Seneca · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
Seneca to his dear Lucilius: greetings. [1] I have seen my old fellow student Claranus again, after many years. You don't expect me, I think, to add that he is old - but I will tell you, by god, that he is green and vigorous in mind, and still wrestling with his poor little body. For nature has treated him unjustly, and lodged so fine a soul badly - or perhaps she meant precisely this: to show us that the strongest and happiest of minds can hide under any skin at all. Still, he has overcome every obstacle, and from despising himself he has come to despise everything else. [2] I think the poet was wrong who said, "and virtue comes more welcome from a beautiful body." Virtue needs no such ornament: it is itself its own great glory, and it consecrates the body it inhabits. Certainly I have begun to look at our friend Claranus differently: to me he seems handsome now, and as upright in body as he is in mind. [3] A great man can come out of a hut; a beautiful and great soul can come out of an ugly, stunted little body. Nature seems to me to produce certain people expressly to prove that virtue can be born anywhere. If she could bring forth naked souls by themselves, she would have; as it is, she does something even greater: she brings forth some souls hampered by bodies, but breaking through the obstacles nonetheless. [4] Claranus, it seems to me, was produced as a model, so that we might know that the body is not what disfigures the soul, but rather the soul's beauty that adorns the body. Although we spent very few days together, we still had many conversations, which I have been turning over since and will now pass on to you.
[5] On the first day the question raised was this: how can goods be equal to one another, if there are three different classes of them? Some, as we hold, are primary goods - joy, for instance, or peace, or the safety of one's country. Some are secondary, expressed through unhappy material - such as endurance under torture, or self-control in a serious illness. The first kind of good we will choose for ourselves directly; the second, only if necessity forces it on us. There is still a third kind - a modest gait, a composed and honest expression, a bearing suited to a wise man. [6] How can these be equal to one another, when some are to be chosen and others avoided?
If we want to sort this out, let us go back to the primary good and consider what sort of thing it is. A mind that beholds the truth, skilled in what to seek and what to avoid, assigning value to things not by opinion but by nature, inserting itself into the whole universe and directing its contemplation to all its workings, attentive equally to thought and to action, great and forceful, unconquered equally by hardship and by flattery, submitting to neither fortune, rising above everything that happens or befalls it, most beautiful, most perfectly ordered in both grace and strength, sound and dry, unshaken, undaunted, which no force can break, which chance events can neither lift up nor cast down - such a mind is virtue itself. [7] This is its face, if it can be taken in under a single gaze and shows itself whole all at once. But it has many appearances, unfolding according to the variety of life and its actions; and it does not become smaller or greater for that. For the highest good cannot diminish, nor is virtue permitted to go backward; it only turns itself into one quality after another, shaped to the character of the actions it is about to perform. [8] Whatever it touches, it draws into its own likeness and colors; it graces the actions, the friendships, sometimes the whole households it has entered and set in order; whatever it handles, it makes lovable, notable, admirable. So its power and its greatness cannot rise any further, since the greatest cannot be increased: you will find nothing more upright than the upright, no more than you will find anything truer than the true, or more temperate than the temperate. [9] All virtue lies within a measure; that measure is fixed. Steadfastness has nowhere further to go, no more than trust, or truth, or good faith. What can be added to something perfect? Nothing - or else it was not perfect, that thing to which something was added. So neither can anything be added to virtue; if anything could be added to it, it would have been lacking something. Honor, too, admits no addition; it is honorable precisely for the reasons I have listed. And what of that? Do you think the fitting, the just, and the lawful are not all of the same shape, bounded by fixed limits? The capacity to grow is the mark of something imperfect. [10] Every good falls under the same laws: private and public advantage are joined together, just as inseparable, I assure you, as what is praiseworthy is from what is desirable. So the virtues are equal to one another, and so are the works of virtue, and so are all the people to whom they have fallen. [11] But the virtues of plants and animals, being mortal, are also fragile, perishable, uncertain; they spring up and subside, and so are not valued at the same rate. One single rule applies to human virtues, for there is only one right and simple reason. Nothing is more divine than the divine, nothing more heavenly than the heavenly. [12] Mortal things shrink and fall, wear away and grow, are emptied out and filled up again; and so, given so uncertain a lot, there is inequality among them - but divine things share a single nature. Now reason is nothing other than a portion of the divine spirit immersed in a human body; if reason is divine, and no good exists without reason, then every good is divine. And there is no difference among divine things; therefore none among goods either. So joy and brave, unbending endurance under torture are equal: in both, the greatness of soul is the same - relaxed and at ease in the one case, straining and taut in the other. [13] What? Do you not think the virtue of a man who storms an enemy's walls with courage is equal to that of a man who endures a siege with the utmost patience? Great is Scipio, who shuts Numantia in, presses it, and forces its unconquered hands to turn against themselves in ruin; equally great is the spirit of the besieged, who knows that a man to whom death lies open is not truly shut in, and who breathes his last in the embrace of freedom. In the same way all the rest are equal to one another too - tranquility, simplicity, generosity, constancy, evenness of temper, endurance; for beneath all of these lies one single virtue, which keeps the mind upright and unbending.
[14] "What, then? Is there no difference between joy and unbending endurance of pain?" None, as far as the virtues themselves go - though a great deal of difference among the things in which each virtue is displayed. In the one case, the mind's relaxation and ease is natural; in the other, the pain runs contrary to nature. These, then, are the intermediate things, which admit a very wide range - but the virtue in both is equal. [15] The material does not change virtue: hard and difficult circumstances do not make it worse, nor do cheerful and joyful ones make it better; it must therefore be equal in both. For in either case what is done is done equally rightly, equally wisely, equally honorably; so the goods are equal, beyond which neither man can conduct himself any better - the one in his joy, the other amid his torments; and two things than which nothing better can be done are equal to one another. [16] For if things placed outside virtue could diminish or increase it, then the honorable would cease to be the single good that it is. Grant that, and every honorable thing collapses. Why? I'll tell you: because nothing is honorable that is done unwillingly, or under compulsion; every honorable act is voluntary. Mix in reluctance, complaint, evasion, fear, and it has lost the best thing it had - its self-approval. Nothing can be honorable that is not free; for what fears, serves. [17] Everything honorable is secure, is tranquil: if it recoils from something, if it laments, if it judges something an evil, it has let in disturbance and is tossed about in great inner conflict - drawn on one side by the appearance of what is right, pulled back on the other by the suspicion of evil. And so a man who is about to do something honorable, whatever stands in his way, even if he thinks it inconvenient, must not think it an evil - he must want it, and do it gladly. Everything honorable is unforced and uncompelled, pure, mixed with no evil.
[18] I know what can be said to me in reply here: "Are you trying to persuade us that it makes no difference whether a man lies at a banquet or on the rack, wearing out his torturer?" I could answer: Epicurus too says that the wise man, even if he is roasted inside the bull of Phalaris, will cry out, "How sweet this is, and none of my concern." Why are you surprised that I call the goods equal - one man reclining at a banquet, another standing most bravely amid torments - when Epicurus says something far harder to believe, that being roasted is sweet? [19] But here is my answer: there is a great deal of difference between joy and pain. If a choice is asked for, I will seek the one and avoid the other; the one is in accordance with nature, the other against it. As long as they are weighed on that scale, they stand far apart from each other. But once we come to virtue, both are equal - the virtue that proceeds through joys and the virtue that proceeds through sorrows. [20] Vexation and pain and every other inconvenience carry no weight at all; virtue swallows them up. Just as the brightness of the sun blots out small lights, so virtue, by its own greatness, crushes and extinguishes pains, troubles, injuries; wherever it shines, whatever appears without it is snuffed out, and inconveniences, once they run up against virtue, have no more effect than a rain cloud has on the sea. [21] To convince you this is so: a good man will rush toward everything beautiful without any hesitation. Let the executioner stand there, let the torturer and the fire stand there - he will persevere, and he will look not at what he is about to suffer but at what he is about to do, and he will trust himself to the honorable act as to a good man; he will judge it useful to him, safe, favorable. The honorable thing, even when it is grim and harsh, will hold the same place in his eyes as a good man holds who is poor, or exiled, or thin and pale. [22] Go on, then - set on one side a good man overflowing with riches, and on the other a man who has nothing, but has everything within himself: each will be equally a good man, even though their fortunes differ. The same judgment applies to things as to men, as I said: virtue is equally praiseworthy whether it is lodged in a strong, free body or a sick, shackled one. [23] So you too will not praise your own virtue any more if fortune has kept your body whole than if it has been maimed in some part - otherwise you would be judging a master by the clothing of his slaves. For all those things over which chance exercises dominion are slaves - money, the body, honors - weak, fluid, mortal, held by an uncertain tenure; but the works of virtue, on the other hand, are free and unconquered, no more to be sought after if fortune treats them kindly, nor any less if some unfairness of circumstance presses them down. [24] What friendship is among men, desire is among things. You would not, I think, love a good man who is rich any more than one who is poor, nor a strong and muscular one any more than a slight man of weak body; so neither will you desire or love a cheerful, peaceful circumstance any more than a strained and toilsome one. [25] Or if you do, then, of two equally good men, you will love the sleek and well-oiled one more than the dusty and unkempt one; and from there you will go on to love the man whole and unharmed in all his limbs more than the crippled or one-eyed man; little by little your fastidiousness will advance to the point where, of two men equally just and wise, you will prefer the one with a full head of curly hair. But where the virtue in each is equal, the inequality of other things does not show; for all those other things are not parts of the good, but mere additions to it. [26] Does anyone conduct so unfair a reckoning among his own children that he loves a healthy son more than a sick one, or a tall, striking one more than a short or ordinary one? Wild animals do not distinguish among their offspring, and offer themselves equally to feed them all; birds divide the food equally. Ulysses hurries toward the rocks of his own Ithaca just as Agamemnon hurries toward the noble walls of Mycenae; no one loves his country because it is great, but because it is his own. [27] What is the point of all this? That you should know: virtue looks upon all its works as its own offspring, with the same eyes, and shows the same indulgence to all - indeed more intensely to those struggling harder, since even a parent's love leans more toward the children it pities. Virtue, too, does not love its struggling and burdened works any more, but, in the manner of good parents, embraces and cherishes them more.
[28] Why is no good greater than another? Because nothing is more fitting than what is fitting, nothing more level than what is level. You cannot say that this thing is more equal to something than that thing is; so neither is anything more honorable than the honorable. [29] But if the nature of all the virtues is equal, then the three classes of goods stand on the same level. I mean this: moderate joy and moderate grief stand on the same level. That joy does not surpass the firmness of mind that swallows its groans under torture: the one kind of good is desirable, the other admirable, but both are equal nonetheless, because whatever inconvenience there is gets covered over by the force of a proportionately greater good. [30] Whoever judges these unequal has turned his eyes away from the virtues themselves and is looking around at externals instead. True goods weigh the same, show the same; false goods are full of emptiness - and so, showy and impressive to onlookers, once weighed on the scale, they deceive. [31] It is so, my dear Lucilius: whatever true reason recommends is solid and eternal, it strengthens the mind and lifts it up to stand forever on the heights. The things praised rashly, and by the crowd's opinion called goods, puff up those who are glad of them with empty air; conversely, the things feared as evils throw fear into people's minds, and stir them, just like animals, at the mere appearance of danger. [32] So both these things - without reason - either swell the mind or gnaw at it; neither the one deserves joy nor the other fear. Reason alone is unchanging and holds fast to its judgment; it does not serve the senses but commands them. Reason is equal to reason, just as the upright is equal to the upright; so too is virtue equal to virtue, for virtue is nothing other than right reason. All the virtues are forms of reason; they are reason, if they are right; if they are right, they are also equal. [33] As the reason is, so are the actions; therefore all are equal, for being like reason, they are like one another too. But I say the actions are equal to one another only insofar as they are honorable and right; otherwise they will show great differences, as the material varies - now broader, now narrower, now illustrious, now obscure, now affecting many, now affecting few. Yet in all of them, what is best is equal: they are honorable. [34] It is like this: all good men are equal insofar as they are good, but they differ in age - one older, one younger; they differ in body - one handsome, one plain; they differ in fortune - one rich, one poor, one influential, powerful, known to cities and to peoples, the other unknown to most and obscure. But by that quality by which they are good, they are equal.
[35] The senses do not judge between goods and evils; they do not know what is useful and what is not. They cannot pass judgment except on something brought right before them; they are not foresighted about the future nor mindful of the past; they do not know what follows from what. But from this, order and sequence are woven together, and the unity of a life that means to proceed on a straight course. Reason, then, is the arbiter of goods and evils; it holds things foreign and external as cheap, and judges the additions that are neither good nor bad to be the smallest and lightest of things - for to it, every good lies in the mind. [36] Still, it reckons certain goods primary, which one approaches by deliberate purpose - victory, say, or good children, or the safety of one's country; certain goods secondary, which appear only in adversity - enduring illness, fire, or exile with an even mind; and certain goods intermediate, no more in accordance with nature than against it - such as walking with dignity, or sitting composedly. For sitting is no less in accordance with nature than standing or walking. [37] Those two higher classes of goods are different from each other: the first are in accordance with nature - rejoicing in the devotion of one's children, in the safety of one's country; the second are against nature - standing firm bravely against torture, and enduring thirst while a burning illness consumes one's vitals. [38] "What, then? Can something against nature be good?" Not at all; but the situation in which that good arises is sometimes against nature. To be wounded, to waste away under applied fire, to be afflicted with poor health - these are against nature; but to keep an unwearied mind amid such things is in accordance with nature. [39] And to say briefly what I mean: the material of a good is sometimes against nature, but the good itself never is, since no good exists without reason, and reason follows nature. "What, then, is reason?" An imitation of nature. "What is man's highest good?" To conduct himself according to the will of nature.
[40] "There is no doubt," someone says, "that peace never disturbed is happier than peace won back through much bloodshed. There is no doubt," he says, "that unshaken health is a happier thing than health drawn back to safety, by some force and endurance, out of serious illness and threats of death. In the same way, there will be no doubt that joy is a greater good than a mind straining to endure the torments of wounds or fire." [41] Not at all; for things that are matters of chance admit a great deal of variation, since they are valued by the usefulness they have to those who receive them. Of goods, there is one single aim: to agree with nature; and this is achieved equally in all of them. When we follow someone's opinion in the senate, it cannot be said that one man agrees more than another - all move toward the same opinion. I say the same of the virtues: all of them agree with nature. I say the same of goods: all of them agree with nature. [42] One man died young, another old, someone else an infant, who got nothing more than a glimpse of life; all of these were equally mortal, even though death allowed some to go on living longer, cut others off in the middle of their bloom, and cut short still others at their very beginnings. [43] One man's life ended in the middle of dinner; another's death followed continuously on sleep; someone was extinguished in the act of love. Set against these men who were run through by the sword, or killed by a serpent's bite, or crushed under a collapsing building, or torn apart bit by bit through a long contraction of the sinews. One man's end can be called better, another's worse - but death itself is the same for all. The paths by which they arrive are different; the point at which they end is one. No death is greater or smaller than another; it has the same measure in everyone: the ending of a life. [44] I say the same to you about goods: this good exists amid pure pleasures, that one amid grim and bitter things; the one was governed by fortune's indulgence, the other tamed fortune's violence - but both are equally good, though the one traveled a level and easy road, the other a rough one. For the end of all of them is the same: they are good, they are praiseworthy, they accompany virtue and reason; virtue makes equal whatever it recognizes as its own.
[45] There is no reason for you to be surprised at this among our own doctrines: even in Epicurus's system there are two goods, out of which that highest and blessed condition is composed - that the body be without pain, the mind without disturbance. These goods do not grow if they are already full; for how can something grow that is already full? The body lacks pain: what can be added to this absence of pain? The mind is self-consistent and at peace: what can be added to this tranquility? [46] Just as the clearness of the sky does not admit any further brightness once it has been cleansed to its purest brilliance, so the condition of a man who tends to both his body and his mind, and binds his good together out of both, is perfect, and finds the sum of his wishes if there is no fever in his mind and no pain in his body. If any further pleasures come along from outside, they do not increase the highest good, but, so to speak, season and delight it; for that complete good of human nature is content with peace of body and mind.
[47] I will show you, from Epicurus's own system, a division of goods very like our own even now. In his view, some things he would prefer to happen to him - such as bodily rest free of all discomfort, and relaxation of mind rejoicing in the contemplation of its own goods; other things he does not wish to happen, yet still praises and approves - such as that endurance, which I mentioned a moment ago, of poor health and the gravest pains, which Epicurus experienced on that final, most fortunate day of his life. For he says that he endured the torments of his bladder and ulcerated stomach, which admitted no further increase of pain, and that the day was nonetheless a happy one for him. But no one can spend a happy day unless he is in possession of the highest good. [48] So even in Epicurus there are these goods, which you would rather not experience, but which, since circumstances turned out that way, must be embraced, praised, and set on a level with the highest goods. It cannot be said that this good, which set the closing seal on a blessed life, and for which Epicurus gave thanks with his very last breath, is not equal to the greatest goods.
[49] Allow me, Lucilius, best of men, to say something rather bold: if any goods could be greater than others, I would have preferred these grim-seeming ones to those soft and delicate ones, and called them the greater. For it is a greater thing to break through hardship than to keep moderation amid joy. [50] It happens, I know, by the same reasoning that one man bears good fortune well and another bears disaster bravely. The man who keeps guard calmly before the rampart with no enemy testing the camp can be just as brave as the man who, his hamstrings cut, drops to his knees and does not let go of his weapons; "well done, and bravely," is what is said to men returning from battle bloodied. And so I would praise these tested and battle-hardened goods more, the ones that have wrestled with fortune. [51] Would I hesitate to praise the maimed, withered hand of Mucius more than the intact hand of any other man, however brave? He stood there, a man scorning his enemies and their flames, and watched his own hand dripping over the enemy's brazier, until Porsenna, envying the glory of the punishment he was favoring, ordered the fire snatched away against Mucius's will. [52] Why should I not count this good among the first-rank goods, and think it that much greater than those safe, untested ones, in the same proportion that it is rarer to defeat an enemy with a hand lost than with a hand still armed? "What, then?" you say, "would you wish this good for yourself?" Why not? For only the man who is able to wish for it is able to do it. [53] Or should I wish instead to hold out my joints to be massaged by pretty boys? To have some little woman, or some man turned woman, gently work my little fingers? Why should I not think Mucius the happier man, because he handled fire as though he were handing that hand over to a masseur? Whatever had gone wrong, he set entirely right: unarmed and maimed, he finished the war, and with that mutilated hand he conquered two kings. Farewell.