The Consolation of Boethius
by Sanderson Beck
After this she was quiet for a little while,
and when she had gathered my attention by
her modest silence she began as follows:
"If I have understood thoroughly the
causes and condition of your sickness, you
are wasting away in fondness and desire of
former fortune; this change has upset so
much of your spirit just as you imagine it
for yourself.
"I understand the manifold pretenses
of that monster and how far with these she
depends on the most flattering intimacy to
delude them until she confuses with irresistible
sorrow those whom she has abandoned unexpectedly.
"If you remember her nature, morals
and merit, you will know that you neither
had in her nor lost in her any beauty at
all; but, as I suppose, I shall not have
to work much to recall this to your memory.
For you used to attack with brave words both
her presence and flattery and from our sanctuary
criticize her with quoted sentences.
"Truly every sudden change of things
does not happen without a certain kind of
disturbance of minds; so the fact is that
you too for a little while have deviated
from your calmness.
"But it is time for you to take and
taste something soft and pleasing, which
passing through to the interior will make
way for healthier drinks. Thus may the persuasion
of sweet argument assist, which then proceeds
so much by a straight path when it does not
desert our principles, and when by this native
music of our household god it may chime in
now lighter then heavier meters.
"What is it then, O human, that has
thrown you down in melancholy and mourning?
You have seen, I believe, something new and
unusual. You think fortune is changed toward
you: you are mistaken.
"These are always her morals; that is
her nature. She has preserved around you
her peculiar constancy rather by her very
own mutability; such it was when she was
flattering, when she played with you by the
attractions of false happiness.
"You have detected the blind goddess's
ambiguous face. Though she still veils herself
to others, to you she has become completely
known. If you approve, you may use it for
behavior, don't complain. If you are horrified
at dishonesty, reject and abandon playing
at ruin; for she who now is so great a cause
of mourning ought to have been a cause of
calmness. For she left you, she whom no one
can ever be sure will not leave.
"Or do you really find valuable happiness
that goes away, and is a fortune not reliable
in staying present dear to you and which
when it has departed brings mourning? But
if one cannot keep it through control and
fleeing it causes the disastrous, what else
is it but a kind of indication of future
disaster?
"For it will never be sufficient to
look at the situation that is in front of
one's eyes; prudence measures the outcome
of things; and in the same way mutability
into one or the other makes both the terrors
of fortune to be less and the longings not
alluring.
"Finally you should bear with an even
spirit whatever is produced within fortune's
area since you first put your neck in her
yoke. But if you wish to write the law of
staying and going for the one whom you have
freely chosen as your mistress will you not
be wrong, and will not impatience aggravate
a fate which you cannot exchange?
"If you commit a sail to the winds,
not where your will aims will you advance
but where the breezes will drive; if you
entrust seeds to the fields, will you not
weigh out mutually fruitful and barren years.
"You have given yourself to fortune's
ruling; you should comply with the behavior
of the mistress. Do you really want to hold
back the impetus of her rolling wheel? But,
most stupid of all mortals, if it begins
to stop it ceases to be chance.
I "As her arrogant right hand turns
the alternations and is heaving like the
surge of Euripus, just now she crushes cruelly
terrible kings and a deceptive face raises
the lowly conquered. She does not hear the
wretched or care for the weeping and on the
other side the groaning, which she made them
endure, she ridicules. So she plays, so she
proves her powers and with surprises shows
a great display, to see if anyone may be
seen prostrate and happy in the same hour.
2 "Now I might be willing to deliberate
briefly with you in the words of Fortune
herself; then you censure, or the law may
prosecute.
"'Why do you, human, make me a defendant
with daily complaints? What injury have we
done to you? Have we taken away from you
your goods? With a judge from anywhere contend
with me about the possession of wealth and
position, and if you show that any part of
these is properly mortals' I will then freely
allow you to take back what was to have been
yours.
"'When nature produced you from your
mother's womb, I received you naked of all
things and helpless, kept you warm with my
resources and, whereas now it makes you impatient
with us, I brought you up under the easy
favor of indulgence, surrounded you with
all the abundance and splendor which are
right for me.
"'Now it pleases me to withdraw my hand:
be grateful as for the use of another's;
you have no right of complaining as if you
absolutely lost yours. Why then do you groan?
No violence is brought against you from us.
"'Wealth, honors and the rest of such
things are right for me. The servants recognize
the mistress: they come with me; with my
going away they depart. Boldly I declare,
if these were yours which you bemoan are
missing, you never would have lost them.
"'Or am I alone kept from exercising
my right? Heaven is permitted to reveal bright
days and to conceal the same with dark nights;
the year is permitted to redeem the face
of the land at one time with flowers and
fruits at another to confound it with clouds
and frosts; it is right for the sea at one
time to charm with a level surface at another
to tremble with storms and waves: is incessant
human greed to bind us to a consistency alien
to our morals?
"'This is our power; we play this continuous
game: we turn the wheel in a revolving cycle,
we like to change the lowest to the highest,
the highest to the lowest. Ascend if it pleases,
but choose it, only if you will not think
it an injury when the procedure of my game
requires you to descend.
"'Or are you ignorant of my morals?
Don't you know about Croesus, king of Lydia,
who a little before terrified Cyrus, next
was pitifully thrown on a pyre committed
to the flames then protected by rain from
heaven? Surely it has not escaped you that
Paulus spent holy tears for the defeats of
Perses the king captured by him?
"'What else is the clamor of tragedies
lamenting but the indiscriminate blows of
fortune overturning happy sovereignties?
Did you not learn in adolescence of two vessels,
one filled with bad, and the other with good
standing in Jove's entranceway?
"'What if you have taken more fully
from the good part? What if I have not gone
away from you completely? What if this mutability
of mine itself is a fair cause for your hoping
for better things? In any case should you
waste away in spirit, and do you want to
live by your own law placed within a sovereignty
in common with all?
II "'If the roused sea turns up as many
sands with swift breezes or as many as high
stars shine in the starry night sky so much
wealth may Plenty with a full horn scatter
and not draw back her hand, still the human
race would never stop crying its wretched
complaints. Although prayers a willing God
may receive wasteful of much gold and fit
out the greedy with bright honors, already
the possessions seem nothing, but swallowing
the gains cruel rapacity stretches a gaping
mouth elsewhere. What bridle now would hold
back headlong lust by a definite end, when
fluent with rather ample rewards the thirst
of having burns? Never does the rich one
lead who anxiously sighing believes oneself
needing.'
3 "Then if Fortune spoke in this way
for herself to you, certainly you would not
have anything you could utter in reply; or
if there is anything by which you may be
rightly protected in your complaint, you
should mention it; we will give space for
talking."
Then I said, "In fact yours are plausible,
and smeared over with the honey of rhetoric
and sweet music such that when they are heard
they amuse, but for the wretched it is a
deeper feeling of evils; and so when these
stop sounding on the ears an implanted sadness
weighs down the spirit."
And she said, "So it is; for these are
not yet your illness's remedies, but so far
they are a sort of bandage for the stubborn
sorrows opposing the treatment; for the ones
which will penetrate in deep themselves I
will apply when it would be timely.
"Yet truly you may not wish to consider
yourself wretched; or have you forgotten
the number and measure of your happiness?
I say nothing about how abandoned by a parent
the care of the greatest men took you and
gathered you into the city's most eminent
family, because the most valuable kind of
relationship is, you had begun to be dear
before being kin.
"Who did not proclaim you most happy
with such magnificent in-laws with a modest
wife besides suitable male offspring too?
I go past---for it pleases to go past the
common--- positions assumed in youth denied
to the old; one is glad to come to the unique
culmination of your happiness.
"If the enjoyment of mortal things has
any weight of happiness, can the memory of
that brightness be destroyed by as great
a mass of heaping evils as can be when you
saw your two sons consuls together transported
from home among the numerous senators among
the cheerful common people, when they were
officially seated in the senate you as speaker
praising the king earned the glory of genius
and eloquence, when in the circus in the
middle of the two consuls you satisfied the
expectations of the surrounding crowd by
a triumphal distribution?
"You devoted, as I suppose, words to
Fortune as long as she stroked you, as long
as she cherished you as her darling. A gift
that she never gave to an individual you
took away. Will you not then reckon up accounts
with Fortune?
"Now is the first time she has dazzled
you with a black eye. If you consider the
number and measure of your glad and sad times,
so far you will not be able to deny your
happiness.
"But if for this reason you don't value
your being fortunate since what then seemed
pleasing went away, in that you should not
think you are wretched, since now what they
believe is sad will pass.
"Or have you come on this stage of life
now for the first time by surprise and as
a stranger? Do you think there is any consistency
in human affairs when often a quick hour
has destroyed a person?
"For even if faith in the chances of
remaining is thin, nevertheless the last
day of life is a kind of death of the fortune
still remaining. What then do you think to
answer: do you desert her by dying, or she
you by fleeing?
III "When by the pole the sun in a rosy
chariot begins to disperse its light, the
dawning face fades the dulled stars with
tightening flames. When the grove by the
breeze of the warming west wind has been
reddened with spring roses, the cloudy south
wind may blow furiously, by then with thorns
the beauty goes away. Often in calm serenity
shines the sea with motionless waves; often
the north wind stirs up raging hurricanes
on the upset sea. If her form in the world
seldom is constant, if the alterations vary
so much, trust in the failing fortunes of
humans, trust in transient goods! It is constant
and fixed by eternal law that nothing born
may be constant."
4 Then I said, "You are recalling truths,
nurse of all virtues, nor can I deny my fastest
progress of success. But this is because
reflecting boils it more vehemently; for
in all the adversity of fortune the unhappiest
kind of misfortune is to have been happy."
"But because you," she said, "may
be atoning for the punishment of false opinion,
you cannot rightly blame it for things. For
if this empty name of accidental happiness
moves you, you may consider with me how you
may be abundant with more and the greatest.
"Then if you were possessing what is
rated the most valuable in all your fortune
that is preserved for you by the divine unhurt
still and inviolable, can you while retaining
the better ones pretend rightly it is because
of misfortune?
"And yet thrives safe that most valuable
ornament of the human race your father-in-law
Symmachus and, because you are under an obligation
not to be lazy at the cost of life, a complete
man made out of wisdom and virtues: in his
security he sighs for your injuries.
"Your modest wife lives with character,
excelling in shy chastity and, as I include
all her gifts concisely, she is like her
father; she lives, I say, and for you she
preserves so much spirit by the detesting
of this life, perhaps I myself too must grant
I have reduced your happiness by one; in
longing for you she languishes in tears and
sorrow.
"What should I say about the sons of
consular rank, whose example of character
now just as in boyhood outshines that of
either father or grandfather?
"Then since the principal care for mortals
is holding on to life, you, if you knew your
blessings, should be happy, to whom are available
even now what no one doubts are more dear
than life.
"Therefore dry the tears already; not
yet is every single fortune detested, nor
has too strong a storm fallen upon you since
your firm anchors hang on which allow neither
relief in the present nor hope of future
opportunity to go away."
"And I pray they do hang on," I
said; "for in their remaining, however
things may hold themselves, we shall stay
afloat. But you see how many of our distinctions
may have ceased."
And she said, "We have moved forward
somewhat if you are no longer annoyed with
all of your lot. But I cannot bear your whims,
whereby you bewail with so much sorrow and
trouble that there is something lacking in
your happiness.
"For whose happiness is so constructed
that one has no quarrel from any side with
the quality of one's status? For the condition
of human welfare is a troubled thing, and
either its wholeness never appears or its
continuation never holds out.
"Property for this one abounds, but
the degenerate blood is a shame; the nobility
of another is made known, but the one shut
in prefers the household scarcity of things
to be unknown.
"And that one overflowing with both
laments life unmarried; that one happy in
marriage who is childless nourishes property
to be inherited by strange children; another
rejoicing in offspring weeps in mourning
for the wrongs of a son or daughter.
"For that reason no one easily agrees
with the condition of one's fortune; for
in each one the thing not experienced is
unknown, which having been experienced is
terrifying.
"Add that the feeling of the happiest
is most delicate, and unless all things are
supplied to one's command unaccustomed to
every adversity one is thrown by the smallest
things: so very small are the things which
pull down the highest from the happiest blessings.
"How many do you conjecture there are
who would consider themselves near heaven
if the smallest part of your remaining fortune
came to them? This place itself, which you
call exile, is the homeland of those inhabiting
it.
"Thus nothing is wretched except when
you think so, and conversely every fate is
blessed by the evenmindedness of being patient.
Who is so happy, who when one yields to impatience
a hand would not wish to change it's status?
"With how much bitterness is the sweetest
of human happiness sprinkled! For even if
enjoying it seems to be delightful, nevertheless
one cannot retain it when it would go away.
"Then it is evident how wretched may
be the happiness of mortal things, which
neither endures forever among the evenminded
nor delights entirely the troubled. Why then,
o mortals, do you aim outside for the happiness
placed inside you? You are confused by error
and ignorance.
"I will show you briefly the axis of
the highest happiness. Is there anything
you value more than your very self? 'Nothing,'
you will answer. Then if you would be in
control of yourself, you will possess something
you would never want to lose nor could fortune
take it away.
"And yet as you would recognize that
happiness cannot be constant in these accidental
things, check this out. If happiness is the
highest good of a nature living by reason,
and the highest good is not what can be torn
away by any method, since what cannot be
taken away surpasses it, it is obvious that
the instability of fortune cannot aspire
to gaining happiness.
"Besides, such failing happiness carries
along one who either knows it or does not
know it to be changeable. If one does not
know, what happy fate can there be in the
blindness of ignorance? If one knows, one
must be apprehensive of losing that which
one doubts not can be lost; therefore continuous
fear does not allow one to be happy. Or perhaps
if one should lose it, does one think it
indifferent? So too it is a very small good
whose loss may be borne with an even mind.
"And since you are the same one whom
I know was persuaded and informed by very
many proofs that human minds are in no way
mortal, and since it should be clear that
chance happiness is ended by the body's death,
it cannot be doubted, if this can carry off
happiness, that the entire race of mortals
is collapsing in misery at death's boundary.
"But if we know that many have sought
the true enjoyment of happiness not by death
alone but also by sorrows and sacrifices,
in what way can the present make them happy
which finished does not make them wretched?
IV "Whoever wishes to build an unfailing
secure foundation and be steady and not overthrown
by the noise from the breezes of the east
wind and takes care to reject the threatening
sea with its waves, should avoid the high
mountain peak, the thirsty deserts; the former
the insolent south wind presses with all
its strength, the latter loose decline to
bear the hovering weight. Fleeing the dangerous
fate of an elegant foundation remember to
be certain to fix the home on humble rock.
However much it may thunder with destruction
the wind mixing the level sea, you built
on the calm happy in fortified vigor lead
a serene life smiling at the sky's angers.
5 "But since already the medicines of
my reason are sinking into you, I am thinking
of using somewhat stronger ones. Well then
of course, supposing for the purpose of argument
the property and gifts of fortune were not
momentary, what is there in them which either
could ever become yours or not cheapen upon
examination and inspection?
"Are riches valuable either from your
nature or theirs? Which of them is more so?
Gold or the power of accumulated money? And
yet this shines better spent more than heaped
up, if in fact avarice always causes hatred,
generosity distinction.
"But if what cannot remain with one
is transferred to another, then money is
valuable when having been transferred by
bestowing it on others for use it ceases
to be possessed.
"But the same, if it were collected
by one wherever the amount is among the people,
it would make the rest destitute of it. And
a voice in fact fills equally all the many
who heard it, but your riches unless diminished
cannot pass to more; because when it is done,
it is necessary to make poor those whom it
leaves.
"Oh then scant and helpless are riches,
which to have them all with more is not right
and they do not come to anyone without impoverishing
the rest.
"Or does the brightness of jewels attract
the eyes? But if what is in this luster is
anticipated, that is the light of the jewels,
not of the humans; in fact I am surprised
humans eagerly admire them. For why is the
lacking of movement and structure of spirit
that which rightly seems to be beautiful
to a reasonable and animated nature?
"Although they may be works of their
maker and attract somewhat the lowest distinction
of beauty, all the same placed below your
excellence they are not at all deserving
of your admiration.
"Or does the beauty of the land amuse
you? Why not? For it is a very beautiful
portion of a beautiful work. As sometimes
we delight in the appearance of a calm sea,
so we admire sky, stars, moon and sun. Surely
none of these touches you; surely you dare
not boast of any such splendor? Perhaps you
yourself are adorned by the flowers of spring
or is it your fertility that swells the fruits
in summer?
"Why are you seized by empty delights?
Why do you embrace external goods for yourself?
Fortune will never make yours what the nature
of things made for others.
"In fact the fruits of the earth far
from doubt ought to be nourishment for animals;
but if you wish to fill the need that is
enough for nature, there is nothing that
you should seek from the abundance of fortune.
For nature is content with a few and little;
upon which sufficiency if you wish to impose
excess, what you pour in will be either unpleasant
or harmful.
"Now you really think beauty shines
in various clothes. If looking at them is
a pleasant sight, I would admire either the
nature of the material or the ability of
the maker.
"Or does a long line of servants really
make you happy? Who if they should be corrupt
in morals, are a ruinous burden to the house,
and quite unfriendly to the master himself;
while if they are honest, how may the honesty
of others be counted as your wealth?
"Out of all these goods which you consider
yours none of them may clearly be shown to
be your good. If none of this beauty is obtained
by grasping, what is that for which either
having lost you should grieve or having retained
you should be glad?
"But if by nature they are beautiful,
what does it matter to you? For these by
themselves would have been pleasing though
separated from your wealth. For they are
not valued for the reason of coming into
your riches, but since they seem valuable
you prefer to add them to your riches.
"Now why do you desire such clatter
from fortune? To banish need, I think, you
seek plenty. And yet this turns out for you
in the reverse; of course by more supports
the work is different in the guarding of
your valuable furniture, and it is true that
those who possess very much need very much,
and conversely the least those whose abundance
is measured by the necessity of nature not
by the excess of courting.
"Now is there no personal good inside
you that you seek your goods in things outside
and remote? So is the condition of things
turned so that reason's animal deservedly
divine is not otherwise to be bright for
itself unless it is seen in possession of
inanimate furniture?
"Also others at any rate are content
with their own, but you, just like a god
in mind, chase after from the lowest things
decorations of an outstanding nature, nor
do you understand how much you may do injury
to your maker. That one willed the human
race to be superior to all earthly things,
yet you throw down your dignity below the
lowest.
"For if by everyone each's good is agreed
to be more valuable than that to which it
belongs, since you judge your goods to be
the poorest of things to these same things
you lower yours in reputation. Which in fact
does not happen at all unjustly.
"Since this is the condition of human
nature that one may surpass other things
only when one is aware of oneself, nevertheless
one is reduced below a beast if one ceases
to know oneself; for to other animals it
is natural to be ignorant of oneself; with
humans it comes by vice.
"How really extensive is this error
of yours is evident, whereby you think someone
can be adorned by strange decorations! But
it cannot be done; for if anything should
shine from the additions, the additions themselves
are in fact what are praised, while it endures
from these that covering and disguise no
less in its own foulness.
"Certainly I deny anything is good which
harms the one having it. Surely I am not
lying about it, am I? 'Not at all,' you will
say. And yet riches very often are harmful
in possessing them, since every worst one
all the more covetous of another thinks it
is oneself alone who is in any way most worthy
of gold and jewels.
"You then, who now agitated are alarmed
by club and sword, if you had traveled the
path of this life an empty traveler you might
sing in person by the bandit. How very bright
the happiness of mortal wealth, when you
have attained it you stop being secure!
V "Happy the very great previous age
content with faithful fields not ruined by
idle debauchery, with ease when late it was
the habit to dissolve hunger by nuts.
"They did not know the rewards of Bacchus
to mingle in a sweet liquid nor bright woolly
silk to mix with Tyrian dye.
"Grass gave them healthy sleep, the
sliding stream a drink too, the tallest pine
shade.
"Not yet were they operating on the
sea's depths, nor with costly picked items
on every side did a foreigner see new shores.
"Then the cruel battle trumpets were
silent, nor with bitter hatred did spilt
blood soak the rugged fields.
"For why should the previous wish to
provoke with any arms a hostile furor, since
they never saw cruel wounds nor any rewards
for bloodshed?
"If only our times would return to the
morals of the ancients! But more cruel than
the fires of Aetna the boiling love of having
burns.
"Alas, who was that first one who wanting
to hide weights of hidden gold and gems dug
expensive dangers?
6 "But why should I discuss positions
and power, which you unaware of true position
and power equate with heaven? Which if they
had fallen into the worst somehow, which
in the belching flames of Aetna, then would
they have yielded such masses of deluge?
"Surely, as I think you remember, command
by the consul, that had been a principle
of liberty, on account of consular arrogance
your ancestors wanted to abolish it, just
as on account of the same arrogance before
the title of king had been taken away from
the state.
"But if when, because it is very rare,
they are conferred on the honest, what is
pleasing in this other than honesty being
employed? Thus honor does not come to the
virtuous from position but from virtue honor
comes to position.
"While what is your coveted and bright
power? Do you not, o terrestrial animal,
consider over whom you are looking to preside?
Now if you saw among mice one claiming some
right and power for itself before the rest,
with how much laughter would you be moved!
"While what, if you look at the body,
can you find weaker than a human, whom often
too either a bite or entrance in secret of
any creeping thing into the muscles may kill?
"How can anyone really exercise a right
upon any other except upon the body alone
and--- I speak of fortune---what is below
the body? Surely you will not impose anything
on a free spirit? Surely you will not remove
from its state of calmness a mind stable
in its coherent reason?
"When a certain tyrant was thinking
that a free man compelled by punishments
himself so that he might betray the ones
guilty of conspiring in a plot against himself,
that one bit and cut off his tongue and raging
threw it in the face of the tyrant; thus
the torture, which the tyrant was thinking
was the substance of cruelty, the wise man
made into courage.
"But why is it that everyone can do
to another, what one cannot control from
another oneself? We have heard how Busiris
accustomed to killing strangers was sacrificed
by the stranger Hercules. Regulus drove many
Carthaginian prisoners of war in bonds, but
soon held out his own hands to the victor's
chains.
"Then do you think anything of that
person's power who oneself can do to another
what one could not make sure one may survive
when the other does it to oneself?
"Besides, if in positions and powers
themselves there belonged any natural and
innate good, they never would come to the
worst. For opposites are not accustomed to
uniting with each other; nature rejects that
contraries should be joined together.
"So since it may not be doubted that
generally the worst do function in these
positions, certainly it is clear that that
is not natural good itself which is allowed
to cling to the worst themselves. That in
fact can be judged more worthy from all the
rewards of fortune, which come more fully
to the most dishonest.
"From which also I am thinking of considering
this, because no one doubts courage is in
the one whom one has observed to be courageous
and it is also obvious speed is present in
the one who is fast; thus for instance music
makes musicians, medicine doctors, rhetoric
orators: for the nature of each thing acts
because it is appropriate and is not mixed
up with the effects of contrary things and
even expels those which are opposite.
"Nevertheless wealth cannot quench incessant
greed, nor does power cause control of oneself
for the one whom corrupt desires hold back
tightly with unbreakable chains, and position
collected by the dishonest not only does
not make them worthy but rather it betrays
and exposes the unworthy.
"Why does it come out so? It is because
you like to call things themselves having
different qualities with false names, which
easily are refuted by the effect of their
realities; and so neither those riches nor
that power nor this position can rightly
be called so.
"Finally the same may be concluded about
all fortune, in which nothing is to be sought;
it is obvious nothing of native goodness
is in it, which does not always join itself
with the goods, and it does not make good
those with whom it may have been joined.
VI "We know how many ruins it yielded
with the city burned and fathers slashed
by a brother who once wild destroyed and
dripped with the profuse blood of his mother,
the body and cold sight perusing the area
he did not wet with tears, but he could be
censor of the decorum of the one extinguished.
"Nevertheless he with a scepter was
ruling people whom the sun sees until its
rays are concealed under the waves, with
the last coming from the beginning, whom
the seven frosty constellations overrule,
whom the raging South with its dry heat parches
recooking the shining sands.
"Surely in the end lofty power could
not turn the perverse madness of Nero? Alas
the heavy fate, how often the unequal sword
is added to cruel poison!"
7 Then I said, "You know yourself the
ambition of mortal things has had the least
mastery over us; but we have chosen the opportunity
of managing things so that virtue will not
grow old unmentioned."
And she said, "Yet this is one thing
which could attract in fact outstanding natural
minds but which are not yet guided by perfection
to the finishing touch of virtues, the desire
of course for glory and of best deserving
fame in public business.
"Consider how thin it may be and so
empty of all weight. The whole circumference
of the earth, as you have interpreted by
astrological demonstration, compared with
the space of heaven corresponds to holding
the calculation of a point, that is, if it
were compared in greatness to the celestial
sphere, it would be judged to have absolutely
no space at all.
"Then of this so very meager region
in the world about a fourth portion is, as
you have learned from the proof of Ptolemy,
inhabited by animals which are known to us.
From this fourth if you subtracted in thought
how much is sunk in sea and marsh and how
much may be extended in desolate territory,
barely the narrowest area is left for inhabiting
by humans.
"Then in this least point which you
fenced around and enclosed by a point do
you think about making public fame, about
publishing a name, as though glory so compressed
by narrow and meager limits may have eminence
and greatness?
"Add that many nations inhabit this
same small living area diverse in respect
to language, customs, their whole life, to
which then the difficulty of travel besides
the difference in speaking plus the rarity
of trade not only the fame of a single human
but that of cities in fact is not able to
reach.
"Finally in the time of Cicero, as he
indicates opportunely, the fame of the Roman
republic had not yet passed beyond the Caucasus
mountains, and it was even then mature terrifying
to Parthians and other nations of that region.
"Don't you see then how narrow, how
compressed the glory may be, which you are
laboring to expand and propagate? Or may
the glory of a Roman person advance where
the fame of the Roman name is unable to pass?
"Moreover, don't the morals and also
the traditions of different nations disagree
between themselves, so that what is judged
praiseworthy among some may be worthy of
punishment among others?
"Thus if someone delights in this commendation
of fame in most populations it is of no use
to publish a name. Then each will be content
having spread glory among one's own, and
within the boundaries of one nation that
bright immortality of fame will be confined.
"But how many men, the most eminent
in their times, does oblivion blot out in
need of writers! And yet why should the writings
themselves profit, which with their authors
longer and obscure age covers?
"While you seem to propagate immortality
for yourselves when you imagine fame in a
future time. But if you study about the infinite
extent of eternity, what do you have that
you will enjoy from the long duration of
your name?
"In fact the character of one moment
if it is compared with ten thousand years,
since both ways it is a definite period,
may nevertheless have some very small portion;
but this very number of years and the multiplication
of this as much as you like cannot even be
compared to interminable duration.
"Though compared to themselves there
might be some mutuality with finite things,
with the infinite and the finite there could
never really be a comparison. So it happens
that fame for however long of a time one
may like, if it is thought of with unexhausted
eternity, may be seen to be not small but
plainly non-existent.
"Now you unless for popular sounds and
idle rumors are unable to act correctly,
and having abandoned the pre-eminence of
conscience and virtue you demand rewards
from strange gossip.
"Listen how humorously someone ridiculed
in the lightness of this method of arrogance.
For when a certain person was attacked with
insults, who not for the practice of true
virtue but for false overbearing glory had
assumed for himself the name of philosopher,
and added one might know then oneself whether
that one was a philosopher, if in fact one
could bear inflicted wrongs gently and patiently,
he for a little while assumed patience and
accepted the assaults as he was taunting.
'Now at last,' he said, 'do you understand
me to be a philosopher?'
"Then that one said too sharply, 'I
would have understood, if you had kept silent.'
"Why is it that to outstanding men---
for the discussion is about these--- who
seek glory from virtue, why, I ask, is it
that one should seek for this from fame after
the body is released by the moment of death?
"For if, because our reasons forbid
the belief, humans die completely, there
is no glory at all, since the one of whom
it is said to be does not exist at all.
"While if the mind correctly conscious
in itself released free from its earthly
prison seeks heaven, does it not spurn all
earthly business, while enjoying itself in
heaven it is glad to be exempt from earthly
things?
VII "Whoever alone by headlong mind
seeks and believes glory is the highest,
should perceive the wide open regions of
the ethereal and the compressed situation
of the world; not being able to fill up the
small circle one will be ashamed of an enlarged
name. Why are the proud eager to lighten
the mortal collar from their necks in vain?
Although diffuse fame through distant peoples
passing may develop languages, and a great
house may shine with bright titles, death
scorns high glory, rolls on the humble and
lofty head alike and makes the low equal
to the highest. Where do the bones of the
loyal Fabricius remain now? Why is Brutus
or Cato stiff? Surviving shallow fame marks
a name with a very few letters in vain. But
because we have known the noble terms surely
it is not given to know the destroyed? Consequently
you lay absolutely unknown, and fame does
not make them known. But if you suppose life
is drawn out longer by the aura of a mortal
name, when a later day snatches this from
you too then the second death awaits you.
8 "But do not think I wage inexorable
war against fortune: there is a time when
not deceptive about humans she may be well
served, at the time of course when she opens
herself, when she uncovers her facade and
declares her morals. By chance you do not
yet understand what I mean; it is strange
what I am eager to say, and so far I can
hardly explain the meaning in words.
"As a matter of fact I think adversity
is more beneficial for humans than fortune;
for the latter always with the pretense of
happiness, when it seems charming, is lying;
the former always is true, when it shows
itself inconstant with change.
"The latter deceives; the former instructs;
the latter a lie by pretense of goods ties
the minds of those enjoying them, the former
by awareness of the fragility of happiness
absolves them; and so you may see that the
latter is fickle, lax and always ignorant
of herself, the former sober and prepared
and through its adversities wise by experience.
"Finally happiness by devious allurements
draws one from the truly good, and adversity
generally leading one back to the truly good
draws one back with a hook.
"Or are you thinking of valuing this
among the least because this rough, this
terrifying fortune describes for you the
minds of faithful friends? She has differentiated
for you the reliable faces of the companions
and the doubtful ones; departing she has
taken away hers, left yours.
"For how much might you have let this
go intact and, as you were seeming to yourself,
fortunate? Now you complain about lost resources:
when you have found out that friends are
the most precious kind of riches.
VIII "Because the universe by steady
faith varies harmonious successions, because
struggling seeds maintain a continuous treaty,
because the sun the rosy day advances in
a golden car, while the moon may command
in the nights which the western star has
led, while the greedy ocean wave encloses
a definite boundary, it may not stretch with
wandering lands the wide bounds, love ties
this sequence of things guiding lands and
the open sea and commanding in heaven.
"If this should relax the reins, whoever
now loves each other would wage war continuously
and what now associates by faith inspire
with beautiful movements they would compete
to dissolve the scheme.
"This by a sacred treaty too holds peoples
united; this also the sacredness of marriage
binds with chaste loves; this again dictates
their rights to trusted companions.
"O happy human race, if love guides
your souls as heaven is guided!"
Notes to Book 2:
2: According to the history of Herodotus,
after the Persian king Cyrus II the Great
had defeated the Lydians in battle at Sardis
in 546 BC. Croesus was to be burned on a
pyre, but moved by the change of fortune
of this king, Cyrus ordered the flames extinguished.
However, they could not be quenched until
Croesus called on Apollo and a rain doused
the fire.
2: Aemilius Paulus, consul of Rome, defeated
Perses, the last king of Macedonia at Pydna
in 168 BC.
6: Diogenes Laertius tells the story of two
different philosophers who bit off their
tongues and spat them at tyrants: Zeno of
Elea about 460 BC and Anaxarchus about 330
BC.
6: The Roman general Regulus was defeated
by the Carthaginians in 255 BC. According
to Cicero he was sent to Rome with a proposal
for a prisoner exchange, which he counseled
against, then returned a prisoner himself
to Carthage.
VI: Nero ruled the vast Roman empire from
54 to 68 CE, ordering the murder of his stepbrother
Britannicus and his mother Agrippina.
VII: Fabricius was a Roman general and consul
in the third century BC known for his integrity
and refusal to accept a bribe from Pyrrhus.
VII: Brutus led the overthrow of the last
Tarquin king and became the first consul
of Rome in 509 BC. A later Brutus led the
conspiracy which assassinated Julius Caesar
in
44 BC.
VII: Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) was famous
for upholding strict Roman standards of morality
and for his orations against Carthage. Cato
the Younger (95-46 BC) committed suicide
after Pompey's defeat by Caesar, because
he feared it was the end of the republic.
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Evans Experientialism 
