LIV
Seneca greets his Lucilius.
Bad illness had given me a long respite; suddenly it invaded
me. "Of what kind?" you
say. Certainly you ask with merit; none
as such is unknown to me. Yet I was
assigned, so to speak, to one disease--by which Greek name I don't know how I
may call it--suffice that it can be called aptly "shortness of breath". An attack is similar to a storm, brief but
very powerful; it desists within an hour, in general. Who indeed breathes his last for so long? All inconveniences and perils of the body
have passed through me; none seem more troublesome to me than this. And why not?
For whatever else there may be is just being sick, but this carries away
the breath, life. And so physicians call
this the "practice for death."
For that breath will ultimately accomplish what it has often
attempted. Do you think that I cheer
myself to write these things to you, because I have escaped? I would do ridiculously, if at this end I am
pleased as though with good health; more so than one who defers bail when he thinks
to have won his case. In truth, I have
not ceased to find pleasure in happy & brave thoughts even in this
suffocation.
"What is this?" I say. "Does death so often put me to the test? Let it do so; for I tested it for a long
time." "When?" you
say. Before I was born. Death is to be not; what kind of thing it may
be, now I know. This death will be after
me, because before me, it was. If there
is anything of torment in this, it would be necessary to have been so then too,
before we went forth into the light; and yet at that time we felt no
vexation. I ask, would you not be
speaking very foolish stuff, if one esteemed it of a lamp to be worse when it
is extinguished, than the time before it is kindled? We, too, are both extinguished and kindled;
at the middle time we suffer something, but in truth there is deep security on
both sides of that time. Indeed, my
Lucilius, unless I am mistaken, we err in this, because we point at a death to
follow, when that death both will have preceded us, and will be going to follow
us. Whatever was before us, is
death. For what can be said in response--whether
you do not begin or whether you end--when in each case is brought about the
state of non-being?
And with such exhortations of this kind (unspoken of course,
for there is not space for the words) I cease not to urge myself. Then, little by little, that shortness of
breath, which already began to be asthma, made greater intervals and was
slowed, though still remained. Thus far,
although it may have desisted, the breath flows unnaturally; I sense a certain
hesitation to it, and a delay. Whatever
it will be, so long as I may not heave a sigh from the soul. Receive this from me to you; I will not
tremble up to the end time, I was already prepared, I think nothing of the
whole day. But may you praise and
imitate that man who is not reluctant to die, though he may please to
live. For what is the virtue when you
are thrown out to exit? Yet virtue is
here too; indeed I am thrown out, but yet let me go out willingly, as it
were. Thus a wise man is never thrown
out, since to be thrown out is thence to be expelled from where you may be
unwilling to leave--and the wise man does nothing unwillingly; he escapes
necessity because he wills that which is certainly going to be compelled. Farewell.
