1Wherever I have turned, I see proofs of my old age. 1I had come to my place near the city and was complaining about the expense of a building that was falling to pieces. 1My bailiff tells me that it is not the fault of any neglect on his part, that he is doing everything, but that the house is old. 1This house grew up under my hands; 1what is to become of me, if stones of my own age are so crumbling? 2Angry with him, I seize the next opportunity to vent my irritation. 2'It is plain,' I say, 'that these plane trees are neglected; 2they have no leaves.
2How knotted and parched the branches are, how gloomy and shabby the trunks! 2This would not happen if someone dug round them, if someone watered them.' 2He swears by my guardian spirit that he is doing everything, that his care is slack in nothing, but that they are old trees. 2Between ourselves, I had planted them myself, I had seen their first leaf. 3Turning towards the door, 'Who is that?' 3I say, 'that decrepit fellow, rightly set down by the doorway? 3For he is facing outwards. 3Where did you pick him up? 3What pleasure did you find in taking up someone else's dead?' 3But he: 'Do you not know me?' 3he asked.
3'I am Felicio, to whom you used to bring little figurines. 3I am the son of Philositus the bailiff, your little pet.' 3'The man,' I say, 'is completely raving. 3Has a little boy even become my pet? 3It is quite possible; 3his teeth are falling out just now.' 4I owe this to my place near the city, that my old age showed itself to me wherever I had turned. 4Let us embrace it and love it; 4it is full of pleasure, if you know how to use it. 4Fruits are most welcome when they are passing; 4childhood's greatest charm is at its end; 4those given to wine are delighted by the last drink, the one that drowns them, that puts the finishing touch to drunkenness.
5What every pleasure holds most delightful within it, it puts off until its end. 5Most delightful is the age that is already sloping downwards, yet is not yet headlong. 5And I judge that even the age that stands on the last tile of the roof has its own pleasures. 5Or else this very thing takes the place of pleasures: to need none. 5How sweet it is to have worn out one's desires and left them behind. 6'It is irksome,' you say, 'to have death before one's eyes.' 6First, it ought to be before the eyes of an old man as much as of a young one. 6For we are not summoned in the order of the census list.
6Second, no one is so old that it is shameless for him to hope for one more day. 6And one day is a step of life. 6The whole of life is made up of parts and has circles drawn round it, larger round smaller. 6There is one that embraces and encircles all; 6this reaches from birthday to the last day. 6There is another that encloses the years of youth. 6There is one that binds the whole of childhood within its compass. 6Then there is the year by itself, containing within it all the seasons, by whose multiplication life is made up. 6The month is girded by a narrower ring. 6The day has the tightest circuit, but even this comes from beginning to end, from rising to setting.
7That is why Heraclitus, whose nickname came from the obscurity of his speech, said, 'One day is equal to every day.' 7This was taken by one man one way, by another another. 7For one said that it was equal in hours, and he does not lie; 7for if a day is a period of twenty-four hours, all days must be equal to one another, because the night has what the day has lost. 7Another says that one day is equal to all in likeness; 7for the longest span of time has nothing that you would not find in a single day too, light and night, and through eternity the days make more of these alternations, not at one time more contracted, at another more drawn out.
8Therefore every day should be ordered as if it were bringing up the rear and rounding off and completing our life. 8Pacuvius, who made Syria his own by long possession, when he had held his own funeral rites with wine and those funeral banquets, used to be carried from dinner to his bedroom in such a way that, amid the applause of his debauched favourites, this was sung to music: 'He has lived, he has lived!' 9There was no day on which he did not carry himself out to burial. 9What he did from a bad conscience, let us do from a good one, and as we go to sleep let us say, glad and cheerful: 'I have lived, and the course that fortune had given I have run.' 9If God adds a tomorrow, let us receive it gladly.
9That man is happiest and the untroubled master of himself who awaits tomorrow without anxiety. 9Whoever has said 'I have lived' rises every day to a profit. 10But now I must close my letter. 10'Is it to come to me like this,' you say, 'without any little present?' 10Do not be afraid; 10it brings something with it. 10Why did I say 'something'? 10A great deal. 10For what is more splendid than this saying, which I hand to it to carry to you? 10'It is an evil to live under necessity; 10but there is no necessity to live under necessity.' 10Why, of course there is none. 10On every side many paths lie open to freedom, short and easy.
10Let us give thanks to God that no one can be held fast in life. 10We may trample on the necessities themselves. 11'Epicurus,' you say, 'said that. 11What business have you with another's property?' 11What is true is mine. 11I shall go on heaping Epicurus upon you, so that those who swear by a master's words, and weigh not what is said but by whom, may know that the best things are common property. 11Farewell.