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On the Shortness of Life - Lucius Annaeus Seneca · Ernest Hemingway Works Collection

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of On the Shortness of Life by Seneca.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. On the Shortness of Life by Seneca,
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  Speaker 1: translated by Aubrey Stewart, Addressed to Paulinus, of the shortness
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  Speaker 1: of life the greater part of mankind, my polenis complains
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  Speaker 1: of the unkindness of nature, because we are born only
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  Speaker 1: for a short space of time, and that this allotted
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  Speaker 1: period of life runs away so swiftly, nay so hurriedly,
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  Speaker 1: that with but few exceptions, men's life comes to an
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  Speaker 1: end just as they are preparing to enjoy it. Nor
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  Speaker 1: is it only the common herd and the ignorant vulgar
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  Speaker 1: who mourn over this universal misfortune, as they consider it
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  Speaker 1: to be. This reflection has wrung complaints even from great men.
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  Speaker 1: Hence comes that well known saying of physicians that art
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  Speaker 1: is long, but life is short. Hence arose that quarrel
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  Speaker 1: so unbefitting a sage which Aristotle picked with nature, because
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  Speaker 1: she had indulged animals with such length of days that
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  Speaker 1: some of them lived for ten or fifteen centuries, while man,
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  Speaker 1: although born for many in such great exploits, had the
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  Speaker 1: term of his existence cut so much shorter. We do
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  Speaker 1: not have a very short time assigned to us, but
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  Speaker 1: we lose a great deal of It is long enough
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  Speaker 1: to carry out the most important projects. We have an
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  Speaker 1: ample portion if we do but arrange the whole of
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  Speaker 1: it aright. But when it all runs to waste through
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  Speaker 1: luxury and carelessness, when it is not devoted to any
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  Speaker 1: good purpose, then at the last we are forced to
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  Speaker 1: feel that it is all over, although we never noticed
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  Speaker 1: how it glided away. Thus it is we do not
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  Speaker 1: receive a short life, but we make it a short one,
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  Speaker 1: and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them.
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  Speaker 1: When great and kinglike riches fall into the hands of
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  Speaker 1: a bad master, they are dispersed straight away. But even
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  Speaker 1: a moderate fortune, when bestowed upon a wise guardian, increases
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  Speaker 1: by use. And in like manner, our life has great
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  Speaker 1: opportunities for one who knows how to dispose of it
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  Speaker 1: to the best advantage. End of chapter one, chapter two
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  Speaker 1: of On the Shortness of Life by Seneca, translated by
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  Speaker 1: Aubrey Stewart. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Why do we complain of nature? She has dealt kindly
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  Speaker 1: with us. Life is long enough if you know how
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  Speaker 1: to use it. One man is possessed by an avarice
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  Speaker 1: which nothing can satisfy. Another by a laborious diligence in
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  Speaker 1: doing what is totally useless. Another is by wine. Another
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  Speaker 1: is benumbed by sloth. One man is exhausted by an
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  Speaker 1: ambition which makes him court the good will of others. Another,
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  Speaker 1: through his eagerness as a merchant, is led to visit
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  Speaker 1: every land and every sea by the hope of gain.
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  Speaker 1: Some are plagued by the love of soldiering, and are
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  Speaker 1: always either endangering other men's lives or in trembling for
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  Speaker 1: their own. Some wear away their lives in that voluntary slavery,
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  Speaker 1: the unrequieted service of great men. Many are occupied either
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  Speaker 1: in laying claim to other men's fortune or in complaining
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  Speaker 1: of their own. A great number have no settled purpose,
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  Speaker 1: and are tossed from one new scheme to another by
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  Speaker 1: a rambling, inconsistent, dissatisfied, fickle habit of mind. Some care
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  Speaker 1: for no objects sufficiently to try to attain it, but
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  Speaker 1: lie lazily, yawning until their fate comes upon them. So
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  Speaker 1: that I cannot doubt the truth of that verse which
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  Speaker 1: the greatest of poets has dressed in the guise of
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  Speaker 1: an oracular response. We live a small part only of
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  Speaker 1: our lives, but all duration is time, not life. Vices
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  Speaker 1: press upon us and surround us on every side, and
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  Speaker 1: do not permit us to regain our feet, or to
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  Speaker 1: raise our eyes and gaze upon truth. But when we
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  Speaker 1: are down, keep us prostrate and chained to low desires.
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  Speaker 1: Men who are in this condition are never allowed to
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  Speaker 1: come to themselves. If ever, by chance they obtain any rest,
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  Speaker 1: they roll to and fro, like the deep sea, which
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  Speaker 1: heaves and tosses after a gale, and they never have
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  Speaker 1: any respite from their lusts. Do you suppose that I
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  Speaker 1: speak of those whose ills are notorious? Nay, look at
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  Speaker 1: those whose prosperity all men run to see. They are
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  Speaker 1: choked by their own good things to How many men
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  Speaker 1: do richest prove a heavy burden. How many men's eloquence
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  Speaker 1: and continual desire to display their own cleverness has cost
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  Speaker 1: them their lives. How many are sallow with constant sensual indulgence.
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  Speaker 1: How many have no freedom left them by the tribe
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  Speaker 1: of clients that surges around them. Look through all these,
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  Speaker 1: from the lowest to the highest. This man calls his
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  Speaker 1: friends to support him. This one is present in court.
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  Speaker 1: This one is the defendant, This one pleads for him,
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  Speaker 1: this one is on the jury. But no one lays
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  Speaker 1: claim to his own self. Everyone wastes his time over
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  Speaker 1: someone else. Investigate those men whose names are in everyone's mouth.
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  Speaker 1: You will find that they bear just the same marks.
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  Speaker 1: A is devoted to B, and B to C. No
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  Speaker 1: one belongs to himself. Moreover, some men are full of
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  Speaker 1: most irrational anger. The complain of the insolence of their
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  Speaker 1: chiefs because they have not granted them an audience when
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  Speaker 1: they wished for it. As if a man had any
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  Speaker 1: right to complain of being so haughtily shut out by another,
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  Speaker 1: when he never has leisure to give his own conscience
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  Speaker 1: a hearing. This chief of yours, whoever he is, though
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  Speaker 1: he may look at you in an offensive manner, still
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  Speaker 1: will some day look at you, open his ears to
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  Speaker 1: your words, and give you a seat by his side.
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  Speaker 1: But you never design to look upon yourself to listen
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  Speaker 1: to your own grievances. You ought not then to claim
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  Speaker 1: these services from another, especially since while you yourself are
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  Speaker 1: doing so, you did not wish for an interview with
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  Speaker 1: another man, but were not able to obtain one with yourself.
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  Speaker 1: End of chapter two, chapter three of On the Shortness
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  Speaker 1: of Life by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Stuart. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Were all the brightest
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  Speaker 1: intellects of all time to employ themselves on this one subject,
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  Speaker 1: they never could sufficiently express their wonder at this blindness
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  Speaker 1: of men's minds. Men will not allow any one to
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  Speaker 1: establish himself upon their estates, and upon the most trifling
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  Speaker 1: dis dispute about the measuring of boundaries, they betake themselves
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  Speaker 1: to stones and cudgels. Yet they allow others to encroach
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  Speaker 1: upon their lives. Nay, they themselves actually lead others in
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  Speaker 1: to take possession of them. You cannot find anyone who
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  Speaker 1: wants to distribute his money, Yet among how many people
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  Speaker 1: does everyone distribute his life. Men covetously guard their property
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  Speaker 1: from waste, but when it comes to waste of time,
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  Speaker 1: they are more prodigal of that of which it would
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  Speaker 1: become them to be sparing. Let us take one of
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  Speaker 1: the elders and say to him. We perceive that you
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  Speaker 1: have arrived at the extreme limits of human life. You
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  Speaker 1: are in your hundredth year or even older. Come now,
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  Speaker 1: reckon upon your whole life in black and white. Tell
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  Speaker 1: us how much of your time has been spent upon
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  Speaker 1: your creditors, How much on your mistress, how much on
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  Speaker 1: your king, how much on your clients, how much in
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  Speaker 1: quarreling with your wife? How much in keeping your slaves
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  Speaker 1: in order? How much in running up and down the
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  Speaker 1: city on business. Add to this the diseases with which
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  Speaker 1: we bring upon us with our own hands, and the
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  Speaker 1: time which has laid idle without any use having been
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  Speaker 1: made of it. You will see that you have not
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  Speaker 1: lived as many years as you count. Look back in
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  Speaker 1: your memory and see how often you have been consistent
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  Speaker 1: in your projects. How many days passed as you intended
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  Speaker 1: them too, when you were at your own disposal. How
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  Speaker 1: often did you not change color and your spirit did
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  Speaker 1: not quail? How much work you have done in so
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  Speaker 1: long a time. How many people have, without your knowledge,
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  Speaker 1: stolen parts of your life from you? How much you
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  Speaker 1: have lost? How large a part has been taken up
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  Speaker 1: by useless grief, foolish gladness, greedy desire or polite conversation.
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  Speaker 1: How little of yourself is left to you. You will
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  Speaker 1: then perceive that you will die prematurely. What, then, is
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  Speaker 1: the reason of this? It is that people live as
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  Speaker 1: though they would live forever. You never remember your human frailty.
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  Speaker 1: You never notice how much of your life has already
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  Speaker 1: gone by. You spend it as though you had an
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  Speaker 1: abundant and overflowing store of it, though all the while
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  Speaker 1: that day which you devote to some man or to
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  Speaker 1: something is perhaps your last. You fear everything like mortals,
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  Speaker 1: as you are, and yet you desire everything as if
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  Speaker 1: you were immortals. You will hear many men say, after
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  Speaker 1: my fiftieth year, I will give myself up to leisure.
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  Speaker 1: My sixtieth shall be my last year of public office.
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  Speaker 1: And what guarantee have you that your life will last
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  Speaker 1: any longer? Who will let all this go on just
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  Speaker 1: as you have arranged it? Are you not ashamed to
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  Speaker 1: reserve only the leavings of your life for yourself and
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  Speaker 1: a point for the enjoyment of your own right? Mind
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  Speaker 1: only that time which you cannot devote to any business.
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  Speaker 1: How late it is to begin life, just when we
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  Speaker 1: have to be leaving it, what a foolish forgetfulness of
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  Speaker 1: our mortality to put off wholesome councils until our fiftieth
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  Speaker 1: or sixtieth year, and to choose that our lives shall
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  Speaker 1: begin at a point which few of us ever reach.
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  Speaker 1: End of chapter three, Chapter four of On the Shortness
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  Speaker 1: of Life by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Stewart. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. You will find that
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  Speaker 1: most powerful and highly placed men let fall phrases in
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  Speaker 1: which they long for leisure, praise it, and prefer it
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  Speaker 1: to all the blessings which they enjoy. Sometimes they would
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  Speaker 1: fain descend from their lofty pedestal if it could be
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  Speaker 1: safely done, for fortune collapses by its own weight, without
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  Speaker 1: any shock or interference from without. The late Emperor Augustus,
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  Speaker 1: upon whom the gods bestowed more blessings than on anyone else,
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  Speaker 1: never ceased to pray for rest, an exemption from the
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  Speaker 1: troubles of empire. He used to enlive in his labors
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  Speaker 1: with this sweet though unreal consolation, that he would some
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  Speaker 1: day live for him self alone. In a letter which
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  Speaker 1: he addressed to the Senate, after promising that his rest
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  Speaker 1: shall not be devoid of dignity nor discreditable to his
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  Speaker 1: former glories. I find the following words these things. However,
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  Speaker 1: it is more honorable to do than to promise. But
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  Speaker 1: my eagerness for that time so earnestly longed for, has
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  Speaker 1: led me to derive a certain pleasure from speaking about it,
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  Speaker 1: though the reality is still far distant. He thought leisure
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  Speaker 1: so important that he could not actually enjoy it. He
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  Speaker 1: did so by anticipation and by thinking about it. He
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  Speaker 1: who saw everything depending upon himself alone, who swayed the
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  Speaker 1: fortunes of men and of nations, thought that his happiest
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  Speaker 1: day would be that on which he laid aside his greatness.
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  Speaker 1: He knew by experience how much labor was involved in
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  Speaker 1: that glory that shone through all lands, and how much
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  Speaker 1: secret anxiety was concealed within it. He had been forced
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  Speaker 1: to assert his rights by war, first with his countrymen,
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  Speaker 1: next with his colleagues, and lastly with his own relations,
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  Speaker 1: and had shed blood both by sea and by land.
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  Speaker 1: After marching his troops under arms through Macedonia, Sicily, Egypt, Syria,
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  Speaker 1: Asia Minor, and almost all the other countries of the world.
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  Speaker 1: When they were weary and slaughtering Romans. He had directed
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  Speaker 1: them against a foreign foe. While he was pacifying the
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  Speaker 1: Alpine regions and subduing the enemies whom he found in
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  Speaker 1: the midst of the Roman Empire, while he was extending
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  Speaker 1: its boundaries beyond the Rhine, the Euphrates, and the Danube.
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  Speaker 1: At Rome itself, the swords of Marenna, Capio, Lepidus, Ignatius,
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  Speaker 1: and others were being sharpened to slay him. Scarcely had
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  Speaker 1: he escaped from their plot. When his already failing age
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  Speaker 1: was terrified by his daughter and all the noble youths
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  Speaker 1: who were pledged to her cause by adultery with her
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  Speaker 1: by way of oath of fidelity. Then there was Paulus
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  Speaker 1: and Antonius's mistress a second time to be feared by Rome.
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  Speaker 1: And when he had cut out these ulcers from his
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  Speaker 1: very limbs, others grew in their place. The empire, like
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  Speaker 1: a body overloaded with blood, was always breaking out somewhere.
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  Speaker 1: For this reason he longed for leisure. All his labors
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  Speaker 1: were based upon hopes and thoughts of leisure. This was
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  Speaker 1: the wish of him, who could accomplish the wishes of
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  Speaker 1: all other men. End of Chapter four, Chapter five of
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  Speaker 1: On the Shortness of Life by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Stewart.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. While tossed
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  Speaker 1: hither and thither by Cataline and Clodius, Pompeius and Crassus,
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  Speaker 1: by some open enemies and some doubtful friends, while he
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  Speaker 1: struggled with the struggling republic and kept it from going
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  Speaker 1: to ruin, when at last he was banished, being neither
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  Speaker 1: able to keep silence and prosperity, nor to endure adversity
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  Speaker 1: with patience. How often must Marcus Cicero have cursed that
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  Speaker 1: consulship of his which she never ceased to praise, and
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  Speaker 1: which nevertheless deserved it. What piteous expressions he uses in
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  Speaker 1: a letter to Atticus, when Pompeius the Father had been
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  Speaker 1: defeated and his son was recruiting his shattered forces in Spain.
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  Speaker 1: Do you ask, writes he, what I am doing here?
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  Speaker 1: I am living in my tusclen villa, almost as a prisoner.
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  Speaker 1: He adds more afterwards, wherein he laments his former life,
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  Speaker 1: complains of the present and despairs of the future. Cicero
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  Speaker 1: called himself half a prisoner, but by Hercules the wise
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  Speaker 1: man never would have come under so lowly a title.
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  Speaker 1: He never would be half a prisoner, but would always
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  Speaker 1: enjoy complete and entire liberty, being free in his own power,
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  Speaker 1: and greater than all others. For what can be greater
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  Speaker 1: than the man who is greater than fortune? And of
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  Speaker 1: Chapter five chapter six of On the Shortness of Life
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  Speaker 1: by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Start. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain. When Livius dresses a vigorous and
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  Speaker 1: energetic man, brought forward bills for new laws and radical
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: measures of the Gracus pattern, being the center of a
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  Speaker 1: vast mob of all the peoples of Italy, and seeing
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  Speaker 1: no way to solve the question, since he was not
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  Speaker 1: allowed to deal with it as he wished, and yet
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  Speaker 1: was not free to throw it up after having once
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  Speaker 1: taken part in it, complained bitterly of his life, which
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  Speaker 1: had been one of the unrest from the very cradle,
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  Speaker 1: and said, we are told that he was the only
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  Speaker 1: person who had never had any holidays, even when he
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  Speaker 1: was a boy. Indeed, while he was still under age
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  Speaker 1: and wearing the protexta, he had the courage to plead
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  Speaker 1: the cause of accused persons in court, and to make
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  Speaker 1: use of his influence so powerfully that it is well
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  Speaker 1: known that in some causes his exertions gained a verdict.
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  Speaker 1: Where would such precocious ambitions stop. You may be sure
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  Speaker 1: that one who showed such boldness as a child would
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  Speaker 1: end by becoming a great pest, both in public and
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  Speaker 1: in private life. It was too late for him to
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  Speaker 1: complain that he had had no holidays, when from his
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  Speaker 1: boyhood he had been a firebrand and a nuisance in
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  Speaker 1: the courts. It is a stock question whether he committed soueide,
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  Speaker 1: for he fell by a sudden wound in the groin,
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  Speaker 1: and some doubted whether his death was caused by his
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  Speaker 1: own hand, though none disputed it having happened most seasonably.
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  Speaker 1: It would be superfluous to mention more who, while others
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  Speaker 1: thought them the happiest of men, have themselves born true
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  Speaker 1: witness to their own feelings, and have loathed all that
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  Speaker 1: they have done for all the years of their lives.
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  Speaker 1: Yet by these complaints they have effected no alteration, either
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  Speaker 1: in others or in themselves. For after these words have
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  Speaker 1: escaped them, their feelings revert to their accustomed frame. By hercules,
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  Speaker 1: that life of you great men. Even though it should
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  Speaker 1: last for more than a thousand years, is still a
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  Speaker 1: very short one. Those vices of yours would swallow up
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  Speaker 1: any extent of time. No wonder if this our ordinary span,
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  Speaker 1: which though nature hurries on, can be enlarged by common sense,
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  Speaker 1: soon slips away from you. For you do not lay
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  Speaker 1: hold of it, or hold it back, and try to
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  Speaker 1: delay the swiftest of all things. But you let it pass,
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  Speaker 1: as though I were a useless thing, and you could
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  Speaker 1: supply its place. End of chapter six, Chapter seven of
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  Speaker 1: On the Shortness of Life by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Stewart.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Among these
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  Speaker 1: I reckon in the first place those who devote their
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  Speaker 1: time to nothing but drinking and debauchery. For no men
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  Speaker 1: are busied more shamefully the others. Although the glory which
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  Speaker 1: they pursue is but a counterfeit, still deserves some credit
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  Speaker 1: for their pursuit of it. Though you may tell me
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  Speaker 1: of misers of passionate men, of men who hate, and
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  Speaker 1: who even wage war without a cause. Yet all such
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  Speaker 1: men sin like men. But the sin of those who
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  Speaker 1: are given up to gluttony and lust is a disgraceful one.
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  Speaker 1: Examine all the hours of their lives. Consider how much
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  Speaker 1: time they spend in calculation, how much in plotting, how
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  Speaker 1: much in fear, how much in giving and deceiving flattery,
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  Speaker 1: how much in entering into recognisances for themselves or for others,
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  Speaker 1: how much in banquets, which indeed become a serious business.
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  Speaker 1: You will see that they are not allowed any breathing time,
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  Speaker 1: either by their pleasures or their pains. Finally, all are
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  Speaker 1: agreed that nothing, neither eloquence nor literature, can be done
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  Speaker 1: properly by one who is occupied with something else. For
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  Speaker 1: nothing can take deep root in a mind which is
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  Speaker 1: directed to some other subject, and which rejects whatever you
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  Speaker 1: try to stuff into it. No man knows less about
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  Speaker 1: living than a business man. There is nothing about which
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  Speaker 1: it is more difficult to gain knowledge. Other arts have
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  Speaker 1: many folk everywhere who profer to teach them. Some of
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  Speaker 1: them can be so thoroughly learned by mere boys that
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  Speaker 1: they are able to teach them to others. But one's
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  Speaker 1: whole life must be spent in learning how to live,
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  Speaker 1: and which may perhaps surprise you more, one's whole life
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  Speaker 1: must be spent in learning how to die. Many excellent
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  Speaker 1: men have freed themselves from all hindrances, have given up riches,
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  Speaker 1: business and pleasure, and have made it their duty to
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  Speaker 1: the very end of their lives to learn how to live.
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  Speaker 1: And yet the larger portion of them leave this life
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  Speaker 1: confessing that they do not yet know how to live,
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  Speaker 1: and still less know how to live. As wise men
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: believe me, it requires a great man, and one who
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: is superior to human frailties, not to allow any of
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: his time to be filched from him. And therefore it
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: follows that this life is a very long one. Because
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: he devotes every possible part of it to himself. No
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: portion lies idle or uncultivated, or in another man's power,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: for he finds nothing worthy of being exchanged for his time,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: which he husbands most grudgingly. He therefore had time enough,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: whereas those who give up a great part of their
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: lives to the people of necessity had not enough. Yet
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: you need not suppose that the latter were not sometimes
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: conscious of their loss. Indeed, you will hear most of
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: those who are troubled with great prosperity every now and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: then cry out amid their hosts of clients, their pleadings
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: in court, and their other honorable troubles. I am not
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: allowed to live my own life? Why is he not allowed?
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Because all those who call upon you to defend them
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: take you away from yourself. How many of your days
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: have been spent by that defendant, by that candidate for office,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: by that old woman who is weary with burying her airs,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: By that man who pretends to be ill in order
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: to excite the greed of those who hope to inherit
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: his property. By that powerful friend of yours who uses
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: you to swell his train, not to be his friend.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Balance your account, and run over all the days of
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: your life. You see that only a very few days,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: and only those which were useless for any other purpose,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: have been left to you. He who has obtained the
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: facies for which he longed is eager to get rid
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: of them, and is constantly saying, when will this year
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: be over? Another exhibits public games, and once would have
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: given a great deal for the chance of doing so,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: But now when says he shall I escape from this?
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Another is an advocate who is fought for in all
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the courts, and who draws immense audiences, who crowd all
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the forum to a far greater distance than they can
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: hear him when says he will vacation time come. Every
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: man hurries through his life and suffers from a yearning
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: for the future and a weariness of the present. But
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: he who disposes of all his time for his own purposes,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: who arranges all his days as though he were arranging
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the plan of his life, neither wishes nor fears the morrow.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: For what new pleasure can any hour now bestow upon him.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: He knows it all, and has indulged in it all,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: even to satiety. Fortune may deal with the rest as
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: she will, but his life is already safe from her.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Such a man may gain something, but cannot lose anything.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And indeed he can only gain anything in the same
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: way as one who is already glutted and filled can
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: get some extra food, which he takes although he does
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: not want it. You have no grounds therefore, for supposing
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: that any one has lived long because he has wrinkles
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: or a gray hair. Such a man has not lived long,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: but has only been long alive. Why would you think
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: that a man had voyaged much if a fierce gale
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: had caught him as soon as he left his port,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: and he had been driven round and round the same
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: place continually by a succession of winds blowing from opposite quarters.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Such a man has not traveled much. He has only
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: been much tossed about. End of chapter seven, Chapter eight
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: of On the Shortness of Life by Seneca, translated by
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Aubrey Stewart. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I am filled with wonder when I see some men
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: asking others for their time, and those who are asked
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: most willing to give it. Both parties consider the object
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: for which the time is given, but neither of them
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: thinks of the time itself, as though in asking for
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: this one asked for nothing, and in giving it one
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: gave nothing. We play with what is the most precious
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: of all things. Yet it escapes men's notice because it
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: is an incorporeal thing, and because it does not come
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: before our eyes, and and therefore it is held very cheap,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: nay hardly any value whatever is put upon it. Men
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: set the greatest store upon presence or pensions, and hire
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: out their work, their services, or their care in order
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: to gain them. No one values time. They give it
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: much more freely, as though it costs nothing. Yet you
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: will see these same people clasping the knees of their
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: physician as suppliance when they are sick and in present
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: peril of death, and if threatened with a capital charge,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: willing to give all that they possess in order that
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: they may live. So inconsistent are they. Indeed, if the
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: number of every man's future years could be laid before him,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: as we can lay that of his past years, how
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: anxious those who found that they had but few years
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: remaining would be to make the most of them. Yet
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: it is easy to arrange the distribution of a quantity,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: however small. If we know how much there is where
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: you ought to husband most carefully, is that which may
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: run short? You know not when? Yet you have no
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: reason to suppose that they do not know how dear
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: a thing time is. They are wont to say to
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: those who they especially love that they are ready to
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: give them a part of their own years. They do
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: give them, and know not that they are giving them.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: But they give them in such a manner that they
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: themselves lose them without the others gaining them. They do, not, however,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: know whence they obtain their supply, and therefore they are
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: able to endure the waste of what is not seen. Yet,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: no one will give you back your years, no one
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: will restore them to you again. Your life will run
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: its course when once it has begun, and will neither
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: begin again or efface what it has done. It will
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: make no disturbance. It will give you no warning of
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: how fast it flies. It will move silently on. It
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: will not prolong itself at the command of a king
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: or at the wish of a nation, as it started
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: on its first day. So it will run. It will
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: never turn aside, never delay what follows. Then, why you
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: are busy, but life is hurrying on. Death will be
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: here some time or other, and you must attend to him,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: whether you will or not. End of chapter eight Chapter
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: nine of On the Shortness of Life by Seneca, translated
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: by Aubrey Stewart. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Can anything be mentioned which is more insane than the
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: ideas of leisure of those people who boast of their
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: worldly wisdom. They live laboriously in order that they may
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: live better. They fit themselves out for life at the
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: expense of life itself, and cast their thoughts a long
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: way forward. Yet postponement is the greatest waste of life.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: It rings day after day from us and takes away
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: the present by promising something hereafter. There is no such
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: obstacle to true living as waiting, which loses to day,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: while it is depending on the morrow. You dispose of
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: that which is in the hand of fortune, And do
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: you let go that which is in your own? Whither
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: are you looking? Whither are you stretching forward? Everything future
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: is uncertain? Live now straightway. See how the greatest of
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: bards cries to you and sings in wholesome verse, as
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: though inspired with celestial fire. The best of wretched mortals
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: days is that which is the first to fly. Why
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: do you hesitate? Says he? Why do you stand back?
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Unless you seize it, it will have fled, And even
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: if you do sees it, it will still fly. Our
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: swiftness in making use of our time ought therefore to
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: be with the swiftness of time itself, and we ought
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: to drink of it as we should, of a fast
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: running torrent, which will not be always running. The poet, too,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: admirably satirizes our boundless thoughts when he says, not the
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: first age, but the first day? Why are you careless
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: and slow? While time is flying so fast? And why
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: do you spread out before yourself a vision of long
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: months and years, as many as your greediness requires. He
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: talks with you about one day in that a fast
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: fleeting one. There can then be no doubt that the
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: best days are those which fly first. For wretched, that is,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: for busy mortals, whose minds are still in their childhood.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: When old age comes upon them, and they reach it
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: unprepared and without arms to combat it, they have never
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: looked forward. They have all of a sudden stumbled upon
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: old age. They never noticed that it was stealing upon
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: them day by day as conversation or reading or deep
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: thought deceives travelers, and they find themselves at their journey's
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: end before they knew that it was drawing near. So
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: in this fast and never ceasing journey of life, which
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: we make at the same pace, whether we are asleep
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: or awake, busy people never notice that they are moving
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: till they are at the end of it. End of
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: chapter nine, chapter ten of On the Shortness of Life
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Stuart. This LibriVox recording is
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. If I chose to divide this
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: proposition into separate steps supported by evidence. Many things occur
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: to me by which I could prove that the lives
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: of busy men are the shortest of all. Fabienus, who
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: was none of your lecture room philosophers, but one of
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: the true antique pattern used to say, we ought to
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: fight against the passions by main force, not by skirmishing,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: and upset their line of battle by a home charge,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: not by inflicting trifling wounds. I do not prove of
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: dallying with sophisms. They must be crushed, not merely scratched. Yet,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: in order that sinners may be confronted with their errors,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: they must be taught and not merely mourned. For life
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: is divided into three parts, that which has been, that
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: which is, and that which is to come. Of these
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: three stages, that which we are passing through is brief,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: that which we are about to pass is uncertain, and
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: that which we have passed is certain. This it is
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: over which fortune has lost her rights, and which can
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: fall into no other man's power. And this is what
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: busy men lose. For they have no leisure to look
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: back upon the past, and even if they had, they
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: take no pleasure in remembering what they regret. They are
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: therefore unwilling to turn their minds to the contemplation of
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: ill spent time, and they shrink from reviewing a course
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: of action whose faults become glaringly apparent when handled a
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: second time, although they were snatched at when we were
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: under the spell of immediate gratification. No one, unless all
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: his acts have been submitted to the infallible censorship of
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: his own conscience, willingly turns his thoughts back upon the past.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: He who has ambitiously desired, haughtily scorned, passionately vanquished, treacherously deceived,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: greedily snatched, or prodigally wasted much must need fear his
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: own memory. Yet this is a holy and consecrated part
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: of our time, beyond the reach of all human accidents,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: removed from the dominion of fortune, and which cannot be
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: disquieted by want, fear, or attacks of sickness. This can
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: neither be troubled nor taken away from one. We possess
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: it forever undisturbed. Our present consists only of single days,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: and those two taken one hour at a time. But
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: all the days of past times appear before us when bidden,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: and allow themselves to be examined and lingered over, albeit
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: busy men cannot find time for so doing. It is
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: the privilege of a tranquil and peaceful mind to review
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: all the parts of its life. But the minds of
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: busy men are like animals under the yoke, and can
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: not bend aside or look back. Consequently, their life passes
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: away into vacancy. And as you do no good, however
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: much you may pour into a vessel which cannot keep
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: or hold what you put there. So also it matters
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: not how much time you give men, if it can
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: find no place to settle in, but leaks away through
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: the chinks and holes of their minds. Present time is
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: very short, so much so that to some it seems
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: to be no time at all, for it is always
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: in motion and runs swiftly away. It ceases to exist
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: before it comes, and no more brook delay than can
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: the universe or the host of heaven, whose unresting movement
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: never lets them pause on their way. Busy men therefore
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: possess present time alone, that being so short that they
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: cannot grasp it, And when they are occupied with many things,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: they lose even this. End of chapter ten eleven of
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: On the Shortness of Life by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Stuart.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. In a word,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: do you want to know for how short a time
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: they live? See how they desire to live? Long? Broken
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: down old men beg in their prayers for the addition
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: of a few more years. They pretend to be younger
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: than they are. They delude themselves with their own lies,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: and are as willing to cheat themselves as if they
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: could cheat fate. At the same time, when at last
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: some weakness reminds them that they are mortal, they die
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: as if it were in terror. They may rather be
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: said to be dragged out of this life than to
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: depart from it. They loudly exclaim that they have been
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: fools and have not lived their lives, and declare that
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: if they only survive this sickness, they will spend the
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: rest of their lives at leisure. At such times they
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: reflect how uselessly they have labored to provide themselves with
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: what they have never enjoyed, and how all their toil
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: has gone for nothing. But those whose life is spent
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: without any engrossing business may well find it ample. No
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: part of it is made over to others, or scattered
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: here and there. No part is entrusted to fortune, is
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: lost by neglect, is spent in ostentatious giving, or is useless.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: All of it is, so to speak, invested at good interest.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: A very small amount of it therefore is abundantly sufficient.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: And so when this last day arrives, the wise man
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: will not hang back, but will walk with a steady
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: step to meet death. End of chapter eleven, Chapter twelve
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: of On the Shortness of Life by Seneca, translated by
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Aubrey Stewart. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Perhaps you will ask me whom I mean by busy men.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: You need not think that I allude only to those
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: who are hunted out of the courts of justice with
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: dogs at the close of the proceedings, those whom you
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: seeing either honorably jostled by a crowd of their own clients,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: or contemptuously hustled in visits of ceremony by strangers who
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: call them away from home to hang about their patron's doors,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: or who make use of their predder sales by auction
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: to acquire infamous gains which someday will prove their own
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: ruin Some men's leisure is busy in their country house
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: or on their couch, in complete solitude. Even though they
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: have retired from all men's society, they still continue to
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: worry themselves. We ought not to say that such men's
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: life is one of leisure, but their very business is sloth.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Would you call a man idle who expends anxious, finicking
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: care in the arrangement of his Corinthian bronzes, valuable only
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: through the mania of a few connoisseurs, and who passes
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: the greater part of his days among plates of rusty metal,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Who sits in the palestra Shame that our very vices
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: should be foreign watching boys wrestling? Who distributes his gangs
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: of fettered slaves into pairs according to their age and color?
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Who keeps athletes of the latest fashion? Why do you
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: call those men idle who pass many hours at the
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: barber while the growth of the past night is being
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: plucked out by the roots, holding councils over each several hair,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: while the scattered locks are arranged in order, and those
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: which fall back are forced forward on to the forehead.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: How angry they become if the shaver is a little careless,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: as though he were shearing a man. What a white
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: heat they work themselves into. If some of their mane
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: is cut away, if some part of it is ill arranged,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: if all their ringlets do not lie in regular order.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: Who of them would not rather that the state were
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: overthrown than that his hair should be ruffled? Who does
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: not care more for the appearance of his head than
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: for his health? Who would not prefer ornament to honor?
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: Do you call these men idle who make a business
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: of the comb and looking glass? What of those who
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: devote their lives to composing, hearing and learning songs? Who
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: twist their voices intended by nature to sound best and
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: simplest whenknew straightforwardly through all the turns, a futile melodies,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: whose fingers are always beating time to some music on
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: which they are inwardly meditating, Who, when invited to serious
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: and even sad business, may be heard humming in air
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: to themselves. Such people are not at leisure, but are
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: busy about trifles. As for their banquets by hercules, I
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: cannot reckon them among their unoccupied times, when I see
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: with what anxious care they set out their plate, how
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: laboriously they arrange the girdles of their waiters tunics, How
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: breathlessly they watch to see how the cook dishes up
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: the wild boar, with what speed when the signal is
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: given the slave boys run to perform their duties. How
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: skillfully birds are carved into pieces of the rites eyes,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: how painstakingly wretched youths wipe up the spittings of drunken men.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: By these means, men seek credit for taste and grandeur,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: and their vices follow them so far into their privacy
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: that they can neither eat nor drink without a view
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: to effect. Nor should I count those men idle who
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: have themselves carried hither and thither in sedans and litters,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: and who look forward to their regular hour for taking
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: this exercise as though they were not allowed to omit it.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: Men who are reminded by some one else when to bathe,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: when to swim, when to dine, They actually reach such
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: a pitch of languid effeminacy as not to be able
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: to find out for themselves whether they are hungry. I
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: have heard one of these luxurious folk, if in deed
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: we ought to give the name of luxury to unlearning
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: the life and habits of a man when he was
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: carried in men's arms out of the bath and placed
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: in his chair. Say, inquiringly, am I seated? Do you
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: suppose that such a man as this, who did not
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: know when he was seated, could know whether he was alive,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: whether he could see whether he was at leisure? I
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: can hardly say whether I pity him more if he
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: really did not know, or if he pretended not to
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: know this. Such people do really become unconscious of much,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: but they behave as though they were unconscious of much more.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: They delight in some failings because they consider them to
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: be proofs of happiness. It seems the part of an
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: utterly low and contemptible man to know what he is
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: doing after this? Do you suppose that play rights draw
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: largely upon their imaginations in their burlesques upon luxury? By hercules,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: they omit more than they invent in this age inventive
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: in this alone, such a number of incredible vices have
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: been produced that already you are able to reproach the
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: play rights with omitting to notice them. To think that
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: there should be any one who had so far lost
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: his senses through luxury as to take some one else's
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: opinion as to whether he was sitting or not. This
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: man certainly is not at leisure. You must bestow a
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: different title on him. He is sick or rather dead.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: He only is at leisure. Who feels that he is
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: at leisure? But this creature is only half alive if
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: he wants someone to tell him what position his body
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: is in, how can such a man be able to
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: dispose of any time? End of chapter twelve, Chapter thirteen
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: of On the Shortness of Life by Seneca, translated by
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Aubrey Stewart. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: It would take long to describe the various individuals who
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: have wasted their lives over playing at drafts, playing at ball,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: or toasting their bodies in the sun. Men are not
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: at leisure if their pleasures partake of the character of business.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: For no one will doubt that those persons are laborious triflers,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: who devote themselves to the study a futile literary questions,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: of whom there is already a great number in Rome. Also,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: it used to be a peculiarly Greek disease of the
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: mind to investigate how many rowers Ulysses had, whether the
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Iliad or the Odyssey was written first, and furthermore, whether
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: they were written by the same author with other matters
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: of the same stamp, which neither please your inner consciousness
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: if you keep them to yourself, nor make you seem
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: more learned, but only more troublesome if you publish them abroad.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: See already this vain longing to learn what is useless
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: has taken hold of the Romans. The other day I
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: heard somebody telling who was the first Roman general who
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: did this? Or that Dulius was the first who won
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: a sea fight. Curious d Tatus was the first who
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: drove elephants in his triumph. Moreover, these stories, though they
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: add nothing to real glory, do nevertheless deal with the
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: great deeds of our countrymen. Such knowledge is not profitable,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: yet it claims our attention as a fascinating kind of folly.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: I will even pardon those who want to know who
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: first persuaded the Romans to go on board ship. It
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: was Claudius, who, for this reason was surnamed Kotax, because
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: any piece of carpentry formed of many planks was called
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: kotex by the ancient Romans, for which reason public records
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: are called codices, and by old custom the ships which
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: ply on the Tiber with provisions are called codicarie. Let
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: us also allow that it is to the point to
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: tell how Valerius Corvinus was the first to conquer Messana,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: and first of the family of the Valeri, transferred the
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: name of the captured city to his own, and was
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: called Messana, and how the people gradually corrupted the pronunciation
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: and called him massalah. Or would you let anyone find
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: interest in Lucius Sulla having been the first to let
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: lions loose in the circus, they having been previously exhibited
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: in chains and hurlers of darts, having been sent by
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: King Bacchus to kill them. This may be permitted to
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: their curiosity, But can it serve any useful purpose to
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: know that Pompeius was the first to exhibit eighteen elephants
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: in the circus, who are matched in a mimic bay
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: with some convicts. The leading man in the state, and
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: one who, according to tradition, was noted among the ancient
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: leaders of the state for his transcendent goodness of heart,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: thought it a notable kind of show to kill men
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: in a manner hitherto unheard of? Do they fight to
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: the death. That is not cruel enough. Are they torn
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: to pieces? That is not cruel enough. Let them be
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: crushed flat by animals of enormous bulk. It would be
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: much better that such a thing should be forgotten, for
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: fear that hereafter some potentate might hear of it and
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: envy its refined barbarity. Oh, how doth excessive prosperity belind
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: our intellects at the moment at which he was casting
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: so many troops of wretches to be trampled on by
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: outlandish beasts, when he was proclaiming war between such different creatures,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: when he was shedding so much blood before the eyes
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: of the Roman people, whose blood he himself was soon
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: to shed even more freely, he thought himself the master
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: of the whole world. Yet he, afterwards, deceived by the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: treachery of the Alexandrians, had to offer himself to the
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: dagger of the vilest of slaves, and then at last
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: discovered what an empty boast was his surname of the Great.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: But to return to the point from which I have digressed,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: I will prove that even on this very subject some
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: people expended useless pains. The same author tells us that Medalus,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: when he triumphed after having conquered the Carthaginians in Sicily,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: was the only Roman who ever had one hundred and
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: twenty captured elephants led before his car And that Sullah
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: was the last Roman who extended the Pomarium, which it
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: was not the custom of the ancients to extend on
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: account of the conquest of provincial but only of Italian territory.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: It is more useful to know this than to know
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: that the Mount Aventine, according to him, is outside of
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: the Pomerium, for one of two reasons, either because it
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: was thither that the Plebeian seceded, or because when Ramus
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: took his auspices on that place, the birds which she
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: saw were not propitious. And other stories without number of
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: the like sort, which are either actual falsehoods or much
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: the same as falsehoods. For even if you allow that
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: these authors speak in all good faith, if they pledge
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: themselves for the truth of what they write, still whose
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: mistakes will be made fewer by such stories, whose passions
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: will be restrained? Whom will he make more brave, more just,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: or more gentlemanly. My friend Fabinius used to say that
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: he was not sure that it was not better not
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: to apply oneself to any studies at all than to
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: become interested in these. End of chapter thirteen, Chapter fourteen
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: of On the Shortness of Life by Seneca, translated by
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Aubrey Stuart. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: The only persons who are really at leisure are those
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: who devote themselves to philosophy, and they alone really live.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: For they do not merely enjoy their own lifetime, but
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: they annex every century to their own. All the years
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: which have passed before them belong to them. Unless we
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: are the most ungrateful creatures in the world, we shall
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: regard these noblest of men, the founders of divine schools
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: of thought, as having been born for us, and having
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: prepared life for us. We are led by the labor
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: of others to behold most beautiful things which have been
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: brought out of the darkness into light. We are not
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: shut out from any period. We can make our way
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: into every subject, And if only we can summon up
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: sufficient strength of mind to overstep the narrow limit of
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: human weakness, we have a vast extent of time, wherein
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: to disport ourselves we may argue with Socrates, doubt with carneitis,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: repose with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the stoics, out
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: heraudic with the cynics. Since nature allows us to commune
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: with every age, why do we not abstract ourselves from
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: our own petty, fleeting span of time and give ourselves
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: up with our whole mind to what is bad? Asked?
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: What is eternal? What we share with better men than ourselves?
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: Those who gad about in a round of calls, who
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: worry themselves and others, after they have indulged their madness
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: to the full and crossed every patron's threshold daily, leaving
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: no open door unentered, after they have hawked about their
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: interested greetings and houses of the most various character. After all,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: how few people are they able to see out of
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: so vast a city, divided among so many different ruling passions.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: How many will be moved by sloth, self, indulgence, or
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: rudeness to deny them admittance. How many, after they have
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: long plagued them, will run past them with feigned hurry.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: How many will avoid coming out through their entrance hall
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: with its crowds of clients, and will escape by some
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: concealed back door, as though it were not ruder to
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: deceive their visitor and to deny him admittance. How many,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: half asleep and stupid with yesterday's debac can hardly be
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: brought to return the greeting of the wretched man who
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: has broken his own rest in order to wait on
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: that of another, even after his name has been whispered
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: to them for the thousandth time, Save by a most
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: offensive yawn of his half opened lips, we may truly
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: say that those men are pursuing the true path of
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: duty who wish every day to consum on the most
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: familiar terms with Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, and the rest of
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: those high priests of virtue, with Aristotle and with Theophrastus.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: None of these men will be engaged. None of these
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: will fail to send you away after visiting him in
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: a happier frame of mind and on better terms with yourself.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: None of them will let you leave him empty handed.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Yet their society may be enjoyed by all men, and
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: by night as well as by day. End of chapter fourteen.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen of On the Shortness of Life by Seneca,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: translated by Aubrey Stuart. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: public domain. None of these men will force you to die,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: but all of them will teach you how to die.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: None of these will waste your time, but will add
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: his own to it. The talk of these men is
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: not dangerous. Their friendship will not lead you to the scaffold.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Their society will not ruin you in expenses. You may
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: take from them whatsoever you will. They will not prevent
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: your taking the deepest drafts of their wisdom that you please,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: What blessedness, What a fair old age awaits The man
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: who takes these for his patrons, He will have friends
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: with whom he may discuss all matters great and small,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: whose advice he may ask daily about himself, from whom
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: he will hear truth without insult, praise without flattery, and
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: according to whose likeness he may model his own character.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: We are wont to say that we are not able
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: to choose whom our parents should be, but that they
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: were assigned to us by chance. Yet we may be
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: born just as we please. There are several families of
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: the noblest intellects. Choose which you would like to belong
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: to by your adoption. You will not receive their name only,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: but also their property, which is not intended to be
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: guarded in a mean and miserly spirit. The more persons
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: you divided among, the larger it becomes. These will open
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: to you the path which leads to eternity, and will
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: raise you to a height, from whence none shall cast
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: you down. By this means alone can you prolong your
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: mortal life, nay, even turn it into an immortal one.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: High office monuments. All that ambition records and decrees, or
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: piles up in stone soon passes away. Lapse of time
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: casts down and ruins everything. But those things on which
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: philosophy has set its seal are beyond the reach of injury.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: No age will discard them or lessen their force. Each
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: succeeding sentry will add somewhat to the respect in which
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: they are held. For we look upon what is near
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: us with jealous eyes, but we admire what is further
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: off with less prejudice. The wise man's life therefore includes much.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: He is not hedged in by the same limits which
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: confine others. He alone is exempt from the laws by
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: which mankind is governed. All ages serve him like a god.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: If any time be passed, he recalls it by his memory.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: If it be present, he uses it. If it be future,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: he anticipates it. His life is a long one because
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: he concentrates all times into it. End of Chapter fifteen
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: of On the Shortness of Life by Seneca, translated by
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: Aubrey Stort. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: Those men lead the shortest and unhappiest lives who forget
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: the past, neglect the present, and dread the future. When
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: they reach the end of it, the poor wretches learn
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: too late that they were busied all the while, that
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: they were doing nothing. You need not think, because sometimes
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: they call for death, that their lives are long. Their
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: folly torments them with vague passions, which lead them into
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: the very things of which they are afraid. They often
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: therefore wish for death because they live in fear. Neither
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: is it, as you might think, a proof of the
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: length of their lives, that they often find the days long,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: that they often complain how slowly the hours pass until
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: the appointed time arrives for dinner. For whenever they are
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: left without their usual business, they fret helplessly in their idleness,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: and know not how to arrange or to spin it out.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: They betake themselves therefore to some business, and all the
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: intervening time is irksome to them. They would wish by
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: Hercules to skip over it, just as they wish to
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: skip over the intervening days before a gladiatorial contest, or
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: some other time appointed for a public spectacle or private indulgence.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: All postponement of what they wish for is grievous to them.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: Yet the very time which they enjoy is brief and
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: soon passed, and is made much briefer by their own fault,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: For they run from one pleasure to another, and are
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: not able to devote themselves consistently to one passion. Their
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: days are not long, but odious to them. On the
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: other hand, how short they find the nights which they
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: spend with courtisans over wine. Hence arises that folly of
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: the poets who encourage the errors of mankind by their myths,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: and declare that Jupiter, to gratify his voluptuous desires, double
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: to the length of the night. Is it not adding
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: fuel to our vices to name the gods as their authors,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: and to offer our distempers free scope by giving them
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: deity for an example, how can the nights for which
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: men pay so dear fail to appear of the shortest?
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: They lose the day in looking forward to the night,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: and lose the night through fear of the dawn. End
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: of chapter sixteen, Chapter seventeen of On the Shortness of
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: Life by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Stewart. This LibriVox recording
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Such men's very pleasures are
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: restless and disturbed by various alarms, and at the most
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: joyous moment of all there rises the anxious thought, how
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: long will this last? This frame of mind has led
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: kings to weep over their power, and they have not
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: been so much delighted at the grandeur of their position
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: as they have been terrified by the end to which
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: it must some day come. That most arrogant Persian king,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: when his army stretched over vast plains and could not
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: be counted, but only measured, burst into tears at the
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: thought that in less than a hundred years none of
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: all those warriors would be alive. Yet their death was
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: brought upon them by the very man who wept over it,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: who was about to destroy some of them by sea,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: some on land, some in battle. In some in flight,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: and who would, in a very short space of time
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: put an end to those about whose hundredth year he
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: showed such solicitude. Why need we wonder at their very
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: joys being mixed with fear. They do not rest upon
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: any solid grounds, but are disturbed by the same emptiness
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: from which they spring. What must we suppose to be
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: the misery of such times as even they acknowledge to
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: be wretched, When even the joys by which they elevate
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: themselves and raise themselves above their fellows are of a
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: mixed character. All the greatest blessings are enjoyed with fear,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: and no thing is so untrustworthy as extreme prosperity. We
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: require fresh strokes of good fees fortune to enable us
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: to keep that which we are enjoying, And even those
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: of our prayers which are answered, require fresh prayers. Everything
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: for which we are dependent on chance is uncertain. The
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: higher it rises, the more opportunities it has of falling. Moreover,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: no one takes any pleasure in what is about to
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: fall into ruin. Very wretched. Therefore, as well as very short,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: must be the lives of those who work very hard
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: to gain what they must work even harder to keep.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: They obtain what they wish with infinite labor, and they
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: hold what they have obtained with fear and trembling. Meanwhile,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: they take no account of time, of which they will
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: never have a fresh and larger supply. They substitute new
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: occupations for old ones. One hope leads to another, one
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: ambition to another. They do not seek for an end
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: to their wretchedness, but they change its subject to our
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: own preferments. Trouble us, nay, those of other men, occupy
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: more of their time. Have we ceased from our labors
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: in canvassing, then we begin others in voting. Have we
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: got rid of the trouble of accusation? Then we begin
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: that of judging. Has a man ceased to be a judge,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: then he becomes an examiner? Has he grown old in
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: the salaried management of other people's property? Then he becomes
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: occupied with his own. Marius is discharged for military service,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: he becomes consul. Many times. Quintius is eager to reach
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: the end of his dictatorship. He will be called the
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: second time from the plot. Scipio marched against the Carthaginians
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: before he was of year sufficient for so great an undertaking.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: After he has conquered Hannibal conquered Antiochus, been the glory
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: of his own consulship and the surety for that of
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: his brother. He might, had he wished it, have been
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: set on the same pedestal with Jupiter. But civil factions
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: will vex the savior of the state, and he who,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: when a young man disdained to receive divine honors, will
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: take pride as an old man in obstinately remaining in exile,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: we shall never lack causes of anxiety, either pleasurable or painful.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: Our life will be pushed along from one business to another.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: Leisure will always be wished for and never enjoyed. End
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: of Chapter seventeen. Chapter eighteen of On the Shortness of
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: Life by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Stewart. This LibriVox recording
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Wherefore, my dearest Polonists, tear
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: yourself away from the common herd, and since you have
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: seen more rough weather than one would think from your age,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: but take yourself at length to a more peaceful haven.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: Reflect what waves you have sailed through, what storms you
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: have endured in private life, and brought upon yourself in public.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: Your courage has been sufficiently displayed by many toilsome and
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: wearisome proofs. Try how it will deal with leisure the
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: greater Certainly, the better part of your life has been
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: given to your country. Take now some part of your
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: time for yourself as well. I do not urge you
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: to practice a dull or lazy sloth, or to drown
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: all your fiery spirit in the pleasures which are dear
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: to the herd that is not rest. You can find
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: greater works than all those which you have hitherto so
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: manfully carried out, upon which you may employ yourself in
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: retirement and security. You manage the revenues of the entire
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: world as unselfishly as though they belonged to another, as
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: laboriously as if they were your own, as scrupulously as
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: though they belonged to the public. You win love in
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: an office in which it is hard to avoid incurring hatred. Yet,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: believe me, it is better to understand your own mind
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: than to understand the corn market. Take away that keen
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: intellect of yours, so well capable of grappling with the
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: greatest subjects, from a post which may be dignified, but
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: which is hardly fitted to render life happy, and reflect
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: that you did not study from childhood all the branches
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: of a liberal education merely in order that many thousand
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: tons of corn might safely be entrusted to your charge.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: You have given us promise of something greater and nobler
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: than this. There will never be any want of strict
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: economists or of laborious workers. Slow going beasts of burden
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: are better suited for carrying loads than well bred horses,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: whose generous swiftness no one would encumber with a heavy pack.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: Think moreover, how full of risk is the great task
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: which you have undertaken. You have to deal with the
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: human stomach. A hungry people will not endure reason, will
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: not be appeased by justice, and will not hearken to
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: any prayers. Only just a few days ago, when g
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: Caesar perished, grieving for nothing so much if those in
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: the other world can feel grief as that the Roman
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: people did not die with him, There was said to
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: be only enough corn for seven or eight days consumption.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: While he was making bridges with ships and playing with
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: the resources of the empire. Want of provisions. The worst
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: evil that can befall even a besieged city was at hand.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: His imitation of a crazy, outlandish and misproud king very
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: nearly ended in ruin famine and the general revolution which
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: follows famine. What must then have been the feelings of
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: those who had the charge of supplying the city with corn,
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: who were in danger of stoning, of fire and sword
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: of Gaius himself. With consummate art, they concealed the vast
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: internal evil by which the state was menaced, and were
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: quite right in so doing. For some diseases must be
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: cured without the patient's knowledge. Many have died through discovering
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: what was the matter with them? End of chapter eighteen,
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen of On the Shortness of Life by Seneca,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: translated by Aubrey Stewart. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: public domain. Betake yourself to these quieter, safer, larger fields
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: of action. Do you think that there can be any
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: comparison between seeing that corn is deposited in the public
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: granary without being stolen by the fraud or spoilt by
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: the carelessness of the importer, that it does not suffer
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: from damp or overheating, and that it measures and weighs
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: as much as it ought, And beginning the study of
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: sacred and divine knowledge, which will teach you of what
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: elements the gods are formed, What are their pleasures, their position,
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: their form? To what changes your soul has to look forward?
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: Where nature will place us when we are dismissed from
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: our bodies. What the principle is which holds all the
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: heaviest particles of our universe in the middle, suspends the
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: lighter ones above, puts fire highest of all, and causes
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: the stars to rise in their courses, with many other
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: matters full of marvels. Will you not cease to grovel
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: on earth and turn your mind's eye on these themes? Nay,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: while your blood still flows swiftly, before your knees grow feeble,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: you ought to take the better path. In this course
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: of life. There await you many good things, such as
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: love and practice of the virtues, forgetfulness of passions, knowledge
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: of how to live and die, deep repose. The position
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: of all busy men is unhappy. But most unhappy of
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: all is that of those who do not even labor
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: at their own affairs, but have to regulate their rest
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: by another man's sleep, their walk by another man's pace,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: and whose very love and hate the freest things in
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: the world are at another's bidding. If such men wish
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: to know how short their lives are, let them think
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: how small a fraction of them is their own. End
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: of Chapter nineteen, Chapter twenty of On the Shortness of
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: Life by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Stewart. This LibriVox recording
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. When therefore you see a
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: man often wear the purple robes of office, and hear
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: his name often repeated in the forum, do not envy him.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: He gains these things by losing so much of his life.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: Men throw away all their years in order to have
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: one year named after them as consul. Some lose their
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: lives during the early part of the struggle and never
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: reach the height of which they aspired. Some, after having
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: submitted to a thousand indignities in order to reach the
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: crowning dignity, have the miserable reflection that the only result
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: of their labors will be the inscription on their tombstone. Some,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: while tell off extreme old age like youth for new aspirations,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: have found it fail from sheer weakness amid great and
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: presumptuous enterprises. It is a shameful ending when a man's
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: breath deserts him in a court of justice, while although
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: well stricken in years, he is still striving to gain
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: the sympathies of an ignorant audience. For some obscure litigant,
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: it is base to perish in the midst of one's business,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: wearied with living sooner than with working. Shameful too to
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: die in the act of receiving payments amid the laughter
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: of one's long expectant air. I cannot pass over an
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: instance which occurs to me. Tyrannius was an old man
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: of the most painstaking exactitude, who, after entering upon his
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: ninetieth year, when he had, by General Caesar's own act,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: been relieved of his duties as collector of the revenue,
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: ordered himself to be laid out on his bed and
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: mourned for as though he were dead. The whole house
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: mourned for the leisure of its old master, and did
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: not lay aside its mourning until his work was restored
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: to him. Can men find such pleasure in dying in harness?
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: Yet many are of the same mind. They retain their
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: wish for labor longer than their capacity for it, and
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: to fight again to their bodily weakness. They think old
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: age and evil for no other reason than because it
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: lays them on the shelf. The law does not enroll
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: a soldier after his fiftieth year, or require a senator's
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: attendance after his sixtieth. But men have more difficulty in
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: obtaining their own consent than that of the law to
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: a life of leisure. Meanwhile, while they are plundering and
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: being plundered, while one is disturbing another's repose, and all
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: are being made wretched. Alike, life remains without profit, without pleasure,
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: without any intellectual progress. No one keeps death well before
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: his eyes. No one refrains from far reaching home hopes.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: Some even arrange things which lie beyond their own lives,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: such as huge sepulchral buildings, the dedication of public works,
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: and exhibitions to be given at their funeral pyre and
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: ostentatious processions. But by hercules, the funerals of such men
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: ought to be conducted by the light of torches and
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: wax tapers, as though they had lived but a few days.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter twenty and of On the Shortness of
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: Life by Seneca, translated by Aubrey Stewart