VI.
“But why does God suffer any evil to befall the good”? Verily, He does not suffer it. He wards off from them all evils, crimes and misdeeds and impure thoughts and avaricious designs and unbridled passions and lust after other men’s property; He watches over and protects them. Will any one in addition to this demand of God that He shall also bear the luggage of good men (as if He were a slave)! They themselves cast this burden upon God; mere externals they make light of. Democritus threw away his riches, thinking them a fardel upon his noble soul. Why do you wonder that God sometimes suffers that to come upon a good man which he himself desires?
2. “Good men sometimes lose their children.” Why not, when they sometimes even put them to death? “They are sent into exile.” Why not, when they sometimes leave their country, voluntarily, never to return? “They are put to death.” Why not, when they sometimes lay violent hands on themselves? “Why do they suffer many hardships?” That they may teach others to suffer patiently; they are born to be examples.
3. Think of God as speaking to them thus: “What right have ye to complain of me, ye who take pleasure in doing right? Other men I have encompassed with seductive pleasures and their torpid souls I have lulled into a long and delusive sleep; gold, silver and ivory I have lavished upon them; yet at heart they are good for nothing. Those men whom you look upon as fortunate, if you regard them, not with respect to what is external but what is concealed, are wretched, unclean, deformed, adorned on the outside after the similitude of their own walls. Their good fortune is not substantial and unalloyed; it is a mere crust and a thin one at that.
4. Accordingly, as long as they are allowed to stand and to show themselves as they wish to appear, they make a brilliant and imposing display; but when something occurs that disarranges their plans and discloses their true character, then it becomes apparent how real and deep their foulness. To you I have given a genuine, an abiding good; the more one turns it about and looks at it from every side, the greater and better it appears. I have given you the strength to contemn what other men fear; to make of little account what others long for. You do not shine because of externals; it is the kingdom within you that is your highest good. Thus does the world disdain what is on the outside because happy in the contemplation of itself; within you have I placed all real good; not to need happiness is your happiness.”
5. “But many sad occurrences take place, things from which we shrink in terror, and which are hard to bear.” “Because I am not able to ward them off from you, I have armed you against all changes of fortune. Endure bravely; in this you may surpass God: He is exempt from suffering, you are superior to it. Contemn poverty; no one lives so poor as he is born. Contemn pain; either it will end or you. Contemn fortune; I have given to it no weapon with which to wound the soul. Contemn death; it either ends your existence or transfers it.
6. Before all things, I took care that no one should keep you here against your will; the way for your departure is open. If you do not want to fight, you can run away. Therefore, with all the restrictions I have placed upon you, I have made nothing easier for you than death. Only look and you will see how short and easy is the way to liberty. I have made the way shorter for those who wish to go out of the world than for those who are entering it; besides, destiny would have had great power over you, if it were as hard for a man to die as to be born.
7. Every moment of time, every place, can teach you how easy it is to quit nature’s service and to return to her her gift. At the very foot of the altar and amid the solemnities of those who are offering sacrifices for the preservation of life, learn to know death. The huge bodies of bulls drop from the effects of a little wound, and beasts of enormous strength are felled by a blow from a human hand; with a little piece of iron the jointures of the vertabrae are severed, and when the ligature that binds the head and neck is cut asunder, the huge mass falls dead to the ground.
8. The breath does not lurk in some secret hiding place, nor must it necessarily be sought out with the sword; there is no need of piercing the vitals with a deep wound; death is close at hand. I have not designated any particular place for the fatal thrust, it may enter anywhere. What is called death, that time in which the spirit leaves the body, is so brief that its fleetness cannot be perceived. Whether it be a noose that strangles you, or water that suffocates you, or a fall upon the hard earth that dashes the life out of you, or fire drawn in with the breath that cuts off its return—whatever it be, its effect is speedy. Are you not ashamed to fear so long what may be done so quickly?”
A few notes have been added to the translation. They bear chiefly on obscure allusions in Seneca’s treatise, as the necessary biographical data may be found in almost any encyclopedia. The notes are placed by themselves so as not to interrupt the reader, who may omit them, if he chooses.
I.
2. It was held by some of the Greek philosophers, notably Epicurus, that the universe was built up by a fortuitous concourse of atoms.
4. Some texts have quaeris, you are seeking information.
6. Vernae were slaves born in the household of their masters, sometimes his own children by a female slave. The licentia vernularum was proverbial in Rome. The vernae and vernulae were allowed privileges not accorded to slaves obtained by purchase.
II.
In suum colorem, to its colors. The parties represented in the race-course were distinguished by different colors. The significance of the expression is therefore evident. Another less probable explanation of the passage is that the author has reference to the effect of red wine when mixed with liquids of another color.
3. As the holidays in Rome were very numerous much time was lost by those who spent all of them in idleness.
7. Cato, surnamed Uticensis, is here meant. He was the patron saint of the Roman Stoics.
9. The sentence here translated, “For death,” etc., may also mean, “For it requires less courage to meet death (once) than to seek it a second time.”
III.
6. The wild boar roasted whole was generally placed on the center of the table. Around it were piled fruits, vegetables, etc.
7. Tua felicitas. Sulla called himself Felix, and in the next section we find this epithet applied to him. The atrocities he committed are familiar to every reader of Roman history.
8. The Cornelian law. The Roman Legal Code was greatly modified under the inspiration of Sulla. The statute here referred to, fixed the penalty for homicide and similar crimes. It bore its author’s gentile name.
The familiar story of Regulus was accepted as true by the Romans, and, in fact, by the world generally, until recent times. It is interesting as showing the high estimate placed upon patriotism by the Romans from their point of view. Though narrow it was intense and played a conspicuous part in the growth of the Roman state.
9. Maecenas the well-known Premier of the emperor Augustus was passionately attached to his wife Terentia; but her fidelity was more than suspected, a condition of things that led to many quarrels with her husband.
11. The writer refers here to the disgusting practice of the Romans, who, at their feasts, frequently ate and drank to excess, then produced vomiting in order to be able to begin eating and drinking over again.
12. Vatinius was a worthless fellow who defeated Cato in the contest for the praetorship.
IV.
12. The Romans were wilfully blind as to the climate and soil of Germany. It was a case of “sour grapes.” After vainly endeavoring to conquer its inhabitants, they decided that they were not worth the trouble of conquest.
V.
6. “Whatever it be” etc. The First Cause, about which Seneca is in some doubt, whether it is personal or impersonal, material or immaterial; whether matter exists of necessity or is created. In 4 he uses mundus in a personal sense. He is also inconsistent in his attitude toward suicide; for after assuring us in the strongest language, that it is every man’s duty to endure whatever Providence or Fate or Destiny or Chance sends upon him, he ends by telling him that if the service is too hard he is at perfect liberty to run away from it. Gréard rightly says, “He confuses God with the world, Providence with destiny; he admits and does not admit the immortality of the soul; he proclaims the freedom of the will, and denies it.”
8. 9. Dr. Lodge, (1614) translates the two extracts from Ovid’s Metamorphoses as follows:
“The first which with unwearied steeds I clime,
Is such a iourney that their ceaseless toyle
Can scarcily reach before the morrowes prime;
The next is highest heau’n from whence the soyle
And spacious seas, I see with dreadfull eye
And fearfull heart; the next whereto I hie
Is steep and prone and craues a cunning guide;
And then dothe Thetis shake herselfe for dread,
Lest headlong I should fall and downward glide,
And burie in her waues my golden head.”
“And that thou mayst continue in the way,
Be carefull lest thy posting steeds doe stray;
Yet shalt thou pass by Taurus, who will bend
His hornes to cross thee, whither thou dost tend;
Th’ Aemonian Archer and the Lion fell
Shall stay thy course and fright thee where they dwell.”
See also the classical dictionary under Phaethon.
VI.
6. An inclined plane down which an object may be easily started to roll.
8. The final sentence more literally translated would read, Are you not ashamed? what is so quickly done you fear so long?