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

Is ready there, when space on hand, nor object

Nor any cause retards, no marvel 'tis

That things are carried on and made complete,

Perforce. And now, if store of seeds there is

So great that not whole life-times of the living

Can count the tale...

And if their force and nature abide the same,

Able to throw the seeds of things together

Into their places, even as here are thrown

The seeds together in this world of ours,

'Tmust be confessed in other realms there are

Still other worlds, still other breeds of men,

And other generations of the wild.

Hence too it happens in the sum there is

No one thing single of its kind in birth,

And single and sole in growth, but rather it is

One member of some generated race,

Among full many others of like kind.

First, cast thy mind abroad upon the living:

Thou'lt find the race of mountain-ranging wild

Even thus to be, and thus the scions of men

To be begot, and lastly the mute flocks

Of scaled fish, and winged frames of birds.

Wherefore confess we must on grounds the same

That earth, sun, moon, and ocean, and all else,

Exist not sole and single—rather in number

Exceeding number. Since that deeply set

Old boundary stone of life remains for them

No less, and theirs a body of mortal birth

No less, than every kind which here on earth

Is so abundant in its members found.

Which well perceived if thou hold in mind,

Then Nature, delivered from every haughty lord,

And forthwith free, is seen to do all things

Herself and through herself of own accord,

Rid of all gods. For—by their holy hearts

Which pass in long tranquillity of peace

Untroubled ages and a serene life!—

Who hath the power (I ask), who hath the power

To rule the sum of the immeasurable,

To hold with steady hand the giant reins

Of the unfathomed deep? Who hath the power

At once to roll a multitude of skies,

At once to heat with fires ethereal all

The fruitful lands of multitudes of worlds,

To be at all times in all places near,

To stablish darkness by his clouds, to shake

The serene spaces of the sky with sound,

And hurl his lightnings,—ha, and whelm how oft

In ruins his own temples, and to rave,

Retiring to the wildernesses, there

At practice with that thunderbolt of his,

Which yet how often shoots the guilty by,

And slays the honourable blameless ones!

Ere since the birth-time of the world, ere since

The risen first-born day of sea, earth, sun,

Have many germs been added from outside,

Have many seeds been added round about,

Which the great All, the while it flung them on,

Brought hither, that from them the sea and lands

Could grow more big, and that the house of heaven

Might get more room and raise its lofty roofs

Far over earth, and air arise around.

For bodies all, from out all regions, are

Divided by blows, each to its proper thing,

And all retire to their own proper kinds:

The moist to moist retires; earth gets increase

From earthy body; and fires, as on a forge,

Beat out new fire; and ether forges ether;

Till nature, author and ender of the world,

Hath led all things to extreme bound of growth:

As haps when that which hath been poured inside

The vital veins of life is now no more

Than that which ebbs within them and runs off.

This is the point where life for each thing ends;

This is the point where nature with her powers

Curbs all increase. For whatsoe'er thou seest

Grow big with glad increase, and step by step

Climb upward to ripe age, these to themselves

Take in more bodies than they send from selves,

Whilst still the food is easily infused

Through all the veins, and whilst the things are not

So far expanded that they cast away

Such numerous atoms as to cause a waste

Greater than nutriment whereby they wax.

For 'tmust be granted, truly, that from things

Many a body ebbeth and runs off;

But yet still more must come, until the things

Have touched development's top pinnacle;

Then old age breaks their powers and ripe strength

And falls away into a worser part.

For ever the ampler and more wide a thing,

As soon as ever its augmentation ends,

It scatters abroad forthwith to all sides round

More bodies, sending them from out itself.

Nor easily now is food disseminate

Through all its veins; nor is that food enough

To equal with a new supply on hand

Those plenteous exhalations it gives off.

Thus, fairly, all things perish, when with ebbing

They're made less dense and when from blows without

They are laid low; since food at last will fail

Extremest eld, and bodies from outside

Cease not with thumping to undo a thing

And overmaster by infesting blows.

Thus, too, the ramparts of the mighty world

On all sides round shall taken be by storm,

And tumble to wrack and shivered fragments down.

For food it is must keep things whole, renewing;

'Tis food must prop and give support to all,—

But to no purpose, since nor veins suffice

To hold enough, nor nature ministers

As much as needful. And even now 'tis thus:

Its age is broken and the earth, outworn

With many parturitions, scarce creates

The little lives—she who created erst

All generations and gave forth at birth

Enormous bodies of wild beasts of old.

For never, I fancy, did a golden cord

From off the firmament above let down

The mortal generations to the fields;

Nor sea, nor breakers pounding on the rocks

Created them; but earth it was who bore—

The same to-day who feeds them from herself.

Besides, herself of own accord, she first

The shining grains and vineyards of all joy

Created for mortality; herself

Gave the sweet fruitage and the pastures glad,

Which now to-day yet scarcely wax in size,

Even when aided by our toiling arms.

We break the ox, and wear away the strength

Of sturdy farm-hands; iron tools to-day

Barely avail for tilling of the fields,

So niggardly they grudge our harvestings,

So much increase our labour. Now to-day

The aged ploughman, shaking of his head,

Sighs o'er and o'er that labours of his hands

Have fallen out in vain, and, as he thinks

How present times are not as times of old,

Often he praises the fortunes of his sire,

And crackles, prating, how the ancient race,

Fulfilled with piety, supported life

With simple comfort in a narrow plot,

Since, man for man, the measure of each field

Was smaller far i' the old days. And, again,

The gloomy planter of the withered vine

Rails at the season's change and wearies heaven,

Nor grasps that all of things by sure degrees

Are wasting away and going to the tomb,

Outworn by venerable length of life.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

O thou who first uplifted in such dark

So clear a torch aloft, who first shed light

Upon the profitable ends of man,

O thee I follow, glory of the Greeks,

And set my footsteps squarely planted now

Even in the impress and the marks of thine—

Less like one eager to dispute the palm,

More as one craving out of very love

That I may copy thee!—for how should swallow

Contend with swans or what compare could be

In a race between young kids with tumbling legs

And the strong might of the horse? Our father thou,