day and is restored to the heavens
where it belongs, recovering the place allotted to it at birth. Its
own origins summon it upwards, and it will get there even before
its bodily prison dissolves, when it has shaken off its faults and
being pure and unburdened it darts upwards to divine reflections.
13 This activity, this whole-hearted journey of ours, is a joy, dear
Lucilius, even if few or none know about it. Fame is the shadow
of virtue and attends virtue even against its will. But just as you’ll
see a shadow sometimes preceding, sometimes following behind,
so fame sometimes goes ahead of us, visible to all, and sometimes
follows us, and is all the greater for coming late when envy has
14 departed. What a long time did Democritus seem to be mad!
Socrates scarcely achieved fame in the end. What a long time was
Cato ignored by his country! It disdained him and did not realize
its mistake until it lost him. Rutilius’ innocence and virtue would
have escaped notice had he not been wronged; but when violated
they shone forth in glory. Did he not give thanks to his fortune
and welcome his exile with open arms? I am talking about those
whom fortune glorified while she afflicted them. But how many
are there whose enlightened conduct achieved celebrity only after
their death, whose fame did not attend their lives but restored
15 them later to renown. Look at how greatly Epicurus is admired
not only by the learned but by crowds of unphilosophical men
everywhere: yet he was unknown even in Athens, near which he
had ‘lived unnoticed’.2 That was why many years after his pupil
Metrodorus’ death he wrote a letter in which, having extolled
their friendship with grateful reminiscences, he added at the end
that he and Metrodorus had enjoyed so many blessings that they
had suffered no hurt from the fact that Greece with all its fair
fame had not only not known them, but had scarcely heard of
16 them. Well, did not men discover him after he died, and did he
not then acquire a shining reputation? Metrodorus too admits in
a letter that he and Epicurus had scarcely become known, but
that after his and Epicurus’ death anyone who wanted to follow
17 in their footsteps would find a great and ready-made name. No
virtue remains concealed, and to have been concealed does it no
damage, for time will bring it to light though it was suppressed in
obscurity by the spite of its own contemporaries. The man who
has in mind only his own generation is born for few people.
Thousands of years and many generations will follow: these are
what you must consider. Even if malice produces silence about
you during the lifetime of your contemporaries, others will come
who will judge you without animosity and without favour. Whatever
reward virtue enjoys from fame is not lost. Certainly we will
not be affected by what later generations say about us, but even
though we shall feel nothing they will cherish our memory with
18 naffection. Virtue rewards everyone both in his life and after his
death, provided he has sincerely cultivated it, and provided he has
not tricked himself out with adornments, but has remained the
same individual, whether warned in advance of your seeing him
or caught unaware. Pretence achieves nothing. A mask that is
easily slipped on doesn’t fool many people: truth is the same
through and through. Things that deceive have no substance.
Falsehood is a flimsy thing, and if you look hard, you can see
through it.
LETTER 110
[A strong recommendation for a sane outlook on life: philosophy can help us to avoid groundless fears and reduce our needs to a minimum]
1 I greet you from my place at Nomentum1 and wish you health
of mind, that is, the favour of all the gods – and anyone who has
won his own favour has the gods at peace and well-disposed
towards him. Put aside for the time being the belief of certain
people that each of us has a god appointed to him as a guardian –
not, indeed, a god from the regular ranks, but one of lesser quality
belonging to the group which Ovid calls ‘lower-class gods’.However,
while you are putting aside this belief I want you to remember
that our ancestors who entertained it were essentially Stoics;
for they attributed to every single man or woman a Genius or
2 a Juno.2 We shall see presently whether the gods have enough
time to look after the affairs of individuals; in the meantime
you must realize that whether we have been allotted to a god’s
protection or abandoned to the whim of Fortune, you cannot
invoke a worse curse on anyone than to wish him to be on bad
&
nbsp; terms with himself. But there is no reason for you to pray for
the hostility of the gods towards anybody you think deserves
punishment: he has their hostility, I tell you, even if he appears
to be getting on well through their favour.
3 Use your wits and look hard at human affairs as they are, not
as they are described, and you will realize that our troubles more
often turn out well than badly for us. See how often what was
described as a disaster proved to be the initial cause of a blessing!
How often an occurrence welcomed with loud rejoicing has, in
fact, created steps to the edge of a precipice, and has raised even
higher someone already highly placed, as if till then he was standing
4 where one might safely fall! Still, this fall is not in itself an evil
if you consider the final point beyond which nature has cast no
one down. At hand is the end of all things, at hand, I tell you, is
that point where the happy man is thrown out and the unhappy
man is let out. With our hopes and fears we Prolong and extend
both our happiness and our unhappiness. But if you’re wise you
should measure all things in human terms, and contract the limits
of your joys and your fears. Noreover, it is worth while enjoying
nothing for long so that you don't fear anything for long.
5 But why am I trying to restrict this evil of fear? You have no
reason to regard anything as fearful: the things which disturb us
and keep us petrified are quite illusory. None of us has tested
their reality, but one man’s fear rubs off on another. No one has
dared to approach the source of his anxiety and to learn the nature
of the fear and any good there might be in it. Consequently, a
false and empty circumstance still looks genuine because it has
not been refuted. We must think it worth while to look hard at
6 our fears, and it will soon be obvious how short-lived, uncertain
and reassuring they are. This is the sort of confusion in our minds
which struck Lucretius:3
As at night children tremble, dreading all in the dark,
So even in daylight our fears do afflict us.
7 Well, then: with our daylight fears are we not more silly than any
child? But you are wrong, Lucretius: it is not that we have fears