1I have seen Aufidius Bassus, the best of men, shattered and wrestling against his years. 1But they now weigh him down more than he can be raised up; 1old age has settled on him with a great, indeed its whole, weight. 1You know that he was always of a weak and wasted body. 1For a long time he held it together and, to put it more truly, held it on; 1suddenly it gave out. 2Just as in a ship that is shipping water, one or another leak can be stopped, but when it has begun to loosen and give way in very many places, the gaping vessel cannot be saved; 2so in an aged body the weakness can be borne and propped up to a certain point.
2When, as in a rotting building, every joint is pulling apart, and while one is being shored up another is splitting, you must look about for a way out. 3Yet our Bassus is brisk in spirit. 3This is what philosophy provides: to be cheerful in the sight of death, and in any state of body brave and glad, and not failing, though one's strength fails. 3A great helmsman sails on even with a torn sail, and, if he has lost his rigging, still fits what remains of the ship for the voyage. 3This is what our Bassus does, and he watches his own end with such a spirit and expression that you would think him too unconcerned if he were watching another's.
4It is a great thing, Lucilius, and one that takes long learning, to depart with a calm mind when that inevitable hour approaches. 4Other kinds of death are mixed with hope: an illness ends, a fire is put out, a collapse has set down unharmed those it seemed about to crush; 4the sea has thrown out safe and sound those it had swallowed, with the same force with which it sucked them in; 4the soldier has drawn back his sword from the very neck of the man about to die. 4The man whom old age leads to death has nothing to hope for. 4For him alone there can be no intervention.
4In no way do people die more gently, but also in none more slowly. 5Our Bassus seemed to me to be attending his own funeral, laying himself out, and living as though he had outlived himself, and bearing the loss of himself wisely. 5For he talks a great deal about death, and works hard to persuade us that, if there is anything unpleasant or frightening in this business, it is the fault of the dying man, not of death; 5that there is no more trouble in death itself than after it. 6And the man who fears what he will not suffer is as mad as the man who fears what he will not feel.
6Or does anyone believe it will come about that that through which nothing is felt should itself be felt? 6'Therefore,' he says, 'death is so far beyond all evil that it is beyond all fear of evils.' 7I know that these things have often been said and must often be said, but they did not help me as much when I read them, nor when I heard them from those who said they were not to be feared, being far from any fear of them themselves; 7this man, however, had the greatest authority with me, since he was speaking of a death that was near. 8For I shall say what I think: I believe that the man who is in the very act of dying is braver than the one who is near death.
8For death brought close has given even the untrained the courage not to avoid the unavoidable. 8So the gladiator, most fearful throughout the whole fight, offers his throat to his opponent and guides the wavering sword to himself. 8But a death that is close at hand and sure to come requires a slow, lasting firmness of mind, which is rarer and cannot be shown except by the wise man. 9So I listened to him most gladly, as if he were delivering a verdict on death and reporting what its nature was, as though he had inspected it at closer quarters. 9A man would have more credit with you, I think, more weight, if he had come back to life and reported from experience that there is nothing evil in death; 9what disturbance the approach of death brings, those will tell you best who have stood beside it, who have both seen it coming and welcomed it.
10Among these you may count Bassus, who did not wish us to be deceived. 10He says that the man who fears death is as foolish as the one who fears old age. 10For just as old age follows youth, so death follows old age. 10He who does not want to die did not want to live. 10For life was given on the condition of death; 10towards this we are going. 10How mad it is, then, to fear it, since what is certain is awaited, and only what is doubtful is feared! 11Death has a necessity that is fair and unconquerable. 11Who can complain that he is in a condition in which everyone is?
11And the first part of fairness is equality. 11But it is superfluous now to plead the cause of nature, who wished our law to be no other than her own; 11whatever she has put together she takes apart, and whatever she has taken apart she puts together again. 12Now if it has befallen anyone that old age released him gently, not torn suddenly from life but withdrawn little by little; 12truly it is right for him to give thanks to all the gods that, having had his fill, he has been brought to a rest necessary to man and welcome to the weary. 12You see some people longing for death, and indeed more than life is usually prayed for.
12I do not know which I should consider to give us greater courage, those who demand death or those who await it cheerfully and calmly, since the former comes at times from madness and sudden indignation, while the latter is a tranquillity born of sure judgement. 12A man sometimes goes to death in anger; 12no one welcomes death cheerfully as it comes, unless he has long been preparing himself for it. 13I confess, then, that I visited this man, who is dear to me, more often for several reasons, to learn whether I would find him the same every time, whether the vigour of his mind was diminishing along with the strength of his body.
13But it grew in him, just as the joy of charioteers is usually seen more plainly when, on the seventh lap, they draw near the prize. 14He used to say, following the teachings of Epicurus, first that he hoped there was no pain in that last gasp; 14but that if there were, there was some comfort in its very brevity. 14For no pain that is great is long. 14Besides, he would find help even in the very separation of soul and body, if it came with torment, in the thought that after that pain he could feel pain no more. 14He had no doubt, moreover, that an old man's soul was already on the edge of his lips and would not be torn from the body with great force.
14'A fire that has seized on fuel that feeds it must be put out with water and sometimes by pulling down the building; 14one that lacks nourishment dies down of its own accord.' 15I listen to these things gladly, my Lucilius, not as new, but as though brought face to face with the fact itself. 15What then? 15Have I not watched many breaking off their lives? 15I have indeed seen them, but those carry more weight with me who come to death without hatred of life, and let it in rather than drag it to them. 16He used to say that it is our own doing that we feel that torment, because we tremble when we believe death is near us.
16For from whom is it not near, when it is ready in every place and at every moment? 16'But let us consider,' he said, 'when some cause of death seems to be approaching, how much nearer are others which are not feared.' 16An enemy was threatening someone with death; indigestion got there first. 17If we are willing to distinguish the causes of our fear, we shall find that some are real and others only seem so. 17We do not fear death, but the thought of death. 17For from death itself we are always just as far away. 17So if death is to be feared, it is always to be feared.
17For what time is exempt from death? 18But I ought to be afraid that you may hate such long letters worse than death. 18So I shall make an end. 18But you, so that you may never fear death, must always think of it. 18Farewell.