Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

Keeps fairly written; not on any palimpsest,

As often, enter'd, paper extra-fine, sheets new,

New every roller, red the strings, the parchment-case

Lead-rul'd, with even pumice all alike complete.

You read them: our choice spirit, our refin'd rare wit,

Suffenus, O no ditcher e'er appeared more rude,

No looby coarser; such a shock, a change is there.

How then resolve this puzzle? He the birthday-wit,

For so we thought him—keener yet, if aught is so—

Becomes a dunce more boorish e'en than hedge-born boor,

If e'er he faults on verses; yet in heart is then

Most happy, writing verses, happy past compare,

So sweet his own self, such a world at home finds he.

Friend, 'tis the common error; all alike are wrong,

Not one, but in some trifle you shall eye him true

Suffenus; each man bears from heaven the fault they send,

None sees within the wallet hung behind, our own.

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Needy Furius, house nor hoard possessing,

Bug or spider, or any fire to thaw you,

Yet most blest in a father and a step-dame,

Each for penury fit to tooth a flint-stone:

Is not happiness yours? a home united?

Son, sire, mother, a lathy dame to match him.

Who can wonder? in all is health, digestion,

Pure and vigorous, hours without a trouble.

Fires ye fear not, or house's heavy downfal,

Deeds unnatural, art in act to poison,

Dangers myriad accidents befalling.

Then your bodies? in every limb a shrivell'd

Horn, all dryness in all the world whatever,

Tann'd or frozen or icy-lean with ages.

Sure superlative happiness surrounds thee.

Thee sweat frets not, an o'er-saliva frets not,

Frets not snivel or oozy rheumy nostril.

Yet such purity lacks not e'en a purer.

White those haunches as any cleanly-silver'd

Salt, it takes you a month to barely dirt them.

Then like beans, or inert as e'er a pebble,

Those impeccable heavy loins, a finger's

Breadth from apathy ne'er seduced to riot.

Such prosperity, such superb profusion,

Slight not, Furius, idly nor reject not.

As for sesterces, all the would-be fortune,

Cease to wish it; enough, methinks, the present.

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O thou blossom of all the race Juventian

Not now only, but all as yet arisen,

All to flower in after-years arising;

Midas' treasury better you presented

Him that owns not a slave nor any coffer,

Ere you suffer his alien arm's presuming.

What? you fancy him all refin'd perfection?

Perfect! truly, without a slave, a coffer.

Slight, reject it, away with it; for all that

He, he owns not a slave nor any coffer.

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Smooth Thallus, inly softer you than any furry rabbit,

Or glossy goose's oily plumes, or velvet earlap yielding,

Or feeble age's heavy thighs, or flimsy filthy cobweb;

And Thallus, hungry rascal you, as hurricane rapacious,

When winks occasion on the stroke, the gulls agape declaring:

Return the mantle home to me, you watch'd your hour to pilfer,

The fleecy napkin and the rings from Thynia quaintly graven,

Whatever you parade as yours, vain fool, a sham reversion:

Unglue the nails adroit to steal, unclench the spoil, deliver,

Lest yet that haunch voluptuous, those tender hands caressant,

Should take an ugly print severe, the scourge's heavy branding;

And strange to bruises you should heave, as heaves in open Ocean,

Some little hoy surprised adrift, when wails the windy water.

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Draughts, dear Furius, if my villa faces,

'Tis not showery south, nor airy wester,

North's grim fury, nor east; 'tis only fifteen

Thousand sesterces, add two hundred over.

Draft unspeakable, icy, pestilential!

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Boy, young caterer of Falernian olden,

Brim me cups of a fiercer harsher essence;

So Postumia, queen of healths presiding,

Bids, less thirsty the thirsty grape, the toper.

But dull water, avaunt. Away the wine-cup's

Sullen enemy; seek the sour, the solemn!

Here Thyonius hails his own elixir.

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Starving company, troop of hungry Piso,

Light of luggage, of outfit expeditious,

You, Veranius, you, my own Fabullus,

Say, what fortune? enough of empty masters,

Frost and famine, a lingering probation?

Stands your diary fair? is any profit

Enter'd given ? as I to serve a praetor Count each beggarly gift a timely profit.

Trust me, Memmius, you did aptly finger

My passivity, fool'd me most supinely.

Friends, confess it; in e'en as hard a fortune

You stand mulcted, on you a like abashless

Rake rides heavily. Court the great who wills it!

Gods and goddesses evil heap upon ye,

Rogues to Romulus and to Remus outcast.

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Can any brook to see it, any tamely bear—

If any, gamester, epicure, a wanton, he—

Mamurra's own whatever all the curly Gauls

Did else inherit, or the lonely Briton isle?

Can you look on, look idly, filthy Romulus?

Shall he, in o'er-assumption, o'er-repletion he,

Sedately saunter every dainty couch along,

A bright Adonis, as the snowy dove serene?

Can you look on, look idly, filthy Romulus?

Look idly, gamester, epicure, a wanton, you.

Unique commander, and was only this the plea

Detain'd you in that islet angle of the west,

To gorge the shrunk seducer irreclaimable

With haply twice a million, add a million yet?

What else was e'er unhealthy prodigality?

The waste? to lust a little? on the belly less?

Begin; a glutted hoard paternal; ebb the first.

To this, the booty Pontic; add the spoil from out

Iberia, known to Tagus' amber ory stream.

Not only Gaul, nor only quail the Briton isles.

What help a rogue to fondle? is not all his act

To swallow monies, empty purses heap on heap?

But you—to please him only, shame to Rome, to me!

Could you the son, the father, idly ruin all?

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False Alfenus, in all amity frail, duty a prodigal,

Doth thy pity depart? Shall not a friend, traitor, a friend recal

Love? what courage is here me to betray, me to repudiate?

. . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .Never sure did a lie, never a sin, please the celestials.

This you heed not; alas! leave me to new misery, desolate.

O where now shall a man trust? liveth yet any fidelity?

You, you only did urge love to be free, life to surrender, you.

Guiding into the snare, falsely secure, prophet of happiness.

Now you leave me, retract, every deed, every word allow

Into nullity winds far to remove, vapoury clouds to bear.

You forget me, but yet surely the Gods, surely remembereth

Faith; hereafter again honour awakes, causeth a wretch to rue.

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O thou of islands jewel and of half-islands,

Fair Sirmio, whatever o'er the lakes' clear rim

Or waste of ocean, Neptune holds, a two-fold pow'r;

What joy have I to see thee, and to gaze what glee!

Scarce yet believing Thunia past, the fair champaign

Bithunian, yet in safety thee to greet once more.

From cares to part us—where is any joy like this?

Then drops the soul her fardel, as the travel-tir'd