[Stoicism] - Dịch Seneca (66): Về sự ngang hàng giữa những phẩm cách và những thứ thực sự tốt đẹp của con người!

Lời tựa:   
               
Như đã giới thiệu trong series, Seneca thực sự là nguồn cảm hứng Stoicism của mình. Đọc Seneca không chỉ là về triết học mà còn là một trải nghiệm nghệ thuật, khi những bài học, triết lý quan trọng được phản ánh qua những hình ảnh quen thuộc, bình dị và đời thường, thể hiện cái tinh tế trong quan sát của một thiên tài với sự từng trải của cuộc đời. 
                                     
Với hy vọng giới thiệu Stoicism đến với các bạn trẻ Việt Nam, xin gửi tới các bạn bản dịch những bức thư quan trọng nhất trong cuốn "Moral Letters to Lucilius", tác phẩm đã làm nên tên tuổi của Seneca và là một trong bộ ba cuốn sách nền tảng của Stoicism.     
                                                   
Do không phải anh dịch thuật, nên bản dịch này hoàn toàn tập trung vào việc truyền tải thông điệp và hy vọng có thể giúp bạn cảm thấy dễ dàng hơn trong việc tiếp cận với bản tiếng Anh, để có thể thấy cái hay cái đẹp trong việc sử dụng ngôn từ của Seneca (dù thực ra bản tiếng Anh cũng chỉ là một bản dịch). Một anh bạn người Ý của mình đã chia sẻ Seneca được đưa vào chương trình giảng dạy tại Ý như một bậc thầy về việc sử dụng ngôn từ. Vì vậy, xin cam đoan tất cả những gì khiến bạn cảm thấy trúc trắc từ bản dịch là bởi khả năng hạn chế của mình, và rất mong nhận được đóng góp của các cao nhân để bản dịch được hoàn thiện hơn. 

Bức thư số 66

Nhưng thay vào đó, tôi sẽ trả lời thế này: "Có những sự khác biệt lớn giữa vui sướng và đau khổ. Nếu được lựa chọn, tôi sẽ chọn một thứ và tránh thứ còn lại; vì một thứ thì thuận theo tự nhiên, thứ kia trái với nó. Nếu xét theo tiêu chí ấy, chúng thực sự rất khác biệt. Nhưng ngay khi ta đánh giá chúng theo tiêu chí về phẩm cách, chúng sẽ trở về cân bằng; một bên phẩm cách thể hiện nó trong tình huống vui vẻ, còn bên còn lại nó tự hiển lộ qua sự khó khăn. Sự khó chịu và đau đớn và bất cứ thứ gì không thoải mái khác đều không quan trọng: chúng bị áp chế bởi phẩm cách. Cũng giống như cách ánh sáng mặt trời khiến ngọn đèn trở nên tù mù: sức mạnh tuyệt đối của phẩm cách làm mất hết tất cả những đau đớn, thiếu tiện nghi, và cả những vết thương. Bất cứ khi nào nó chiếu sáng, mọi thứ xuất hiện khi nó vắng mặt đều bị gạt bỏ; và khi chúng gặp phẩm cách, những sự thiếu tiện nghi ấy không có ảnh hưởng gì hơn là một trận mưa trên đại dương".

Phẩm cách thì vẫn sẽ luôn được tôn vinh, bất kể ta tìm thấy nó trong một người khỏe mạnh và tự do hay trọng một người yếu đuối bệnh tật và bị gông cùm. Vậy nên đừng coi trọng phẩm cách của bạn nếu vận mệnh ban cho bạn một cơ thể toàn vẹn và khỏe mạnh hơn là nếu nó cho bạn một cơ thể có những thiếu sót. Điều đó cũng giống như đánh giá giá trị của một người chủ qua cách ăn mặc của người nô lệ của ông ta. Vì tất cả mọi thứ thuộc về may mắn và sự xoay chuyển của vận mệnh chỉ là thứ phục vụ ta mà thôi: tiền bạc, cơ thể, danh tiếng. Chúng không bền vững, nhất thời, và có thể bị lấy mất khỏi ta. Ngược lại, phẩm cách thì tự do và không thể bị chế ngự. Chúng không đáng để ta cố gắng đạt được hơn chỉ vì vận mệnh thiên vị đối xử với chúng hơn, và cũng không mất đi giá trị khi vận mệnh nghiệt ngã với chúng.

Không ai yêu mảnh đất quê hương vì nó giàu có, mà vì nó là quê hương.

From Seneca to Lucilius
Greetings
1 I have just seen Claranus, after a lapse of many years. He was a fellow
student of mine—and, as I am sure you have fi gured out already,
he is now elderly. But he is indeed youthful and lively in spirit, and
is struggling against his paltry body.* Nature did not play fair when
it placed a mind like his in such poor lodgings. Or perhaps that was
exactly what nature wanted to show us: that no matter what the
exterior, a very brave, very fi ne mind may lie within. Still, he has
conquered every obstacle, and by not being concerned about himself
has learned not to be concerned about other things. 2 I think the
poet was mistaken when he said, “and virtue, more admired in comely
fi gure.”* For virtue needs nothing to ennoble it: it is its own great
ornament, and makes sacred the body it inhabits.
Certainly I have begun to see our friend Claranus in a new way:
he seems quite handsome to me, and as upright in stature as he is in
spirit. 3 A great man may come out of a hovel; a great and handsome
mind from a lowly and misshapen body.* I think nature must have
made some people as they are just to prove that there is nowhere
virtue cannot be born. If it could have produced minds with no clothing
at all, it would have; but in fact it does something even better:
it produces some people who are handicapped by their bodies and yet manage to break through everything that stands in their way.
4 Claranus was born as an example, I think, to help us realize that a
misshapen body does not disfi gure the mind; rather, a beautiful mind
adorns the body. Anyway, although we spent only a very few days
together, we did have many conversations, which I will now write
out and send to you.
5 On the fi rst day, our topic for discussion was this: how can all
goods be equal to one another if they are of threefold status? It is
the position of our school that some goods are primary—for instance
joy, peace, the safety of one’s homeland—while others are secondary,
manifested in unfortunate material, such as endurance under torture
or self-control during serious illness. Th e former goods we choose
for ourselves unconditionally, the latter if it becomes necessary. And
there are still the tertiary goods, such as a modest walk, a calm and
dignifi ed facial expression, and gestures befi tting an intelligent person.*
6 How can all these be equal to one another, when some are
choiceworthy and others worthy of avoidance?*
If we want to sort these things out, let’s go back to the principal
good and consider what kind of thing it is. Th e spirit that gazes at
what is real, that knows what to pursue and to avoid, that assigns
value to things in accordance with nature and not by opinion—the
spirit that injects itself into the cosmos as a whole and casts its contemplation
over every action of the universe—the spirit that attends
equally to thought and to action—that great and forceful spirit, not
vanquished by adversity nor again by the blandishments of prosperity,
that does not yield itself up to either but rises above all contingency,
all accident—that most beautiful spirit, well marshaled in grace and
likewise in strength, sound and sober, tranquil and undismayed—that
spirit that no power can subdue, no chance event can either elevate
or depress—that sort of spirit is what virtue is. 7 Th is is what it looks
like if it displays the whole of itself at once, in a single viewing. But
its specifi cities are many, for they are displayed in each change of life
and in each activity, while virtue itself becomes neither less nor more.
For the supreme good cannot diminish, and neither is virtue permitted
to retreat; rather, it is transformed fi rst into one quality and
then into another, shaped according to the condition of the things
it is about to do.* 8 Whatever it touches, it attracts and tinctures
with its own likeness; it adorns actions, friendships, sometimes entire households which it has entered and put in order. Whatever
it handles, it makes lovable, remarkable, admirable. Its power, its
magnitude, cannot increase any more, if only because that which is
greatest has no augmentation. When a thing is right, you will fi nd
nothing more right, any more than a thing can be truer than what is
true, or more temperate than what is temperate.* 9 Every virtue is in
the limit, and a limit has a fi xed measurement.* Consistency has no
further to go, any more than confi dence or truthfulness or loyalty. If
a thing is perfect, what can be added to it? Nothing, or else that to
which the addition is made was not perfect before. Hence nothing
can be added to virtue either: if anything can be added to it, it was
lacking before. Neither can any addition be made to that which is
honorable: it is honorable for the very reasons I have given. And what
else? Don’t you agree that that which is seemly has the same form,
bounded by defi nite endpoints? And likewise what is just and lawful?
Th e possibility of increase shows that a thing is imperfect.
10 Every good is subject to these same terms. Private utility is
linked to public utility, indeed just as much as what is praiseworthy
cannot be separated from what one ought to pursue. Th us it
is that the virtues are equal to one another, as also are the deeds of
virtue and all persons who possess the virtues. 11 When it comes to
plants and animals, though, since they themselves are mortal, their
virtues too are defeasible, transitory, and uncertain; they ebb and fl ow,
and for that reason are not assigned the same value. Human virtues
come under a single rule, for right reason itself is single and uniform.
Nothing is more divine than the divine; nothing more celestial than
the celestial.
12 Mortal things rise° and fall; they dwindle and grow; they are
emptied and fi lled; and for that reason they are as uneven as their lot
is unstable. Th ings that are divine have but one nature. But reason
is nothing other than a portion of the divine breath submerged in
the human body.* If reason is divine, and there is no good without
reason, then every good is divine. Furthermore, there is no distinction
among things that are divine and so no distinction among goods
either. Th erefore there is equality between joy on the one hand and
stouthearted endurance of torture, for there is the same greatness of
spirit in both: relaxed and expansive in the one, concentrated and
combative in the other. 13 Why not? Do you think the courage of one who bravely assails the enemy’s fortifi cations is not equaled by the
courage that sustains that assault with tremendous endurance? Do
you think the greatness of Scipio, who laid siege to Numantia and
forced those unconquered hands to turn to their own destruction, is
not equaled by the greatness of the besieged, who knew that no one
is surrounded as long as he has access to death, as long as he expires
in the embrace of liberty?* In just the same way are the remaining
goods equal to one another: calmness, forthrightness, generosity,
consistency, serenity, endurance. For what underlies them all is the
one thing, virtue, which supplies an upright and unwavering spirit.
14 “What do you mean? Is there no diff erence between joy and
unbending endurance of pain?” None as concerns the virtues themselves;
but there is a great deal of diff erence in the manner in which
each is displayed, for in the one instance there is a natural relaxation
and expansion of the mind; in the other pain, which is contrary to
nature. For that reason, these things that admit of such vast diff erentiation
are intermediates; yet the virtue that is in each is equal. 15 Th e
material does not alter the virtue: diffi cult material does not make it
worse, and cheerful, happy material does not make it better. Hence
they are necessarily equal. For in both cases, what is done is done just
as rightly, just as intelligently, just as honorably; therefore the goods
are equal. Neither can this one person conduct himself any better in
his joy, nor that one in his torments. But two things that cannot be
made better must be equal to each other.
16 For if matters external to virtue can either diminish or augment
it, then what is honorable ceases to be the sole good. If you
concede that, then the honorable ceases to exist altogether.* Why?
I’ll tell you: because no action is honorable when performed by one
who is unwilling or under compulsion. Everything that is honorable
is voluntary. Mingle with it any reluctance, any complaint, any
second thoughts, any fear, and it loses its best feature: it is no longer
self-determined. Timorousness implies slavishness, and that which is
unfree cannot be honorable. 17 Everything that is honorable is free of
anxiety; it is tranquil. If a person refuses something, complains of it,
thinks it is bad, then he is disturbed and welters in grievous confl ict:
on one side, rectitude appears and summons him; on the other, harm
is suspected and causes him to withdraw. For this reason, one who is
about to behave honorably does not consider what stands in his way to be harmful, not even if he fi nds it uncomfortable; rather he wills
it and performs it gladly. Everything that is honorable is unbidden,
unforced; it is wholehearted; it has no association with anything bad.
18 I know what response I may get at this point: “Are you trying
to persuade us that it makes no diff erence whether someone feels joy
or stays on the rack till he exhausts the torturer?”
To this my reply could have been as follows: “Even Epicurus says
that the sage, if roasted in the bull of Phalaris, will say, ‘It is pleasant;
it does not matter to me at all.’* Why are you surprised, then, if I say
there is equality in goods between one reclining at dinner and one
standing up to torture, when Epicurus says what is even harder to
believe, that it is pleasurable to be tortured?”
19 But instead I make this reply: “Th ere is a great diff erence between
joy and pain. If I am asked to choose, I will pursue one and
avoid the other; for the one is in accordance with nature, the other
contrary to it. As long as they are evaluated in this way, they are very
far apart; and yet when it comes to virtue, the two are equal; one
virtue proceeds through happy circumstances, the other through sad
ones. 20 Vexation and pain and anything else that is uncomfortable
have no signifi cance: they are overpowered by virtue. Just as the
brightness of the sun causes our little lamps to grow dim, so it is with
virtue: the sheer scale of it blots out all pains, discomforts, and hurts.
Wherever it sheds its radiance, everything that appears in its absence
is snuff ed out; and when they encounter virtue, our discomforts play
no larger part than does a rain shower in the ocean.”*
21 Here is how you may know that this is the case: if an action is
fi ne, a good man will plunge into it without any hesitation. Th e executioner
may be standing there, the torturer, the fl ame; yet he will persevere,
his eyes being fi xed on what he is to do, not what he will endure.
He will entrust himself to the honorable deed as to a good man, and
will regard it as useful—safe—profi table for himself. Th e action that
is honorable, but harsh and diffi cult, will have the same standing with
him as a good man has when he is poor or in exile, or thin and pale.
22 Come, now, suppose that over here is a good man who has
abundance of wealth; over there one who possesses nothing but himself,
yet in himself possesses everything. Both are equally good, even
if the fortunes allotted them are quite unequal. I repeat: the judgment
we apply to persons is equally applicable to their circumstances. 

23 Virtue is just as praiseworthy when found in a body that is
healthy and free as it is in one that is sick and in chains. So do not
esteem your own virtue any more highly if fortune has provided it
with a whole and sound body than you would if its body were disfi gured
in some way. Th at would be like judging the worth of a master
by how his slaves are dressed. For all these things that belong to the
domain of chance are servants: money, the body, reputation. Th ey
are weak, transitory, mortal, unstable in possession. By contrast, the
works of virtue are free and unconquered. Th ey are not more worthy
of pursuit just because fortune deals kindly with them, nor are they
less worthy of pursuit when circumstances are hostile.
24 Pursuit in the circumstances of our lives works the same as
friendship among people. If your friend is a good man, I don’t suppose
you would love him any more for being wealthy rather than
poor, or for being tough and muscular rather than thin and feeble in
body. In your circumstances too, then, you won’t go after something
more, or love it more, for being cheerful and peaceful than for being
anxious and laborious. 25 Or if you would, then between two equally
good men you would also be fonder of the one who has had a bath
and a rubdown than the one who is covered with dust and needs a
shave. Next, you would go so far as to feel more aff ection for one
who is uninjured and in possession of all his limbs than one who is
crippled or blind in one eye. Bit by bit, you would become so fi nicky
that between two who are equally honorable and intelligent, you
would choose the one with long, curly hair! When virtue is equal in
both, their inequality in other respects does not count.* For all those
other features are not parts of them but mere additions to them.
26 Within the family, does any parent make such unfair estimations
as to love a healthy child more than a sick one, or a fi ne, tall
son more than a short or middle-sized child? Wild beasts do not
draw distinctions among their cubs: when they lie down to nurse,
they feed them all alike. Birds distribute equal shares of food to all
their nestlings. Ulysses is in just as much of a hurry to get back to his
rocky isle of Ithaca as Agamemnon is to return to the noble ramparts
of Mycenae. No one loves his homeland because it is great, but only
because it is his.
27 What is the point of these comparisons? To show you that
virtue looks on all its works with unbiased eyes as its own off spring, giving them all an equal measure of devotion. If anything, the more
unstinting devotion is given to those in diffi culties. Just as parental
love inclines more toward the child who is the object of pity, so it is
with virtue, which, when certain of its works appear to be in danger
or trouble, does not love them more, but like a good parent gives
them more attention and more nurturing.
28 Why is no good greater than any other? Because nothing is
more apt than what is apt, nothing more level than what is level.
When one thing is equal to another, you cannot say that something
else is more equal to it. Neither, then, is anything more honorable
than what is honorable. 29 But if all the virtues are of an equal nature,
then the three types of good are on a par. Th is is what I mean:
rejoicing temperately is on a par with suff ering temperately. Gladness
there does not surpass fi rmness of mind here, that bites back its
cries under the torturer. Th ose goods are desirable, these are worthy
of admiration; nonetheless, both are equal, since the potency of the
greater good is enough to defend against any discomfort there may
be. 30 Anyone who thinks they are unequal is turning his eyes away
from the virtues themselves and looking around at externals. True
goods have the same weight, the same extent. Th ose false goods are
largely hollow: they seem large and comely to the eye; but when they
are summoned to the scales, they prove deceptive. 31 So it is, dear
Lucilius: anything commended by true reasoning is solid and lasting;
it strengthens the mind and lifts it to the skies, to remain there
always.* Th ose things that are praised without good reason, that are
goods according to the popular account, merely puff us up, causing
us to delight in empty things. And again, those supposed evils that
instill such terror alarm our minds in just the same way as animals do
when they make a show of being dangerous. 32 On both sides, then,
it is without cause that these things expand our minds and gnaw at
them: the former are not worthy of joy, nor the latter of fear.*
Reason alone is unchangeable and steadfast in its judgment, for it
is not the slave of the senses but their commander. Reason is equal to
reason, just as right is equal to right. Th us virtue is likewise equal to
virtue, for virtue is nothing other than right reason. All the virtues are
reasoning processes:* if they are right, they are reasoning processes,
and if they are right, they are also equal. 33 As reason is, so are the activities of reason; therefore they too are all equal. For since they
resemble reason, they also resemble one another.
My claim is that the actions are equal to one another insofar
as they are honorable and right. But there will still be big distinctions
among them through diff erences in their material. Th e material
is sometimes wider, sometimes narrower; sometimes of high rank,
sometimes humble; sometimes pertaining to many, sometimes to
only a few; still, what is best in all these actions is equal, for they are
all honorable. 34 It is the same as with good men: they are all equal
insofar as they are good, but they have diff erences in age (one is older,
another younger); and in body (one is handsome, another ugly); and
in fortune (one is rich, another poor; that one is well connected, powerful,
known among cities and peoples, this one generally unknown
and obscure). Yet as concerns their goodness, they are equal.
35 Sensation makes no judgment concerning goods and evils; it
does not know what is useful and what is not. It cannot render an
opinion unless it is conveyed into the presence of its object. It is not
such as to look ahead to the future or remember the past; it knows
nothing of logical relations. Yet logical relations tie together the entire
progression of time and the unity of a life that is to travel a straight
path.* Reason, then, is the arbiter of what is good and bad, and reason
holds cheap whatever is external and not its own. Th ose things which
are neither good nor bad are in its judgment very small and trivial
additions; for as far as reason is concerned, every good is in the mind.
36 But there are some goods that it regards as primary, goods that it
approaches deliberately—for instance victory, good children, the welfare
of one’s homeland—others as secondary, goods that show up only
in adverse circumstances—for instance bearing disease, fi re, or exile
with equanimity—and still others as intermediates, goods that are no
more in accordance with nature than they are contrary to nature; for
instance walking sensibly, sitting with composure. For sitting is not
more in accordance with nature than standing or walking. 37 Th e fi rst
two types of good diff er from one another. Th e primary goods are in
accordance with nature: rejoicing in the devotion of one’s children,
in the safety of one’s homeland. Th e secondary goods are contrary to
nature: courageously standing up to torture and enduring thirst when
one’s vital organs are parched by disease.

38 “What’s that? Is anything contrary to nature a good?” No, but
at times that in which the good is manifested is contrary to nature.
Being wounded, or being roasted over a slow fi re, or being affl icted
with ill health is contrary to nature, but preserving an unfl agging
spirit amid such trials is in accordance with nature. 39 To put it
briefl y: the material of the good is sometimes contrary to nature; but
the good never is, since there is no good without reason, and reason
follows nature.
What, then, is reason? Th e imitation of nature. What is the highest
good of the human being? Behaving as nature intended.
40 “Th ere can be no doubt that peace that never meets with strife
is more fortunate than peace regained through much bloodshed.
Th ere can be no doubt that undisturbed health is a more fortunate
thing than health achieved by main force and endurance out of serious
and life-threatening illnesses. In the same way, there can be no
doubt that joy is a greater good than a mind shored up to endure
the torments of injury and the fl ame.” 41 No, for those chance occurrences
admit of tremendous diff erentiation: they are evaluated
by the usefulness of those who take them on. One of the goods is a
determination to be in agreement with nature; this is equal in all of
them. When we vote in favor of someone in the Senate, it cannot be
said that one senator was more in agreement than another. Everyone
voted the same way. I say the same about the virtues: all of them are
in agreement with nature. And I say the same about goods: all of
them are in accordance with nature. 42 One person dies in his youth,
another in old age, another right away in infancy, after having only
a glimpse of life—all of them were equally mortal, even if death allowed
some people’s lives to last longer, cut off others in their bloom,
and interrupted the very beginning of others.
43 One man collapses at dinner; another dies as a continuation of
sleep; another is done in by sexual intercourse. Compare with these
the people who are run through by the sword or killed by snakebite
or crushed by collapsing buildings—or tortured slowly to death by
the gradual twisting and contracting of their sinews. Some of these
can be said to have had a better ending, some a worse; but their
deaths, in point of fact, are equal. What they have been through is
diff erent; what they have come to is one. No death is larger or smaller,
for it has the same limit in every case—the end of a life. 44 I say the same to you about goods. Th is good is among unmitigated pleasures,
that one amid bitter trials; the one has fortune’s lavishness to govern,
the other fortune’s violence to subdue—and both are equally good,
though one has walked a soft and level way, the other a rocky road.
For all of them have the same end: they are goods; they are praiseworthy;
they are the companions of virtue and reason. Virtue counts
as equal all things it recognizes as good.
45 Why should you be surprised to fi nd this among our doctrines?
In Epicurus there are two goods, the components of his highest and
happiest good: that the body should be free of pain, the mind free of
disturbance.* Th ese goods do not increase if they are fulfi lled: how
is what is fulfi lled going to increase? Th e body is free of pain; what
can be added to this absence of pain? Th e mind is in agreement with
itself and is calm; what can be added to this tranquility? 46 Just as
a cloudless sky, washed with pure brightness from one side to the
other, does not admit of any greater clarity, so when a person cares
for both body and mind, and builds his good from both, his state is
perfect. If there is no turmoil in his mind and no pain in his body,
then his wish is fully achieved. If any further delights come his way,
they do not augment his highest good but season it, as it were, and
enhance it. For that ultimate good of human nature is restricted to
peace of body and mind.
47 I will show you a division of goods in Epicurus that is again
very similar to this one of ours. In his works, there are some things
which he prefers to have happen to him—such as “rest for the body,
free from every discomfort, and relaxation for the mind as it rejoices
in contemplating its own goods”—and other things which, although
he prefers them not to happen, he nonetheless praises and regards
with favor, including what I was talking about a little while ago: the
endurance of ill health and of very severe pain. Th at is what Epicurus
himself went through on that “last and most blessed day” of his life.
For he said that the torments he was experiencing from his bladder
and from stomach ulcers were “such as do not admit of any increase
of pain,” but that all the same that was a “blessed day” for him.* But
one cannot spend a blessed day unless he is in possession of the highest
good. 48 Th us even in Epicurus there are these goods that you
would prefer not to experience, but that when they do occur are to be
embraced—praised—considered equal with the very best goods. It’s not possible to deny that this was a good equal to the very greatest
goods when it is what brought a blessed life to its conclusion—what
Epicurus gave thanks for with his dying breath.
49 Most excellent Lucilius, allow me to say something even more
bold. If any goods could be greater than others, I would have given
preference to these goods more than those others; I’d have said that
the harsh ones are greater than the soft, luxurious kind. For beating
down one’s diffi culties is greater than governing one’s delights.
50 True, a person handles felicity well for the same reason as he deals
bravely with disaster. Th e soldier who rests at ease outside the camp,
since no enemy is on the attack, can be just as brave as the one who,
though hamstrung, stays upright on his knees and does not let his
weapons drop; still, the cry of “Well done, brave men!” is heard only
by those who come back bloody from the front. So these are the
goods I would praise: the courageous ones, the ones that have been
tried and tested, the ones that have done battle with fortune.
51 Would I hesitate to praise Mucius’s maimed and blistered hand
above the unharmed hand of another, brave as that person might be?*
Th ere he stood, with nothing but scorn for a ring of enemies with
their fl ames. He watched his own hand withering on his enemy’s
brazier, until Porsenna, whose eff orts at punishment he was assisting,
grew jealous of his glory and ordered that the fi re be taken from him
against his will. 52 Why shouldn’t I list this as one of the primary
goods? Why shouldn’t I think it greater than those goods that are
carefree, untested by fortune—just as much greater as it is less common
to defeat an enemy with a missing hand than with a hand that
wields a sword?
“What’s that?” you say. “Is this a good you will choose for yourself?”
Why shouldn’t I? If such a deed cannot be chosen—yes, even
chosen—then it cannot be done at all. 53 Should I choose rather to
stretch out my hands for my catamites to massage the knuckles? For
some courtesan, or some man turned courtesan, to stroke my fi ngertips?
Why shouldn’t I think Mucius more fortunate? He reached out
to touch the fl ame just as if he were reaching out to be touched by
the masseur! He put right whatever errors he had made; he won his
war when weaponless and maimed. With that one mangled hand he
conquered a pair of kings.

Farewell.

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