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

The gliding fires of ether are alive—

What still the primal germs nowise could do,

Unless from out the infinite of space

Could come supply of matter, whence in season

They're wont whatever losses to repair.

For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,

Losing its body, when deprived of food:

So all things have to be dissolved as soon

As matter, diverted by what means soever

From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.

Nor can the blows from outward still conserve,

On every side, whatever sum of a world

Has been united in a whole. They can

Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part,

Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;

But meanwhile often are they forced to spring

Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield,

Unto those elements whence a world derives,

Room and a time for flight, permitting them

To be from off the massy union borne

Free and afar. Wherefore, again, again:

Needs must there come a many for supply;

And also, that the blows themselves shall be

Unfailing ever, must there ever be

An infinite force of matter all sides round.

And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far

From yielding faith to that notorious talk:

That all things inward to the centre press;

And thus the nature of the world stands firm

With never blows from outward, nor can be

Nowhere disparted—since all height and depth

Have always inward to the centre pressed

(If thou art ready to believe that aught

Itself can rest upon itself ); or that

The ponderous bodies which be under earth

Do all press upwards and do come to rest

Upon the earth, in some way upside down,

Like to those images of things we see

At present through the waters. They contend,

With like procedure, that all breathing things

Head downward roam about, and yet cannot

Tumble from earth to realms of sky below,

No more than these our bodies wing away

Spontaneously to vaults of sky above;

That, when those creatures look upon the sun,

We view the constellations of the night;

And that with us the seasons of the sky

They thus alternately divide, and thus

Do pass the night coequal to our days,

But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,

Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse

For centre none can be where world is still

Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,

Could aught take there a fixed position more

Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.

For all of room and space we call the void

Must both through centre and non-centre yield

Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.

Nor is there any place, where, when they've come,

Bodies can be at standstill in the void,

Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void

Furnish support to any,—nay, it must,

True to its bent of nature, still give way.

Thus in such manner not at all can things

Be held in union, as if overcome

By craving for a centre.

But besides,

Seeing they feign that not all bodies press

To centre inward, rather only those

Of earth and water (liquid of the sea,

And the big billows from the mountain slopes,

And whatsoever are encased, as 'twere,

In earthen body), contrariwise, they teach

How the thin air, and with it the hot fire,

Is borne asunder from the centre, and how,

For this all ether quivers with bright stars,

And the sun's flame along the blue is fed

(Because the heat, from out the centre flying,

All gathers there), and how, again, the boughs

Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves,

Unless, little by little, from out the earth

For each were nutriment...

Lest, after the manner of the winged flames,

The ramparts of the world should flee away,

Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void,

And lest all else should likewise follow after,

Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst

And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith

Withdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk,

Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven,

With slipping asunder of the primal seeds,

Should pass, along the immeasurable inane,

Away forever, and, that instant, naught

Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside

The desolate space, and germs invisible.

For on whatever side thou deemest first

The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side

Will be for things the very door of death:

Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash,

Out and abroad.

These points, if thou wilt ponder,

Then, with but paltry trouble led along...

For one thing after other will grow clear,

Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road,

To hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth.

Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds

Roll up its waste of waters, from the land

To watch another's labouring anguish far,

Not that we joyously delight that man

Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet

To mark what evils we ourselves be spared;

'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife

Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains,

Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught

There is more goodly than to hold the high

Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,

Whence thou may'st look below on other men

And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed

In their lone seeking for the road of life;

Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,

Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil

For summits of power and mastery of the world.

O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts!

In how great perils, in what darks of life

Are spent the human years, however brief!—

O not to see that nature for herself

Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off,

Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy

Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear!

Therefore we see that our corporeal life

Needs little, altogether, and only such

As takes the pain away, and can besides

Strew underneath some number of delights.

More grateful 'tis at times (for nature craves

No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth

There be no golden images of boys

Along the halls, with right hands holding out

The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,

And if the house doth glitter not with gold

Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound

No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,

Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass

Beside a river of water, underneath

A big tree's boughs, and merrily to refresh

Our frames, with no vast outlay—most of all

If the weather is laughing and the times of the year

Besprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.

Nor yet the quicker will hot fevers go,

If on a pictured tapestry thou toss,

Or purple robe, than if 'tis thine to lie

Upon the poor man's bedding. Wherefore, since

Treasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reign

Avail us naught for this our body, thus

Reckon them likewise nothing for the mind:

Save then perchance, when thou beholdest forth

Thy legions swarming round the Field of Mars,

Rousing a mimic warfare—either side

Strengthened with large auxiliaries and horse,

Alike equipped with arms, alike inspired;

Or save when also thou beholdest forth

Thy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea: