Letter 79

I am waiting for your letters, in which you may tell me what new sights your tour around the whole of Sicily has shown you, and above all some surer information about Charybdis itself. For that Scylla is a rock, and indeed not one to be feared by sailors, I know very well; but whether Charybdis answers to the stories told of it I should like you to write to me, and, if you have observed it, since the thing is worth the watching, to inform me whether it is whipped up by one wind only, or whether every storm equally churns up that sea, and whether it is true that whatever is caught in that whirlpool's eddy is carried under the water for many miles and only thrown up again near the shore of Tauromenium.

If you have written me all this in full, then I shall be bold to charge you, in my honour, to climb Aetna too, which some conclude is being consumed and gradually sinking, from the fact that once it used to be visible to those sailing at a greater distance. This may happen, not because the height of the mountain has come down, but because the fire has died away and is carried up less violently and abundantly, and for the same reason the smoke too is lazier by day. Yet neither claim is incredible, neither that the mountain, which is daily devoured, is shrinking and does not remain the same, since the fire does not eat away the mountain itself, but blazes up out of some hollow basin in its depths and feeds elsewhere, so that the fire has not the mountain as its fuel, but as its passage.

In Lycia there is a most famous region, called Hephaestion by the inhabitants, with the ground pierced in several places, which a harmless fire wanders round without any damage to growing things. And so the region is lush and grassy, the flames burning nothing, but only gleaming with a force that is remitted and faint.

But let us reserve these matters to inquire into then, when you have written to me how far the snows lie from the very mouth of the mountain, snows which not even summer melts; so safe are they from the neighbouring fire. But there is no reason for you to charge this labour to my account. For you were going to indulge your own enthusiasm, even if no one bade you do it.

What shall I give you not to describe Aetna in your poem, not to touch this set theme handled by every poet? Whether Ovid had already treated the subject was no hindrance to Virgil's doing it. That both had touched it did not deter Cornelius Severus. And the place has been fortunate for all of them, and those who went before, it seems to me, did not use up the matter, but opened the way.

It makes a great difference whether you come to a subject already worked over, or to one still unbroken; it grows day by day, and what has been found does not stand in the way of those who are to find more. Besides, the last comer is in the best position: he finds words ready to hand, which, marshalled otherwise, take on a new face. Nor does he lay hands on them as on another's property. For they are public.

Either I do not know you, or Aetna sets your mouth watering. You already long to write something grand and a match for your predecessors. For your modesty will not let you hope for more; it is so great in you that you seem to me likely to rein in the strength of your talent, should there be any danger of surpassing them; so great is your reverence for those before you.

Among its other goods wisdom has this: no one can be conquered by another, except while he is still ascending. When you have come to the summit, all is level; there is no growing, the place is the standing-place. Does the sun increase its size? Does the moon advance beyond its accustomed fullness? The seas do not grow. The universe keeps the same fashion and the same measure.

Things that have reached their proper greatness cannot raise themselves higher. Whoever are wise will be peers and equals. Each of them will have his own gifts: one will be more affable, another readier, another quicker in speech, another more eloquent; but that of which we are speaking, the thing that makes a man happy, is equal in them all.

Whether your Aetna can fall away and tumble in upon itself, whether the unceasing force of its fires will drag down that lofty peak, conspicuous over the wide reaches of the sea, I do not know; but neither flame nor ruin will bring virtue down lower. This majesty alone knows not how to be brought low. It can neither be carried further nor brought back. Its greatness is fixed, like that of the heavenly bodies. Toward this let us strive to lift ourselves.

Already much of the work is done; nay rather, if I would confess the truth, not much. For it is no goodness to be better than the worst. Who would boast of his eyes who can barely make out the daylight? A man for whom the sun shines through a mist, though he may be content for the time to have escaped the darkness, does not yet enjoy the good of the light.

Then will our mind have cause to congratulate itself, when, released from this darkness in which it wallows, it has caught sight of bright things, not with feeble vision, but has let in the whole day and been given back to its own heaven, when it has recovered the place it held by the lot of its birth. Its origin calls it on high. It will be there even before it is freed from this prison, when it has scattered its vices and, pure and light, has darted forth into divine thoughts.

To do this, dearest Lucilius, to throw all our energy into this, it is a joy, even though few know it, even though no one. Glory is the shadow of virtue; it will accompany virtue even against her will. But as the shadow sometimes goes before, sometimes follows or is at the back, so glory is sometimes before us and offers itself to be seen, sometimes is behind, and the later it comes the greater, when envy has withdrawn.

How long did Democritus seem to rave! Fame barely received Socrates. How long did the state ignore Cato! It spurned him and did not understand him, until it had lost him. The innocence and virtue of Rutilius would have lain hidden, had he not suffered wrong; while he was being wronged it blazed forth. Did he not give thanks to his lot and embrace his exile? I speak of those whom fortune has made illustrious while it harasses them; how many men's attainments came to be known only after themselves! How many has fame not received, but disinterred!

You see how greatly Epicurus is admired, not only by the more learned, but by this crowd of the ignorant as well. Yet he was unknown to Athens itself, near which he lay hidden. And so, having survived his friend Metrodorus by many years, he added in a certain letter, after he had sung in grateful remembrance of his own friendship and that of Metrodorus, this last point: that among such great blessings it had done no harm to himself and Metrodorus that that noble Greece had not only not known them, but had scarcely heard of them.

Was he not, then, discovered after he had ceased to be? Did not his reputation shine forth? Metrodorus too confesses this in a certain letter, that he and Epicurus were not sufficiently known; but that after them he and Epicurus would have a great and ready-made name, for those who should wish to walk in the same footsteps.

No virtue lies hidden, and to have lain hidden is no loss to virtue itself. A day will come that will make public what was buried and crushed by the malice of its own age. He was born for few who thinks only of the people of his own time. Many thousands of years, many peoples will come after; look to them. Even if envy has imposed silence on all who live with you, there will come those who will judge without offence and without favour. If there is any reward of virtue from fame, this too does not perish. The talk of those who come after will indeed be nothing to us; yet, though we do not feel it, it will cherish us and keep us in remembrance.

To no one, living or dead, has virtue failed to bring its return, if only he has followed it in good faith, if he has not adorned and painted himself, but has been the same whether he was seen by appointment or unprepared and on the sudden. Pretence accomplishes nothing. A mask lightly applied from without deceives few; the truth is the same in every part of itself. The things that deceive have nothing solid in them. A lie is thin; it shows through, if you look at it carefully. Farewell.