Letter 45
You complain that in your part of the world there is a scant supply
of books. But it is quality, rather than quantity, that matters;
a limited list of reading benefits; a varied assortment serves only for
delight. He who would arrive at the appointed end must follow a single
road and not wander through many ways. What you suggest is not travelling;
it is mere tramping. "But," you say, "I should rather have you give me
advice than books." Still, I am ready to send you all the books I have,
to ransack the whole storehouse. If it were possible, I should join
you there
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EPISITLE XLV. myself; and were it not for the hope that you will soon
complete your term of offic
e, I should have imposed upon myself this old man's journey; no Scylla
or Charybdis or their storied straits could have frightened me away.
I should not only have crossed over, but should have been willing to swim
over those waters, provided that I could greet you and judge in your presence
how much you had grown in spirit.
Your desire, however, that I should dispatch
to you my own writings does not make me think myself learned, any more
than a request for my picture would flatter my beauty. I know that
it is due to your charity rather than to your judgment. And even
if it is the result of judgment, it was charity that forced the judgment
upon you. But whatever the quality of my works may be, read them
as if I were still seeking, and were not aware of, the truth, and were
seeking it obstinately, too. For I have sold myself to no man; I bear the
name of no master. I give much credit to the judgment of great men;
but I claim something also for my own. For these men, too, have left
to us, not positive discoveries, but problems whose solution is still to
be sought. They might perhaps have discovered the essentials, had
they not sought the superfluous also. They lost much time in quibbling
about words and in sophistical argumentation; all that sort of thing exercises
the wit to no purpose. We tie knots and bind up words in double meanings,
and then try to untie them.
Have we leisure enough for this? Do
we already know how to live, or die? We should rather proceed with
our whole souls towards the point where it is our duty to take heed lest
things, as well as words, deceive us. Why, pray, do you discriminate
between
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similar words, when nobody is ever deceived by them except during the
discussion? It is things that lead us astray: it is between things
that you must discriminate. We embrace evil instead of good; we pray
for something opposite to that which we have prayed for in the past.
Our prayers clash with our prayers, our plans with our plans. How
closely flattery resembles friendship! It not only apes
friendship , but outdoes it, passing it in the race; with wide-open
and indulgent ears it is welcomed and sinks to the depths of the heart,
and it is pleasing precisely wherein it does harm. Show me how I may be
able to see through this resemblance! An enemy comes to me full of
compliments, in the guise of a friend. Vices creep into our hearts
under the name of virtues, rashness lurks beneath the appellation of
bravery , moderation is called sluggishness, and the
coward is regarded as prudent; there is great danger if we go astray
in these matters. So stamp them with special labels.
Then, too, the man who is asked whether he
has horns on his head is not such a fool as to feel for them on his forehead,
nor again so silly or dense that you can persuade him by means of argumentation,
no matter how subtle, that he does not know the facts. Such quibbles
are just as harmlessly deceptive as the juggler's cup and dice, in which
it is the very trickery that pleases me. But show me how the trick
is done, and I have lost my interest therein. And I hold the same
opinion about these tricky word-plays; for by what other name can one call
such sophistries? Not to know them does no harm, and mastering them does
no good. At any rate, if you wish to sift doubtful meanings of this
kind, teach us that the happy man is not he whom the crowd
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deems happy, namely, he into whose coffers mighty sums have flowed,
but he whose possessions are all in his soul, who is upright and exalted,
who spurns inconstancy, who sees no man with whom he wishes to change places,
who rates men only at their value as men, who takes Nature for his teacher,
conforming to her laws and living as she commands, whom no violence can
deprive of his possessions, who turns evil into good, is unerring in judgment,
unshaken, unafraid, who may be moved by force but never moved to distraction,
whom Fortune when she hurls at him with all her might the deadliest missile
in her armoury, may graze, though rarely, but never wound. For Fortune's
other missiles, with which she vanquishes mankind in general, rebound from
such a one, like hail which rattles on the roof with no harm to the dweller
therein, and then melts away.
Why do you bore me with that which you yourself call the "liar" fallacy,"
about which so many books bave been written? Come now, suppose that
my whole life is a lie; prove that to be wrong and, if you are sharp enough,
bring that back to the truth. At present it holds things to be essential
of which the greater part is superfluous. And even that which is
not superfluous is of no significance in respect to its power of making
one fortunate and blest. For if a thing be necessary, it does not
follow that it is a good. Else we degrade the meaning of "good,"
if we apply that name to bread and barley-porridge and other commodities
without which we cannot live. The good must in every case be necessary;
but that which is necessary is not in every case a good, since certain
very paltry things are indeed necessary. No one is to such an extent
ignorant of the noble meaning of the word "good," as to debase it to the
level of these humdrum utilities. -------- a e.g. Gellius, xviii.2.10
cum mentior et mentiri me dico, mentior an verum dico?
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Latin / Greek Original
[1] Librorum istic inopiam esse quereris. Non refert quam multos sed quam bonos habeas: lectio certa prodest, varia delectat. Qui quo destinavit pervenire vult unam sequatur viam, non per multas vagetur: non ire istuc sed errare est. [2] 'Vellem' inquis '<non> magis consilium mihi quam libros dares.' Ego vero quoscumque habeo mittere paratus sum et totum horreum excutere; me quoque isto, si possem, transferrem, et nisi mature te finem officii sperarem impetraturum, hanc senilem expeditionem indixissem mihi nec me Charybdis et Scylla et fabulosum istud fretum deterrere potuissent. Tranassem ista, non solum traiecissem, dummodo te complecti possem et praesens aestimare quantum animo crevisses.
[3] Ceterum quod libros meos tibi mitti desideras, non magis ideo me disertum puto quam formonsum putarem si imaginem meam peteres. Indulgentiae scio istud esse, non iudici; et si modo iudici est, indulgentia tibi imposuit. [4] Sed qualescumque sunt, tu illos sic lege tamquam verum quaeram adhuc, non sciam, et contumaciter quaeram. Non enim me cuiquam emancipavi, nullius nomen fero; multum magnorum virorum iudicio credo, aliquid et meo vindico. Nam illi quoque non inventa sed quaerenda nobis reliquerunt, et invenissent forsitan necessaria nisi et supervacua quaesissent. [5] Multum illis temporis verborum cavillatio eripuit, captiosae disputationes quae acumen irritum exercent. Nectimus nodos et ambiguam significationem verbis illigamus ac deinde dissolvimus: tantum nobis vacat? iam vivere, iam mori scimus? Tota illo mente pergendum est ubi provideri debet ne res nos, non verba decipiant. [6] Quid mihi vocum similitudines distinguis, quibus nemo umquam nisi dum disputat captus est? Res fallunt: illas discerne. Pro bonis mala amplectimur; optamus contra id quod optavimus; pugnant vota nostra cum votis, consilia cum consilis. [7] Adulatio quam similis est amicitiae! Non imitatur tantum illam sed vincit et praeterit; apertis ac propitiis auribus recipitur et in praecordia ima descendit, eo ipso gratiosa quo laedit: doce quemadmodum hanc similitudinem possim dinoscere. Venit ad me pro amico blandus inimicus; vitia nobis sub virtutum nomine obrepunt: temeritas sub titulo fortitudinis latet, moderatio vocatur ignavia, pro cauto timidus accipitur. In his magno periculo erramus: his certas notas imprime. [8] Ceterum qui interrogatur an cornua habeat non est tam stultus ut frontem suam temptet, nec rursus tam ineptus aut hebes ut nesciat <nisi> tu illi subtilissima collectione persuaseris. Sic ista sine noxa decipiunt quomodo praestigiatorum acetabula et calculi, in quibus me fallacia ipsa delectat. Effice ut quomodo fiat intellegam: perdidi lusum. Idem de istis captionibus dico - quo enim nomine potius sophismata appellem? -: nec ignoranti nocent nec scientem iuvant.
[9] Si utique vis verborum ambiguitates diducere, hoc nos doce, beatum non eum esse quem vulgus appellat, ad quem pecunia magna confluxit, sed illum cui bonum omne in animo est, erectum et excelsum et mirabilia calcantem, qui neminem videt cum quo se commutatum velit, qui hominem ea sola parte aestimat qua homo est, qui natura magistra utitur, ad illius leges componitur, sic vivit quomodo illa praescripsit; cui bona sua nulla vis excutit, qui mala in bonum vertit, certus iudicii, inconcussus, intrepidus; quem aliqua vis movet, nulla perturbat; quem fortuna, cum quod habuit telum nocentissimum vi maxima intorsit, pungit, non vulnerat, et hoc raro; nam cetera eius tela, quibus genus humanum debellatur, grandinis more dissultant, quae incussa tectis sine ullo habitatoris incommodo crepitat ac solvitur. [10] Quid me detines in eo quem tu ipse pseudomenon appellas, de quo tantum librorum compositum est? Ecce tota mihi vita mentitur: hanc coargue, hanc ad verum, si acutus es, redige. Necessaria iudicat quorum magna pars supervacua est; etiam quae non est supervacua nihil in se momenti habet in hoc, ut possit fortunatum beatumque praestare. Non enim statim bonum est, si quid necessarium est: aut proicimus bonum, si hoc nomen pani et polentae damus et ceteris sine quibus vita non ducitur. [11] Quod bonum est utique necessarium est: quod necessarium est non utique bonum est, quoniam quidem necessaria sunt quaedam eademque vilissima. Nemo usque eo dignitatem boni ignorat ut illud ad haec in diem utilia demittat. [12] Quid ergo? non eo potius curam transferes, ut ostendas omnibus magno temporis impendio quaeri supervacua et multos transisse vitam dum vitae instrumenta conquirunt? Recognosce singulos, considera universos: nullius non vita spectat in crastinum. [13] Quid in hoc sit mali quaeris? Infinitum. Non enim vivunt sed victuri sunt: omnia differunt. Etiamsi attenderemus, tamen nos vita praecurreret; nunc vero cunctantes quasi aliena transcurrit et ultimo die finitur, omni perit.
Sed ne epistulae modum excedam, quae non debet sinistram manum legentis implere, in alium diem hanc litem cum dialecticis differam nimium subtilibus et hoc solum curantibus, non et hoc. Vale.