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.    

Những bức thư đạo đức là tuyển tập các bức thư của triết gia Seneca về Chủ nghĩa Khắc Kỷ, nhằm trang bị cho con người hành trang để đối mặt và mỉm cười trước sóng gió của cuộc đời, đạt được sự bình thản trong tâm trí. Cuốn sách không chỉ về triết học, mà còn về 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.
                                                   
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. 

Lưu ý: vì một số lý do như nội dung không còn quá sát và cần thiết với thời hiện tại, mình sẽ không dịch 4 bức số 58, 85, 92, 95 nhé. Nếu bạn nào muốn tìm hiểu thêm thì bản tiếng Anh có sẵn trên Wiki, hay có thể nhắn cho mình mình sẽ gửi bản pdf sách.

Bức thư số 93

Thứ ta cần lo lắng không phải là việc ta, hay những người thân quen ta, sống được bao lâu, mà là ta sống như thế nào. Vì, để sống thọ, bạn cần sự hỗ trợ của vận mệnh; nhưng để sống một cuộc đời tốt đẹp, bạn chỉ cần sức mạnh trong chính mình mà thôi.

From Seneca to Lucilius
Greetings
1 Th e regrets you expressed when writing to me about the death of
the philosopher Metronax seemed to suggest that he could have lived
longer, and indeed should have.* I missed that sense of fairness that
you show in abundance when dealing with every person or business
matter, but lack at this one point—as does everyone else. In my experience,
many people are fair in their attitudes toward human beings,
but no one is fair toward the gods. Every day we reproach fate, saying:
“Why was this man carried off in the middle of his career? Why not
that other person? Why is he prolonging an old age that is a burden
to himself as well as others?”
2 Look: Which do you think is fairer, for nature to obey you or for
you to obey nature? What does it matter how soon you leave a place
that you have to leave eventually? What we need to be concerned
about is not how long we live but whether we live suffi ciently. For
a long life, you need the help of fate; but to live suffi ciently, the essential
thing is one’s character.* A life is long if it is full, and it is full
only when the mind bestows on itself the goodness that is proper to
it, claiming for itself the authority over itself. 3 What help are eighty
years to a person who has spent his life in doing nothing? Such a
person has not lived; he has simply hung around in life. Rather than
dying in old age, he has spent a long time dying. You say, “He lived
eighty years.” What matters is the date from which you count his
death.
4 “But that person died in his prime.” Still, he performed the
functions of a good citizen, a good friend, and a good son. He did
not fall short in any role. Although his lifetime was incomplete, his
life actually was complete. “Th at other person lived eighty years.” Th e
truth is, rather, that he existed that long—unless perhaps by “lived”
you mean that he lived in the sense we apply that word to trees. Look
here, Lucilius: let’s try to make our lives valuable in the way that precious objects are valued, not by size but by weight. Let’s measure our
life by its performance, not by its duration.
Do you want to know the diff erence between the vigorous man,
the one who scorns fortune, the veteran in all life’s campaigns who
has made it to life’s ultimate good, and one who has merely had
many years pass over him? Th e former is still there after death, while
the latter was already dead before his death. 5 So we should praise
and congratulate the person whose time has been well invested, no
matter how short that time has been. He has seen the true light, has
not been just one of the crowd, has lived and has thrived. Th ere are
times when he has enjoyed clear weather, and many more when he
experienced only fl ashes of sunlight. Why do you ask how long he
lived? He is still alive, having leapt across into posterity and entrusted
himself to our memory.
6 Don’t think, mind you, that I am going to refuse any addition
of years. But if my life’s span is cut short, I will not say that I have
missed anything contributing to happiness. I have not prepared myself
for living right up to the last day that I have greedily hoped for;
rather, I have viewed every day as if it were my last. Why do you ask
when I was born, or whether I am still enrolled on the young men’s
register? I have what belongs to me. 7 Just as one of small stature
can be a complete human being, so too a life of less duration can be
complete. Age is something external. How long I am to exist does
not belong to me; what is mine is authentic existence. Th is you can
demand of me—that I not measure out a humdrum age in obscurity;
that I live my life, not pass it by.
8 You are asking about the length of the most abundant life. It’s
living until you have attained wisdom. Anyone who gets that far has
achieved not the greatest length of life but the greatest goal of life.
Boldly will he take pride in his achievement, thanking the gods—
himself among them—and giving nature the credit for his existence.
He will be quite right in his accounting, because he has given back to
nature a better life than he received. He has established the model of a
good man; he has indicated the quality and the magnitude of the good.
If he had added a longer lifetime, it would have been like his own past.*
9 How long in fact should we live? We have achieved knowledge
of the universe. We know the origins of nature’s development, how it organizes the world, through what changes it restores the year, and
how it contains all that will ever be and makes itself its own goal. We
know that the stars move by their own force, that nothing besides
the earth is stationary, and that the remaining bodies proceed with
unceasing speed. We know how the moon overtakes the sun and why,
though it is slower, it leaves what is faster behind; we know how the
moon receives or loses its light, and the causes that bring on night
and restore day. You need to go to where you can get a nearer view
of these things.
10 “And yet,” says the wise man, “I don’t depart more bravely because
I believe that I am traveling straight to my gods. I have earned
admission to them; I have already been with them and dispatched my
thoughts to them, and they have sent me theirs. But suppose that I
am obliterated, with nothing of my humanity surviving my death. I
am equally confi dent even if I depart with nowhere to go.”*
11 “He could have lived a lot longer.” Yes, but a book can consist
of just a few verses and still be admirable and useful. You know how
voluminous the Annals of Tanusius are and what people say about
them.* Some people live long lives with just the same result. 12 Do you
judge the man who is slain on the fi nal day of the games to be more
fortunate than the one who dies during the middle? Do you think
anyone is so stupidly eager for life that he prefers to be butchered in
the stripping circle rather than in the arena?* One of us precedes the
other by no larger an interval. Death visits everyone; the slayer follows
close on the slain. Th is thing that is taken to be so troubling is a trifl e.
What does it matter how long you evade what you cannot escape?

Farewell.

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