Letter 53

What is there that I cannot be persuaded to do, when I let myself be persuaded to go to sea? I set sail on a sluggish water. The sky, to be sure, was heavy with dirty clouds, the kind that commonly dissolve either into rain or into wind. But I thought that the few miles from your Parthenope as far as Puteoli could be slipped through, however doubtful and threatening the sky. And so, to get clear the more quickly, I headed straight out across the deep toward Nesis, meaning to cut off all the bays.

When we had now gone so far that it made no difference to me whether I went on or turned back, first that smoothness which had seduced me vanished. There was not yet a storm, but already a heaving of the sea, and the waves growing more frequent in turn. I began to beg the helmsman to put me ashore somewhere. He kept saying that the coast there was rough and harborless, and that in a storm he feared nothing so much as the land.

But I was racked too badly for the danger to occur to me. For a sluggish, never-ending nausea was tormenting me — the kind that stirs the bile but does not bring it up. So I pressed the helmsman and forced him, willing or not, to make for the shore. As soon as we reached the neighborhood of it, I did not wait for any of Virgil's precepts to be carried out — "they turn the prows to the sea" or "the anchor is cast from the bow"; mindful of my old craft, a veteran devotee of cold water, I threw myself into the sea, as befits a cold-bather, in my rough cloak.

What do you suppose I endured, while I crawled over the rocks, while I sought a path, while I made one? I understood that not without reason do sailors fear the land. Incredible are the things I bore, when I could not bear myself; be assured of this — Ulysses was not born to so wrathful a sea that he made shipwreck everywhere; he was prone to seasickness. And I, wherever I have to sail, shall arrive in the twentieth year.

As soon as I had pulled my stomach together — which, as you know, does not escape the nausea any more than it escapes the sea — and refreshed my body with rubbing-oil, I began to reflect with myself how great a forgetfulness of our faults pursues us; even of the bodily ones, which keep reminding us of themselves — much more of those that lie the more hidden the greater they are.

A slight feverish twinge deceives a man; but when it has grown and a true fever has blazed up, it wrings a confession even from the hard man, the man who can endure anything. The feet ache, the joints feel little pricks; still we dissemble, and say either that we have wrenched an ankle or have strained ourselves in some exercise. While the disease is doubtful and beginning, its name is sought; but once it has begun to bind the ankles too and to make both feet right feet, then there is no escape — one must confess to gout.

The opposite happens with those diseases by which the mind is afflicted: the worse a man's condition, the less he feels it. There is no reason for you to wonder, dearest Lucilius. For the man who sleeps lightly both takes in images during his rest and sometimes, while sleeping, thinks that he is asleep; a heavy slumber blots out even dreams and plunges the mind too deep for it to have any awareness of itself.

Why does no one confess his vices? Because he is still in them. To tell one's dream is the act of a man awake, and to confess one's vices is a sign of health. Let us wake up, then, that we may be able to convict our errors. But it is philosophy alone that will rouse us, philosophy alone that will shake off the heavy sleep. To her dedicate yourself wholly. You are worthy of her, she is worthy of you; go into one another's embrace. Refuse yourself to all other things — boldly, openly. There is no reason to philosophize as a thing begged for on sufferance.

If you were ill, you would have left off the care of your household and your business in the forum would have slipped from you, nor would you count anyone so important that you would go down to plead for him in your time of remission. With your whole mind you would aim at one thing, to be freed as soon as possible from the disease. What then? Will you not do the same now too? Dismiss all hindrances and have leisure for a good mind; no one busy with affairs arrives at it. Philosophy exercises her sovereignty; she gives time, she does not take it. She is no spare-time occupation; she is the regular business. She is mistress; she bids us attend.

When a certain state promised Alexander a part of its fields and half of all its goods, he said: "I came into Asia with this purpose — not to receive what you might give, but that you should keep what I might leave you." Philosophy says the same to all things: "I am not going to accept the time that is left over for you, but you shall have that which I myself have rejected."

Turn your whole mind hither, sit beside her, court her; a vast interval will open between you and the rest of men. You will far outstrip all mortals, and the gods will not far outstrip you. You ask what the difference between you and them will be? They will last longer. But, by Hercules, it is the mark of a great artist to have shut up the whole within a narrow space. To the wise man his own span lies as fully open as all eternity lies open to god. There is even a respect in which the wise man surpasses god: god is free from fear by the gift of Nature, the wise man by his own.

Here is a great thing — to have the weakness of a man, the security of a god. Incredible is the power of philosophy to beat back every blow of chance. No weapon lodges in her body; she is fortified, solid. Some weapons she wears out and, as if they were light darts, eludes with a loose fold of her robe; others she shatters and flings back upon the very man who hurled them. Farewell.