Seneca · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
[1] I rejoice every time I receive a letter from you, for it fills me with good hope; your letters no longer just make promises about you, they give guarantees. Keep on this way, I beg and implore you - what better thing could I ask of a friend than something I will end up asking on his own behalf? If you can, withdraw yourself from those preoccupations of yours; if you cannot, tear yourself away. We have scattered enough of our time already: let us start, in our old age, gathering up our baggage. [2] Surely there's nothing objectionable in that? We have lived on the open sea; let us die in harbor. I am not suggesting you seek fame through leisure - fame you should neither flaunt nor hide; I would never drive you so far, having condemned the madness of the human race, as to want you to find some hiding place and be forgotten. My point is this: let your retirement not be conspicuous, but let it be visible. [3] After that, it will be for people whose plans are still untouched and just beginning to decide whether they want to pass their lives in obscurity - that choice is not open to you. The vigor of your talent, the elegance of your writings, your distinguished and noble friendships have already thrust you into the public eye; fame has already taken hold of you. Even if you sink into the deepest retreat and bury yourself completely, your past achievements will still point you out. [4] You cannot have darkness; wherever you flee, a good deal of your former light will follow you. But you can claim peace and quiet without anyone's hatred, without longing or the gnawing of your own conscience. What, really, would you be leaving behind that you could think of as left against your will? Clients? None of them follows you yourself - only something they can get from you. Friendship used to be sought; now it's plunder. Abandoned old men will change their wills, and the morning caller will move on to another doorstep. A great thing cannot be had cheap: weigh whether it's better to abandon yourself, or some part of your possessions. [5] If only you had been allowed to grow old within the bounds of your birth, and fortune had never carried you out to sea! Headlong success has swept you far from the sight of a healthy life - the governorship, the procuratorship, and whatever those positions promise; greater responsibilities will follow, and from those, still others. Where will it end? [6] What are you waiting for, until you stop having something to crave? There will never be such a time. Just as we speak of a chain of causes from which fate is woven, so is there a chain of desires: one is born from the end of another. You have been thrust down into a life that will never of its own accord put an end to your miseries and your servitude: pull your neck out from under the yoke that has worn it raw; better to have it cut once than pressed down forever. [7] If you retreat into private life, everything will be smaller, but it will fill you up abundantly; whereas now, though enormous quantities are heaped on you from every side, they do not satisfy you. And which would you rather have - fullness from scarcity, or hunger amid abundance? Success is greedy by nature, and exposed to the greed of others as well; as long as nothing is enough for you, you yourself will not be enough for others. [8] 'How,' you ask, 'do I get out?' However you can. Think how many rash risks you've taken for money, how many laborious ones for advancement: something must be dared for peace of mind too, or else you will grow old amid the anxiety of these procuratorships and, after that, of civic offices in the city, in turmoil and amid ever-new waves that no moderation, no calm way of life ever lets you escape. What does it matter whether you want peace? Your fortune does not want it for you. And what if you let it keep growing even now? Whatever is added to your successes will be added to your fears as well. [9] Here I want to quote a saying of Maecenas, who spoke the truth even on his own rack: 'For the very heights thunder upon their own summits.' If you ask in which book he said this, it's the one called Prometheus. What he meant was this: the summits are struck by thunder. Is any amount of power worth having your speech reduced to such drunken babble? He was a talented man, and would have given a great model of Roman eloquence, had success not enervated him - or rather, castrated him. This is the end that awaits you too, unless you now furl your sails, unless - as he wished too late - you hug the shore.
[10] I could have balanced my account with you using this saying of Maecenas alone, but you'll raise an objection with me - if I know you - and you won't want to accept what I owe you unless it's in rough, honest coin. As things stand, I must take out a loan from Epicurus. 'Before,' he says, 'you must consider whom you will eat and drink with, rather than what you will eat and drink; for without a friend, a life of feasting is the life of a lion or a wolf.' [11] This will not happen to you unless you withdraw; otherwise you will have as dinner guests whoever the name-caller sorts out for you from the crowd of morning callers. It is a mistake to look for a friend in the entrance hall and test him at the dinner table. A busy man, besieged by his own good fortune, has no greater misfortune than this: he thinks people are his friends when he himself is not a friend to them, and he judges his favors effective for winning over hearts, when in fact some people hate all the more, the more they owe. A light debt makes a debtor; a heavy one makes an enemy. [12] 'What then? Don't favors create friendships?' They do, if you were allowed to choose who would receive them, if they were placed carefully rather than scattered about. So while you are just beginning to belong to your own mind, in the meantime follow this piece of wisdom from the wise: consider it more relevant who receives something than what he receives. Farewell.