As a comment on this passage, we may repeat, with Dante (Inf., V, 121-23, tr. by Longfellow):
There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.
At the time of his exile in Corsica, however, Seneca did not hold quite the same opinion of his life on that island, and wrote the Consolatio ad Polybium, full of flattery of Emperor Claudius, mainly to effect his recall.
Petrarch dwells upon the fate of Seneca also in Rer. mem., III, 3, p. 441:
In a certain tragedy (the Octavia) Annaeus Seneca deplores in strong and magnificent lines his return from exile in the island of Corsica, where he had been living in sweet leisure, in most welcome peace of mind, and free to pursue what studies he pleased. He shuddered at the daily increasing ungodliness of Nero, at the envy of the courtiers which enveloped everything, and often sought to escape. But fearing that his riches would prove his undoing and would overwhelm him like the waves of the sea, he surrendered them all. A wise precaution, truly. For it is the part of a wise sailor to hurl his treasures into the tempestuous sea, that he may escape by swimming, even though entirely destitute. And similarly expedient is it for him who fears death at the hands of the enemy to sacrifice calmly the limb by which he is fettered, in order that, though maimed, he may effect his escape. No one, indeed, reproves Seneca for remaining against his will in that hotbed of crimes. He left no stone unturned to escape the crisis which he foresaw. But an unswerving destiny blocked this man too, and at the very moment when success seemed about to crown his efforts. Fate did not permit him to pass, until that inhuman and perjured emperor, who had often sworn to him that he would die sooner than do him an injury, shortened the closing years of his aged teacher, not with an untimely, but with an irreverent and an undeserved death.
[34]. Seneca, Octavia, 89-102 (tr. by E. I. Harris):
Octavia.Ah, sooner could I tame
The savage lion or the tiger fierce,