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.But unless souls were indeed immortal, men’s souls would not strive for undying fame in proportion to their transcending merit.What? Since men of the highest wisdom die with perfect calmness, those who are the most foolish with extreme disquiet, can you doubt that the soul which sees more and farther perceives that it is going to a better state, while the soul of obtuser vision has no view beyond death? For my part, I am transported with desire to see your fathers whom I revered and loved; nor yet do I long to meet those only whom I have known, but also those of whom I have heard and read, and about whom I myself have written.Therefore one could not easily turn me back on my lifeway, nor would I willingly, like Pelias, be plunged in the rejuvenating caldron.Indeed, were any god to grant that from my present age I might go back to boyhood, or become a crying child in the cradle, I should steadfastly refuse; nor would I be willing, as from a finished race, to be summoned back from the goal to the starting-point.For what advantage is there in life? Or rather, what is there of arduous toil that is wanting to it? But grant all that you may in its favor, it still certainly has either its excess or its fit measure of duration.I am not, indeed, inclined to speak ill of life, as many and even wise men have often done, nor am I sorry to have lived; for I have so lived that I do not think that I was born to no purpose.Yet I depart from life, as from an inn, not as from a home; for nature has given us here a lodging for a sojourn, not a place of habitation.O glorious day, when I shall go to that divine company and assembly of souls, and when I shall depart from this crowd and tumult! I shall go, not only to the men of whom I have already spoken, but also to my Cato, than whom no better man was ever born, nor one who surpassed him in filial piety, whose funeral pile I lighted, — the office which he should have performed for me, — but whose soul, not leaving me, but looking back upon me, has certainly gone into those regions whither he saw that I should come to him.This my calamity I seemed to bear bravely.Not that I endured it with an untroubled mind; but I was consoled by the thought that there would be between us no long parting of the way and divided life.For these reasons, Scipio, as you have said that you and Laelius have observed with wonder, old age sits lightly upon me.Not only is it not burdensome; it is even pleasant.But if I err in believing that the souls of men are immortal, I am glad thus to err, nor am I willing that this error in which I delight shall be wrested from me so long as I live; while if in death, as some paltry philosophers think, I shall have no consciousness, the dead philosophers cannot ridicule this delusion of mine.But if we are not going to be immortal, it is yet desirable for man to cease living in his due time; for nature has its measure, as of all other things, so of life.Old age is the closing act of life, as of a drama, and we ought in this to avoid utter weariness, especially if the act has been prolonged beyond its due length.— I had these things to say about old age, which I earnestly hope that you may reach, so that you can verify by experience what you have heard from me.Table of ContentsCoverINTRODUCTION.CICERO DE SENECTUTE [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.But unless souls were indeed immortal, men’s souls would not strive for undying fame in proportion to their transcending merit.What? Since men of the highest wisdom die with perfect calmness, those who are the most foolish with extreme disquiet, can you doubt that the soul which sees more and farther perceives that it is going to a better state, while the soul of obtuser vision has no view beyond death? For my part, I am transported with desire to see your fathers whom I revered and loved; nor yet do I long to meet those only whom I have known, but also those of whom I have heard and read, and about whom I myself have written.Therefore one could not easily turn me back on my lifeway, nor would I willingly, like Pelias, be plunged in the rejuvenating caldron.Indeed, were any god to grant that from my present age I might go back to boyhood, or become a crying child in the cradle, I should steadfastly refuse; nor would I be willing, as from a finished race, to be summoned back from the goal to the starting-point.For what advantage is there in life? Or rather, what is there of arduous toil that is wanting to it? But grant all that you may in its favor, it still certainly has either its excess or its fit measure of duration.I am not, indeed, inclined to speak ill of life, as many and even wise men have often done, nor am I sorry to have lived; for I have so lived that I do not think that I was born to no purpose.Yet I depart from life, as from an inn, not as from a home; for nature has given us here a lodging for a sojourn, not a place of habitation.O glorious day, when I shall go to that divine company and assembly of souls, and when I shall depart from this crowd and tumult! I shall go, not only to the men of whom I have already spoken, but also to my Cato, than whom no better man was ever born, nor one who surpassed him in filial piety, whose funeral pile I lighted, — the office which he should have performed for me, — but whose soul, not leaving me, but looking back upon me, has certainly gone into those regions whither he saw that I should come to him.This my calamity I seemed to bear bravely.Not that I endured it with an untroubled mind; but I was consoled by the thought that there would be between us no long parting of the way and divided life.For these reasons, Scipio, as you have said that you and Laelius have observed with wonder, old age sits lightly upon me.Not only is it not burdensome; it is even pleasant.But if I err in believing that the souls of men are immortal, I am glad thus to err, nor am I willing that this error in which I delight shall be wrested from me so long as I live; while if in death, as some paltry philosophers think, I shall have no consciousness, the dead philosophers cannot ridicule this delusion of mine.But if we are not going to be immortal, it is yet desirable for man to cease living in his due time; for nature has its measure, as of all other things, so of life.Old age is the closing act of life, as of a drama, and we ought in this to avoid utter weariness, especially if the act has been prolonged beyond its due length.— I had these things to say about old age, which I earnestly hope that you may reach, so that you can verify by experience what you have heard from me.Table of ContentsCoverINTRODUCTION.CICERO DE SENECTUTE [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]