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| Lucius Annaeus Seneca On the Shortness of Life IntraText CT - Text |
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| I. The
majority of mortals, Paulinus,1 complain bitterly of the spitefulness
of Nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, because even this
space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so swiftly that all
save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting ready to live. Nor
is it merely the common herd and the unthinking crowd that bemoan what is, as
men deem it, an universal ill; the same feeling has called forth complaint also
from men who were famous. It was this that made the greatest of physicians exclaim
that "life is short, art is long;"2 it was this that led
Aristotle,3 while expostulating with Nature, to enter an indictment
most unbecoming to a wise man—that, in point of age, she has shown such favour
to animals that they drag out five or ten lifetimes,4 but that a much
shorter limit is fixed for man, though he is born for so many and such great
achievements. It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste
much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous
measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of
it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when
it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we
perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So
it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any
lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is
scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth
however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so
our life is amply long for him who orders it properly. |
1 It is clear from chapters 18 and 19 that, when this essay was written (in or about A.D. 49), Paulinus was praefectus annonae, the official who superintended the grain supply of Rome, and was, therefore, a man of importance. He was, believably, a near relative of Seneca's wife, Pompeia Paulina, and is usually identified with the father of a certain Pompeius Paulinus, who held high public posts under Nero (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 143; Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 53. 2; xv. 2 The famous aphorism of Hippocrates of Cos: ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή. 3 An error for Theophrastus, as shown by Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iii. 69: "Theophrastus autem moriens accusasse naturam dicitur, quod cervis et cornicibus vitam diuturnam, quorum id nihil interesset, hominibus, quorum maxime interfuisset, tam exiguam vitam dedisset; quorum si aetas potuisset esse longinquior, futurum fuisse ut omnibus perfectis artibus omni doctrina hominum vita erudiretur." 4 i.e., of man. Cf. Hesiod, Frag. 183 (Rzach): ’Εννέα τοι ζώει γενεὰς λακέρυζα κορώνη ἀνδρῶν γηράντω· ἔλαφος δέ τε τετρακόρωνος. |
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