Letter 21

Do you judge that your business is with those men of whom you had written? Your greatest business is with yourself; you are a trouble to yourself. You do not know what you want; you approve the honourable better than you pursue it; you see where happiness is placed, but you dare not come to it. And what it is that hinders you, since you yourself discern it too little, I will tell you. You judge these things to be great which you are about to leave, and, when you have set before yourself that security to which you are to pass over, the glitter of this life from which you are about to withdraw holds you fast, as though you were about to fall into things squalid and obscure.

You err, Lucilius; from this life one ascends to that. What the difference is between brilliance and light, since the one has a sure origin and its own, while the other shines with a borrowed light, this is the difference between this life and that: this is struck by a brilliance coming from without, and whoever stands in the way will straightway make a thick shadow for it; that is luminous with its own light. Your studies will make you famous and noble.

I will repeat the example of Epicurus. When he was writing to Idomeneus and calling him back from a showy life to a faithful and steadfast glory—Idomeneus, then a minister of the royal power, and one who handled great affairs—he says: "If you are touched by glory, my letters will make you more renowned than all those things which you cultivate and on account of which you are cultivated."

Did he then lie? Who would know Idomeneus, had not Epicurus graven him with his letters? Deep oblivion has buried all those grandees and satraps, and the king himself from whom Idomeneus's title was sought. The letters of Cicero do not suffer the name of Atticus to perish. It would have profited him nothing to have Agrippa for a son-in-law, and Tiberius for a grandson-in-law, and Drusus Caesar for a great-grandson; amid such great names he would be passed over in silence, had not Cicero bound him to himself.

The deep gulf of time will come over us; a few minds will lift up their head, and, though one day to pass into the same silence, will resist oblivion and lay long claim to themselves. What Epicurus could promise his friend, this I promise you, Lucilius. I shall have favour with posterity; I can lead forth with me names destined to endure. Our Virgil promised an eternal memory to two men, and makes it good: "Happy pair! If my songs have any power, no day shall ever blot you from the memory of the ages, while the house of Aeneas shall dwell beside the immovable rock of the Capitol, and the Roman father shall hold his empire."

Whomsoever Fortune has brought into the open, whoever have been the limbs and parts of another's power—their favour flourished, their house was thronged, while they themselves stood; after them, memory quickly failed. But the esteem of men of genius grows, and not only is honour paid to them, but whatever has clung to their memory is received with it.

That Idomeneus may not have come into my letter for nothing, he shall himself ransom it from his own store. It was to him that Epicurus wrote that noble saying, by which he urges him to make Pythocles rich, but not by the common nor the doubtful road. "If you wish," he says, "to make Pythocles rich, you must not add to his money, but subtract from his desire."

That saying is too plain to need interpreting, and too eloquent to need helping out. This one thing I admonish you: do not think it was spoken only of riches. Wherever you transfer it, it will hold the same. "If you wish to make Pythocles honourable, you must not add to his honours, but subtract from his desires. If you wish Pythocles to be in perpetual pleasure, you must not add to his pleasures, but subtract from his desires. If you wish to make Pythocles old and to fill out his life, you must not add to his years, but subtract from his desires."

There is no reason for you to judge these utterances to be Epicurus's own; they are common property. What is wont to be done in the Senate I think should be done in philosophy too: when someone has voted a measure that pleases me in part, I bid him divide his motion, and I follow what I approve. The more gladly do I recall those distinguished sayings of Epicurus, that those men may understand who flee to him for an evil purpose, who hope they will have his name as a cloak for their vices, that, wherever they go, they must live honourably.

When you come to his little gardens and find written upon them: "Guest, here you will fare well; here pleasure is the highest good," there will be ready the keeper of that dwelling, hospitable and kindly, who will receive you with barley-meal and serve up water too in plenty, and will say: "Have you been well received? These little gardens do not provoke hunger, but quench it; nor do they make a greater thirst by the very drinks, but allay it by a natural and costless remedy. In this pleasure I have grown old."

I am speaking with you of those desires which admit no consolation, to which something must be given that they may cease. For about those extraordinary ones, which one may put off, may chastise and crush, I will give this one reminder: that pleasure is natural, but not necessary; to it you owe nothing; whatever you spend on it is voluntary. The belly does not listen to precepts; it demands, it duns. Yet it is no troublesome creditor; it is dismissed for a small sum, provided you give it what you owe, not what you can. Farewell.