1Do you think you have trouble with those people about whom you had written? 1The greatest trouble you have is with yourself; 1you are a trouble to yourself. 1You do not know what you want; 1you approve of what is honourable better than you follow it; 1you see where happiness is placed, but you do not dare to reach it. 1But what it is that hinders you, since you yourself hardly discern it, I shall tell you. 1You think these things great which you are about to leave, and when you have set before yourself that freedom from care to which you are about to cross, the glitter of this life from which you are about to retire holds you back, as though you were going to fall into squalor and obscurity.
2You are wrong, Lucilius; 2from this life one climbs up to that one. 2The difference between glitter and light, since light has a sure source of its own and glitter shines with another's, is the difference between this life and that; 2this life is struck by a gleam coming from outside, and whoever stands in its way will at once cast a thick shadow over it; 2that life is illustrious by its own light. 2Your studies will make you famous and noble. 3I shall cite the example of Epicurus. 3When he was writing to Idomeneus and recalling him from a showy life to faithful and stable glory, Idomeneus being then a minister of a stern power and handling great affairs, he said: 'If you are touched by glory, my letters will make you better known than all those things which you court and for whose sake you are courted.' 4Did he lie, then?
4Who would know Idomeneus, if Epicurus had not engraved him in his letters? 4All those grandees and satraps, and the king himself, from whom Idomeneus derived his title, deep oblivion has buried. 4Cicero's letters do not allow the name of Atticus to perish. 4It would have done him no good to have Agrippa as son-in-law, Tiberius as grandson-in-law, and Drusus Caesar as great-grandson; 4among such great names he would be passed over in silence, had not Cicero attached him to himself. 5The deep tide of time will roll over us; a few talents will lift their heads, and though destined at some point to depart into the same silence, they will resist oblivion and long maintain their freedom.
5What Epicurus could promise his friend, this I promise you, Lucilius. 5I shall find favour with posterity; I can bring out with me names that will endure. 5Our Virgil promised two men eternal remembrance, and he makes it good: 'Fortunate pair! 5If my songs have any power, 5no day shall ever take you from the memory of time, while the house of Aeneas dwells by the Capitol's immovable rock and the Roman father holds empire.' 6Whomever fortune has brought forward into public view, whoever have been the limbs and parts of another's power, their favour has flourished and their house has been thronged as long as they themselves stood; 6after them their memory has quickly failed.
6The esteem of men of talent grows, and not only is honour paid to them, but whatever has clung to their memory is welcomed. 7So that Idomeneus may not have come into my letter for nothing, he shall pay for it out of his own funds. 7It was to him that Epicurus wrote that famous saying, in which he urges him to make Pythocles rich, not by the common and hazardous road. 7'If you want,' he says, 'to make Pythocles rich, you must not add to his money, but subtract from his desire.' 8This saying is both too plain to need interpreting and too eloquent to need help. 8I warn you of this one thing, not to think that this was said only of riches; 8wherever you transfer it, it will have the same force.
8If you want to make Pythocles honourable, you must not add to his honours, but subtract from his desires. 8If you want Pythocles to be in perpetual pleasure, you must not add to his pleasures, but subtract from his desires; 8if you want to make Pythocles an old man and to fill up his life, you must not add to his years, but subtract from his desires. 9There is no reason for you to judge that these sayings belong to Epicurus; 9they are public property. 9What is usually done in the senate, I think should be done in philosophy too: when someone has proposed a motion part of which I like, I bid him divide his motion, and I follow the part I approve.
9I recall the excellent sayings of Epicurus all the more willingly so that I may prove to those who take refuge with him, led on by an evil hope, who think that they will have a cloak for their vices, that wherever they go they must live honourably. 10When you approach his little gardens and read the inscription on them, 'Stranger, here you will fare well; here pleasure is the highest good,' the keeper of that dwelling will be ready, hospitable and kindly, and will receive you with barley-meal and serve you water too in plenty and say: 'Have you been well entertained?' 10'These little gardens,' he says, 'do not provoke hunger, but quench it.
10Nor do they make thirst greater by the very drinks, but soothe it with a natural remedy that costs nothing. 10In this pleasure I have grown old.' 11I am speaking to you of those desires which do not admit consolation, to which something must be given so that they may cease. 11For as to those extraordinary ones, which one may put off, may chastise and suppress, I shall remind you of this one thing: that pleasure is natural, not necessary; 11to it you owe nothing; 11if you spend anything on it, it is voluntary. 11The belly does not listen to precepts; 11it demands, it duns. 11Yet it is not a troublesome creditor; 11it is sent away with little, if only you give it what you owe, not what you can.
11Farewell.