I have been awaiting a letter from you,
that you might inform me what new matter was revealed to you during your
trip round Sicily, and especially that you might give me further information
regarding Charybdis itself. I know very well that Scylla is a rock —
and indeed a rock not dreaded by mariners; but with regard to Charybdis
I should like to have a full description, in order to see whether it agrees
with the accounts in mythology; and, if you have by chance investigated
it (for it is indeed worthy of your investigation), please enlighten me
concerning the following: Is it lashed into a whirlpool by a wind
from only one direction, or do all storms alike serve to disturb its depths?
Is it true that objects snatched downwards by the whirlpool in that strait
are carried for many miles under water, and then come to the surface on
the beach near Tauromenium?
If you will write me a full account
of these matters, I shall then have the boldness to ask you to perform
another task,— also to climb Aetna at my special request. Certain
naturalists have inferred that the mountain is wasting away and gradually
settling, because sailors used to be able to see it from a greater distance.
The reason for this may be, not that the height of the mountain is decreasing,
but because the flames have become dim and the eruptions less strong and
less copious, and because for the same reason the smoke also is less active
by day. However, either of these two things is possible to believe:
that on the one hand the mountain is growing smaller because it is consumed from day to day, and that, on
the other hand, it remains the same in size because the mountain is not
devouring itself, but instead of this the matter which seethes forth collects
in some subterranean valley and is fed by other material, finding in the
mountain itself not the food which it requires, but simply a passage-way
out. There is a well-known place in Lycia — called by the inhabitants
"Hephaestion" — where the ground is full of holes in many places and
is surrounded by a harmless fire, which does no injury to the plants that
grow there. Hence the place is fertile and luxuriant with growth,
because the flames do not scorch but merely shine with a force that is
mild and feeble.
But let us postpone this discussion,
and look into the matter when you have given me a description just how
far distant the snow lies from the crater,— I mean the snow which does
not melt even in summer, so safe is it from the adjacent fire. But
there is no ground for your charging this work to my account; for you were
about to gratify your own craze for fine writing, without a commission
from anyone at all. Nay, what am I to offer you not merely to describe
Aetna in your poem, and not to touch lightly upon a topic which is a matter
of ritual for all poets? Ovid could not be prevented from using
this theme simply because Vergil had already fully covered it; nor could
either of these writers frighten off Cornelius Severus. Besides,
the topic has served them all with happy results, and those who have gone
before seem to me not to have forestalled all what could be said, but merely
to have opened the way.
It makes a great deal of difference whether
you approach a subject that has been exhausted, or one where the ground
has merely been broken; in the latter case, the topic grows day by day,
and what is already discovered does not hinder new discoveries. Besides,
he who writes last has the best of the bargain; he finds already at hand
words which, when marshalled in a different way, show a new face.
And he is not pilfering them, as if they belonged to someone else, when
he uses them, for they are common property. Now if Aetna does not
make your mouth water, I am mistaken in you. You have for some time
been desirous of writing something in the grand style and on the level
of the older school. For your modesty does not allow you to set your
hopes any higher; this quality of yours is so pronounced that, it sees
to me, you are likely to curb the force of your natural ability, if there
should be any danger of outdoing others; so greatly do you reverence the
old masters.
Wisdom has this advantage, among others,— that no man
can be outdone by another, except during the climb. But when you
have arrived at the top, it is a draw; there is no room for further ascent,
the game is over. Can the sun add to his size? Can the moon advance
beyond her usual fullness? The seas do not increase in bulk.
The universe keeps the same character, the same limits. Things which
have reached their full stature cannot grow higher. Men who have
attained wisdom will therefore be equal and on the same footing.
Each of them will possess his own peculiar gifts — one will be more affable,
another more facile, another more ready of speech, a fourth more eloquent;
but as regards the quality under discussion,— the element that produces
happiness,— it is equal in them all. I do not know whether this
Aetna of yours can collapse and fall in ruins, whether this lofty summit, visible
for many miles over the deep sea, is wasted by the incessant power of the
flames; but I do know that virtue will not be brought down to a lower plane
either by flames or by ruins. Hers is the only greatness that knows
no lowering; there can be for her no further rising or sinking. Her
stature, like that of the stars in the heavens, is fixed. Let us
therefore strive to raise ourselves to this altitude.
Already much of the task is accomplished;
nay, rather, if I can bring myself to confess the truth, not much.
For goodness does not mean merely being better than the lowest. Who
that could catch but a mere glimpse of the daylight would boast his powers
of vision? One who sees the sun shining through a mist may be contented
meanwhile that he has escaped darkness, but he does not yet enjoy the blessing
of light. Our souls will not have reason to rejoice in their lot
until, freed from this darkness in which they grope, they have not merely
glimpsed the brightness with feeble vision, but have absorbed the full
light of day and have been restored to their place in the sky,— until,
indeed, they have regained the place which they held at the allotment of
their birth. The soul is summoned upward by its very origin. And
it will reach that goal even before it is released from its prison below,
as soon as it has cast off sin and, in purity and lightness, has leaped
up into celestial realms of thought.
I am glad, beloved Lucilius, that we
are occupied with this ideal, that we pursue it with all our might, even
though few know it, or none. Fame is the shadow of virtue; it will
attend virtue even against her will. But, as the shadow sometimes precedes and sometimes
follows or even lags behind, so fame sometimes goes before us and shows
herself in plain sight, and sometimes is in the rear, and is all the greater
in proportion as she is late in coming, when once envy has beaten a retreat.
How long did men believe Democritus to be mad! Glory barely came
to Socrates. And how long did our state remain in ignorance of Cato!
They rejected him, and did not know his worth until they had lost him.
If Rutilius had not resigned himself to wrong his innocence and virtue
would have escaped notice; the hour of his suffering was the hour of his
triumph. Did he not give thanks for his lot, and welcome his exile
with open arms?
I have mentioned thus far those to whom Fortune has
brought renown at the very moment of persecution; but how many there are
whose progress toward virtue has come to light only after their death!
And how many have been ruined, not rescued, by their reputation?
There is Epicurus, for example; mark how greatly he is admired, not only
by the more cultured, but also by this ignorant rabble. This man, however,
was unknown to Athens itself, near which be had hidden himself away.
And so, when he had already survived by many years his friend Metrodorus,
he added in a letter these last words, proclaiming with thankful appreciation
the friendship that had existed between them: "So greatly blest were
Metrodorus and I that it has been no harm to us to be unknown, and almost
unheard of, in this well-known land of Greece." Is it not true, therefore,
that men did not discover him until after he had ceased to be? Has
not his renown shone forth, for all that? Metrodorus also admits
this fact in one of his letters: that Epicurus and he were not well known to the public; but he declares that after
the lifetime of Epicurus and himself any man who might wish to follow in
their footsteps would win great and ready-made renown.
Virtue is never lost to view; and yet
to have been lost to view is no loss. There will come a day which
will reveal her, though hidden away or suppressed by the spite of her contemporaries.
That man is born merely for a few, who thinks only of the people of his
own generation. Many thousands of years and many thousands of peoples
will come after you; it is to these that you should have regard.
Malice may have imposed silence upon the mouths of all who were alive in
your day; but there will come men who will judge you without prejudice
and without favor. If there is any reward that virtue receives at
the hands of fame, not even this can pass away.
We ourselves, indeed,
shall not be affected by the talk of posterity; nevertheless, posterity
will cherish and celebrate us even though we are not conscious thereof.
Virtue has never failed to reward a man, both during his life and after
his death, provided he has followed her loyally, provided he has not decked
himself out or painted himself up, but has been always the same, whether
he appeared before men's eyes after being announced, or suddenly and without
preparation. Pretence accomplishes
nothing. Few are deceived by a mask that is easily drawn over the
face. Truth is the same in every part. Things which deceive
us have no real substance. Lies are thin stuff; they are transparent,
if you examine them with care. Farewell.