On the Shortness of Life

I. The greater part of mankind, my Paulinus, complains of the unkindness of Nature, because we are born only for a short space of time, and that this allotted period of life runs away so swiftly, nay so hurriedly, that with but few exceptions men’s life comes to an end just as they are preparing to enjoy it: nor is it only the common herd and the ignorant vulgar who mourn over this universal misfortune, as they consider it to be: this reflection has wrung complaints even from great men. Hence comes that well-known saying of physicians, that art is long but life is short: hence arose that quarrel, so unbefitting a sage, which Aristotle picked with Nature, because she had indulged animals with such length of days that some of them lived for ten or fifteen centuries, while man, although born for many and such great exploits, had the term of his existence cut so much shorter. We do not have a very short time assigned to us, but we lose a great deal of it: life is long enough to carry out the most important projects: we have an ample portion, if we do but arrange the whole of it aright: but when it all runs to waste through luxury and carelessness, when it is not devoted to any good purpose, then at the last we are forced to feel that it is all over, although we never noticed how it glided away. Thus it is: we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one, and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them. When great and kinglike riches fall into the hands of a bad master, they are dispersed straightway, but even a moderate fortune, when bestowed upon a wise guardian, increases by use: and in like manner our life has great opportunities for one who knows how to dispose of it to the best advantage.

一、我的保利努斯，大多数人都抱怨自然不仁，因为我们生来只有短短一段时光，而分给我们的这段生命又跑得那样快，甚至那样匆忙，以至于除了少数例外，人们的生命正当他们准备享受它的时候就结束了。为这桩被他们视为普天之下的不幸而哀叹的，不只是凡夫俗子和无知的大众；这个念头连伟大的人物也逼出了怨言。于是有了医生们那句名言：技艺长久，人生短暂；于是有了亚里士多德与自然的那场争执，这与一位贤哲很不相称：他怪自然厚待动物，让其中一些活上一千年、一千五百年，而人虽然生来要成就那么多、那么大的功业，寿限却被截得短得多。其实分给我们的时间并不很短，只是我们浪费了很多：生命足够长，足以完成最重要的事业；只要我们把它整个安排得当，我们的份额是充裕的；可是当它在奢侈和疏忽中全部流失，没有用于任何好的目的，到了最后，我们才不得不感到一切都已过去，虽然我们从未留意它是怎样悄悄溜走的。事情就是这样：我们得到的生命并不短，是我们把它过短了；我们并不缺少日子，而是挥霍了日子。巨大的、王侯般的财富落到一个不善的主人手里，转眼就散尽了；而即使是一份中等的家产，交给一位明智的守护者，也会因善用而增长：我们的生命也是如此，对于懂得怎样最好地安排它的人，它有许多大好的机会。

II. Why do we complain of Nature? she has dealt kindly with us. Life is long enough, if you know how to use it. One man is possessed by an avarice which nothing can satisfy, another by a laborious diligence in doing what is totally useless: another is sodden by wine: another is benumbed by sloth: one man is exhausted by an ambition which makes him court the good will of others: another, through his eagerness as a merchant, is led to visit every land and every sea by the hope of gain: some are plagued by the love of soldiering, and are always either endangering other men’s lives or in trembling for their own: some wear away their lives in that voluntary slavery, the unrequited service of great men: many are occupied either in laying claim to other men’s fortune or in complaining of their own: a great number have no settled purpose, and are tossed from one new scheme to another by a rambling, inconsistent, dissatisfied, fickle habit of mind: some care for no object sufficiently to try to attain it, but lie lazily yawning until their fate comes upon them: so that I cannot doubt the truth of that verse which the greatest of poets has dressed in the guise of an oracular response—

二、我们为什么要抱怨自然呢？她待我们很仁慈。生命足够长，只要你懂得怎样用它。有的人被永不满足的贪婪攫住，有的人勤勤恳恳地做着全然无用的事；有的人泡在酒里；有的人在懒散中麻木；有的人被一种野心耗尽了力气，这野心让他去讨好别人；有的人急于经商，为了牟利的希望走遍每一片土地、每一片海洋；有的人迷恋军旅，不是在危害别人的性命，就是在为自己的性命发抖；有的人在那种自愿的奴役里，在为大人物效劳而得不到回报中，消磨掉自己的一生；许多人不是在觊觎别人的财产，就是在抱怨自己的财产；很多人没有确定的目标，被一种散漫、反复、不满、善变的心性从一个新计划抛到另一个新计划；有的人对任何目标都不够在意，不肯去争取，只是懒洋洋地打着哈欠，直到命运来临。所以，那位最伟大的诗人装扮成神谕说出的那句诗，我不能不信它是真的——

“We live a small part only of our lives.”

“我们只活了自己生命中的一小部分。”

But all duration is time, not life: vices press upon us and surround us on every side, and do not permit us to regain our feet, or to raise our eyes and gaze upon truth, but when we are down keep us prostrate and chained to low desires. Men who are in this condition are never allowed to come to themselves: if ever by chance they obtain any rest, they roll to and fro like the deep sea, which heaves and tosses after a gale, and they never have any respite from their lusts. Do you suppose that I speak of those whose ills are notorious? Nay, look at those whose prosperity all men run to see: they are choked by their own good things. To how many men do riches prove a heavy burden? how many men’s eloquence and continual desire to display their own cleverness has cost them their lives? how many are sallow with constant sensual indulgence? how many have no freedom left them by the tribe of clients that surges around them? Look through all these, from the lowest to the highest:—this man calls his friends to support him, this one is present in court, this one is the defendant, this one pleads for him, this one is on the jury: but no one lays claim to his own self, every one wastes his time over some one else. Investigate those men, whose names are in every one’s mouth: you will find that they bear just the same marks: A is devoted to B, and B to C: no one belongs to himself. Moreover some men are full of most irrational anger: they complain of the insolence of their chiefs, because they have not granted them an audience when they wished for it; as if a man had any right to complain of being so haughtily shut out by another, when he never has leisure to give his own conscience a hearing. This chief of yours, whoever he is, though he may look at you in an offensive manner, still will some day look at you, open his ears to your words, and give you a seat by his side: but you never design to look upon yourself, to listen to your own grievances. You ought not, then, to claim these services from another, especially since while you yourself were doing so, you did not wish for an interview with another man, but were not able to obtain one with yourself.

其余的一切持续，都只是时间，而不是生活：恶习从四面八方压迫我们、包围我们，不让我们重新站起来，不让我们抬起眼睛凝望真理，而是在我们倒下时把我们压在地上，锁在低下的欲望上。处在这种境地的人，永远不得回到自己：如果偶然得到一点歇息，他们也像大风过后仍在起伏翻腾的深海一样颠来倒去，欲望一刻也不放过他们。你以为我说的是那些恶行昭彰的人吗？不，看看那些人人都跑去观望其荣华的人吧：他们正被自己的好东西噎住。财富对多少人是沉重的负担？多少人的口才和不停卖弄聪明的欲望，让他们丢了性命？多少人因为不断的声色享乐而面色蜡黄？多少人被簇拥在周围的门客夺去了所有的自由？从最低的到最高的，把这些人统统看一遍吧：这个人召朋友来支持他，那个人出庭，这个是被告，那个为他辩护，还有一个是陪审员；可是没有一个人认领自己，每个人都在为别人耗费时间。去查看那些名字挂在每个人嘴边的人吧，你会发现他们带着同样的印记：甲献身于乙，乙献身于丙，没有一个人属于他自己。还有些人满怀最无理的怒气：他们抱怨上司傲慢，因为想见时没有得到接见；仿佛一个人有什么权利抱怨被别人傲慢地拒之门外，而他自己却从来没有闲暇听一听自己良心的话。你的这位上司，不管他是谁，虽然可能用冒犯的眼光看你，总有一天还是会看你，会听你说话，让你坐在他身边；可你却从来不屑看一看你自己，听一听你自己的苦衷。所以，你不该向别人要求这些，尤其是因为你自己在这样要求的时候，并不是想见别人，而是连见自己一面都做不到。

III. Were all the brightest intellects of all time to employ themselves on this one subject, they never could sufficiently express their wonder at this blindness of men’s minds: men will not allow any one to establish himself upon their estates, and upon the most trifling dispute about the measuring of boundaries, they betake themselves to stones and cudgels: yet they allow others to encroach upon their lives, nay, they themselves actually lead others in to take possession of them. You cannot find any one who wants to distribute his money; yet among how many people does every one distribute his life? men covetously guard their property from waste, but when it comes to waste of time, they are most prodigal of that of which it would become them to be sparing. Let us take one of the elders, and say to him, “We perceive that you have arrived at the extreme limits of human life: you are in your hundredth year, or even older. Come now, reckon up your whole life in black and white: tell us how much of your time has been spent upon your creditors, how much on your mistress, how much on your king, how much on your clients, how much in quarrelling with your wife, how much in keeping your slaves in order, how much in running up and down the city on business. Add to this the diseases which we bring upon us with our own hands, and the time which has laid idle without any use having been made of it; you will see that you have not lived as many years as you count. Look back in your memory and see how often you have been consistent in your projects, how many days passed as you intended them to do when you were at your own disposal, how often you did not change colour and your spirit did not quail, how much work you have done in so long a time, how many people have without your knowledge stolen parts of your life from you, how much you have lost, how large a part has been taken up by useless grief, foolish gladness, greedy desire, or polite conversation; how little of yourself is left to you: you will then perceive that you will die prematurely.” What, then, is the reason of this? It is that people live as though they would live for ever: you never remember your human frailty; you never notice how much of your time has already gone by: you spend it as though you had an abundant and overflowing store of it, though all the while that day which you devote to some man or to some thing is perhaps your last. You fear everything, like mortals as you are, and yet you desire everything as if you were immortals. You will hear many men say, “After my fiftieth year I will give myself up to leisure: my sixtieth shall be my last year of public office”: and what guarantee have you that your life will last any longer? who will let all this go on just as you have arranged it? are you not ashamed to reserve only the leavings of your life for yourself, and appoint for the enjoyment of your own right mind only that time which you cannot devote to any business? How late it is to begin life just when we have to be leaving it! What a foolish forgetfulness of our mortality, to put off wholesome counsels until our fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to choose that our lives shall begin at a point which few of us ever reach.

三、即使古往今来所有最明亮的心智都来专心研究这一个题目，他们也永远无法充分表达对人心这种盲目的惊异：人们不容许任何人在自己的田产上落脚，为了丈量地界的一点点争执，就会动用石头和棍棒；可他们却容许别人侵占自己的生命，不，他们甚至亲自领着别人进来占有它。你找不到一个愿意把钱分给别人的人；可是每个人都把自己的生命分给了多少人啊！人们吝啬地守护自己的财产，不让它被浪费；可一说到浪费时间，在那本该最节省的东西上，他们却最为挥霍。让我们从老人中找一位来，对他说：“我们看到你已经到了人寿的极限，你已经一百岁了，或者还更老。来吧，把你的一生白纸黑字地算一算：告诉我们，你有多少时间花在了债主身上，多少花在了情妇身上，多少花在了君王身上，多少花在了门客身上，多少花在了与妻子争吵上，多少花在了管束奴仆上，多少花在了为公事在城里奔走上。再加上我们亲手招来的疾病，加上那些闲置着、毫无用处的时间；你就会看到，你活过的年头并没有你数的那么多。回想一下：你有多少次坚持了自己的计划，有多少天是在你能自己做主时按你的意愿度过的，有多少次你没有变了脸色、没有心惊胆战，在这样长的时间里你做成了多少事，有多少人在你不知不觉中偷走了你生命的一部分，你失去了多少，有多大一部分被无谓的悲伤、愚蠢的欢喜、贪婪的欲望或客套的应酬占去了，留给你自己的又是多么少：那时你就会明白，你将死得太早。”那么，这是什么缘故呢？是因为人们活着，仿佛要永远活下去：你从不记得人的脆弱；你从不留意自己的时间已经过去了多少：你花费它，仿佛你有用不完、满得溢出来的储备，而实际上，你献给某个人或某件事的那一天，也许就是你的最后一天。你们像凡人一样害怕一切，又像不朽者一样欲求一切。你会听到许多人说：“过了五十岁，我就退下来过闲暇的日子；到六十岁，我就卸去最后一任公职。”可你凭什么担保你的生命会延续那么久？谁会让这一切都照你安排的那样进行？你只把生命的残渣留给自己，只把那些不能再用于任何事务的时间留给自己清明的心智去享用，难道不感到羞愧吗？就在我们必须离开生命的时候才开始生活，这是多么晚啊！把有益的打算推迟到五十岁、六十岁，选定让我们的生活从一个我们之中很少有人能到达的地方开始，这是对我们必死之身多么愚蠢的遗忘！

IV. You will find that the most powerful and highly-placed men let fall phrases in which they long for leisure, praise it, and prefer it to all the blessings which they enjoy. Sometimes they would fain descend from their lofty pedestal, if it could be safely done: for Fortune collapses by its own weight, without any shock or interference from without. The late Emperor Augustus, upon whom the gods bestowed more blessings than on any one else, never ceased to pray for rest and exemption from the troubles of empire: he used to enliven his labours with this sweet, though unreal consolation, that he would some day live for himself alone. In a letter which he addressed to the Senate, after promising that his rest shall not be devoid of dignity nor discreditable to his former glories, I find the following words:—”These things, however, it is more honourable to do than to promise: but my eagerness for that time, so earnestly longed for, has led me to derive a certain pleasure from speaking about it, though the reality is still far distant.” He thought leisure so important, that though he could not actually enjoy it, yet he did so by anticipation and by thinking about it. He, who saw everything depending upon himself alone, who swayed the fortunes of men and of nations, thought that his happiest day would be that on which he laid aside his greatness. He knew by experience how much labour was involved in that glory that shone through all lands, and how much secret anxiety was concealed within it: he had been forced to assert his rights by war, first with his countrymen, next with his colleagues, and lastly with his own relations, and had shed blood both by sea and by land: after marching his troops under arms through Macedonia, Sicily, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and almost all the countries of the world, when they were weary with slaughtering Romans he had directed them against a foreign foe. While he was pacifying the Alpine regions, and subduing the enemies whom he found in the midst of the Roman empire, while he was extending its boundaries beyond the Rhine, the Euphrates, and the Danube, at Rome itself the swords of Murena, Caepio, Lepidus, Egnatius, and others were being sharpened to slay him. Scarcely had he escaped from their plot, when his already failing age was terrified by his daughter and all the noble youths who were pledged to her cause by adultery with her by way of oath of fidelity. Then there was Paulus and Antonius’s mistress, a second time to be feared by Rome: and when he had cut out these ulcers from his very limbs, others grew in their place: the empire, like a body overloaded with blood, was always breaking out somewhere. For this reason he longed for leisure: all his labours were based upon hopes and thoughts of leisure: this was the wish of him who could accomplish the wishes of all other men.

四、你会发现，最有权势、地位最高的人，也会说出一些话来，表明他们渴望闲暇，称颂闲暇，把它看得比他们所享有的一切福分都更好。有时候，只要能安然无恙，他们宁愿从高高的台座上走下来：因为命运会被自身的重量压垮，用不着外来的冲击或干预。已故的奥古斯都皇帝，众神赐给他的福分比赐给任何人的都多，他却从未停止祈求休息、祈求摆脱治理帝国的烦劳：他常用这样一种甜美而虚幻的慰藉来给自己的劳苦添一点生气：总有一天，他要只为自己而活。在他写给元老院的一封信里，他先许诺说他的退隐不会失去尊严，也不会有辱他昔日的荣耀，接着我读到这样的话：“不过，这些事做出来比许诺出来更光彩：但我对那段如此殷切期盼的时光太过急切，以至于虽然它离现实还很遥远，我还是从谈论它中得到了某种乐趣。”他把闲暇看得如此重要，以至于虽然实际上享受不到，却借着预想它、思念它来享受。他看见一切都只取决于他一人，他左右着个人和民族的命运，却认为自己最幸福的一天，将是他放下自己伟大地位的那一天。他凭经验知道，那照耀四方的荣耀里包含着多少劳苦，又隐藏着多少不为人知的忧虑：他曾被迫用战争来维护自己的权利，先是同本国同胞，再是同他的同僚，最后是同他自己的亲属，在海上、在陆上都流过血：他率领全副武装的军队走遍马其顿、西西里、埃及、叙利亚、小亚细亚以及几乎全世界的国家，当军队厌倦了屠杀罗马人时，他又把他们引向外敌。当他正在平定阿尔卑斯地区，征服他在罗马帝国腹地发现的敌人，把帝国的疆界推过莱茵河、幼发拉底河和多瑙河时，在罗马城里，穆瑞纳、凯皮欧、雷必达、埃格纳提乌斯等人正在磨刀，要杀死他。他刚刚逃过他们的阴谋，他已经衰颓的晚年又被他的女儿惊吓，还有那些贵族青年，他们以与她通奸代替效忠的誓言，与她结为一党。接着是保卢斯，还有安东尼的那个情妇，又一个让罗马害怕的女人：他从自己的肢体上割去了这些毒疮，别的毒疮又在原处长了出来：帝国就像一个血液过多的身体，总在什么地方破溃。正因为如此，他渴望闲暇：他的一切劳作，都建立在对闲暇的希望和思念之上：这就是那位能实现所有别人愿望的人的愿望。

V. While tossed hither and thither by Catiline and Clodius, Pompeius and Crassus, by some open enemies and some doubtful friends, while he struggled with the struggling republic and kept it from going to ruin, when at last he was banished, being neither able to keep silence in prosperity nor to endure adversity with patience, how often must Marcus Cicero have cursed that consulship of his which he never ceased to praise, and which nevertheless deserved it? What piteous expressions he uses in a letter to Atticus when Pompeius the father had been defeated, and his son was recruiting his shattered forces in Spain? “Do you ask,” writes he, “what I am doing here? I am living in my Tusculan villa almost as a prisoner.” He adds more afterwards, wherein he laments his former life, complains of the present, and despairs of the future. Cicero called himself “half a prisoner,” but, by Hercules, the wise man never would have come under so lowly a title: he never would be half a prisoner, but would always enjoy complete and entire liberty, being free, in his own power, and greater than all others: for what can be greater than the man who is greater than Fortune?

五、马尔库斯·西塞罗被喀提林和克洛狄乌斯、庞培和克拉苏、被一些公开的敌人和一些可疑的朋友抛来抛去，他与摇摇欲坠的共和国一同挣扎，使它免于倾覆；最后他遭到放逐，顺境时他不能保持沉默，逆境时又不能耐心忍受；他该有多少次诅咒过自己那一任执政官啊！那一任他从未停止称颂，而它也确实值得称颂。当老庞培已被击败、他的儿子正在西班牙重整残部时，西塞罗在给阿提库斯的一封信里用了多么可怜的言辞！“你问我在这里做什么吗？”他写道，“我待在我图斯库卢姆的别墅里，几乎像个囚犯。”接着他又写了许多，哀叹他过去的生活，抱怨现在，对将来感到绝望。西塞罗称自己为“半个囚犯”；可是，赫拉克勒斯在上，智者永远不会落到这样卑下的称号之下：他永远不会是半个囚犯，而会始终享有完整无缺的自由，他是自由的，自己做主，比一切人都伟大：因为还有什么能比一个比命运更伟大的人更伟大呢？

VI. When Livius Drusus, a vigorous and energetic man, brought forward bills for new laws and radical measures of the Gracchus pattern, being the centre of a vast mob of all the peoples of Italy, and seeing no way to solve the question, since he was not allowed to deal with it as he wished, and yet was not free to throw it up after having once taken part in it, complained bitterly of his life, which had been one of unrest from the very cradle, and said, we are told, that “he was the only person who had never had any holidays even when he was a boy.” Indeed, while he was still under age and wearing the praetexta, he had the courage to plead the cause of accused persons in court, and to make use of his influence so powerfully that it is well known that in some causes his exertions gained a verdict. Where would such precocious ambition stop? You may be sure that one who showed such boldness as a child would end by becoming a great pest both in public and in private life: it was too late for him to complain that he had had no holidays, when from his boyhood he had been a firebrand and a nuisance in the courts. It is a stock question whether he committed suicide: for he fell by a sudden wound in the groin, and some doubted whether his death was caused by his own hand, though none disputed its having happened most seasonably. It would be superfluous to mention more who, while others thought them the happiest of men, have themselves borne true witness to their own feelings, and have loathed all that they have done for all the years of their lives: yet by these complaints they have effected no alteration either in others or in themselves: for after these words have escaped them their feelings revert to their accustomed frame. By Hercules, that life of you great men, even though it should last for more than a thousand years, is still a very short one: those vices of yours would swallow up any extent of time: no wonder if this our ordinary span, which, though Nature hurries on, can be enlarged by common sense, soon slips away from you: for you do not lay hold of it or hold it back, and try to delay the swiftest of all things, but you let it pass as though it were a useless thing and you could supply its place.

六、李维乌斯·德鲁苏斯是个精力充沛、雷厉风行的人，他按照格拉古兄弟的样子提出了新法案和激进的措施，成了意大利各族群众簇拥的中心；他看不到解决问题的办法，因为人家不许他按自己的意愿去处理，而一旦插手之后又不能抽身而退；于是他痛切地抱怨自己的一生，说这一生从摇篮里起就不得安宁；据说他还说过，“他是唯一一个连在少年时都从未有过假日的人”。的确，他还未成年、还穿着镶紫边的少年袍时，就有胆量在法庭上为被告辩护，而且如此有力地运用他的影响，以致人所共知，有些案子正是靠他的努力才赢得了判决。这样早熟的野心会在哪里止步呢？你可以肯定，一个在孩童时就表现出这般胆量的人，最终会成为公私两面的大祸害：他从少年时起就是法庭上的火把和祸害，再来抱怨自己没有过假日，已经太晚了。他是否自杀，是一个常被谈起的问题：因为他死于腹股沟上突如其来的一处伤，有人怀疑他是否死于自己之手，但没有人否认他死得正是时候。再提更多的人就多余了：别人认为他们是最幸福的人，他们自己却为自己的感受作了真实的见证，憎恶自己一生所做的一切；可是这些抱怨并没有在别人身上或他们自己身上带来任何改变：因为这些话一出口，他们的感情就又回到了惯常的样子。赫拉克勒斯在上，你们这些大人物的生活，即使延续一千年以上，也仍然是很短的：你们的那些恶习会吞没任何长度的时间：我们这寻常的一段寿命，虽然自然催它匆匆向前，却可以靠常识加以扩展，难怪它很快就从你们手中溜走了：因为你们不抓住它，不挽留它，不设法让这世上最迅疾的东西放慢脚步，而是任它流过，仿佛它是件无用之物，你们随时可以补上。

VII. Among these I reckon in the first place those who devote their time to nothing but drinking and debauchery: for no men are busied more shamefully: the others, although the glory which they pursue is but a counterfeit, still deserve some credit for their pursuit of it—though you may tell me of misers, of passionate men, of men who hate and who even wage war without a cause—yet all such men sin like men: but the sin of those who are given up to gluttony and lust is a disgraceful one. Examine all the hours of their lives: consider how much time they spend in calculation, how much in plotting, how much in fear, how much in giving and receiving flattery, how much in entering into recognizances for themselves or for others, how much in banquets, which indeed become a serious business, you will see that they are not allowed any breathing time either by their pleasures or their pains. Finally, all are agreed that nothing, neither eloquence nor literature, can be done properly by one who is occupied with something else; for nothing can take deep root in a mind which is directed to some other subject, and which rejects whatever you try to stuff into it. No man knows less about living than a business man: there is nothing about which it is more difficult to gain knowledge. Other arts have many folk everywhere who profess to teach them: some of them can be so thoroughly learned by mere boys, that they are able to teach them to others: but one’s whole life must be spent in learning how to live, and, which may perhaps surprise you more, one’s whole life must be spent in learning how to die. Many excellent men have freed themselves from all hindrances, have given up riches, business, and pleasure, and have made it their duty to the very end of their lives to learn how to live: and yet the larger portion of them leave this life confessing that they do not yet know how to live, and still less know how to live as wise men. Believe me, it requires a great man and one who is superior to human frailties not to allow any of his time to be filched from him: and therefore it follows that his life is a very long one, because he devotes every possible part of it to himself: no portion lies idle or uncultivated, or in another man’s power; for he finds nothing worthy of being exchanged for his time, which he husbands most grudgingly. He, therefore, had time enough: whereas those who gave up a great part of their lives to the people of necessity had not enough. Yet you need not suppose that the latter were not sometimes conscious of their loss: indeed, you will hear most of those who are troubled with great prosperity every now and then cry out amid their hosts of clients, their pleadings in court, and their other honourable troubles, “I am not allowed to live my own life.” Why is he not allowed? because all those who call upon you to defend them, take you away from yourself. How many of your days have been spent by that defendant? by that candidate for office? by that old woman who is weary with burying her heirs? by that man who pretends to be ill, in order to excite the greed of those who hope to inherit his property? by that powerful friend of yours, who uses you to swell his train, not to be his friend? Balance your account, and run over all the days of your life; you will see that only a very few days, and only those which were useless for any other purpose, have been left to you. He who has obtained the fasces for which he longed, is eager to get rid of them, and is constantly saying, “When will this year be over?” another exhibits public games, and once would have given a great deal for the chance of doing so, but now “when,” says he, “shall I escape from this?” another is an advocate who is fought for in all the courts, and who draws immense audiences, who crowd all the forum to a far greater distance than they can hear him; “When,” says he, “will vacation-time come?” Every man hurries through his life, and suffers from a yearning for the future, and a weariness of the present: but he who disposes of all his time for his own purposes, who arranges all his days as though he were arranging the plan of his life, neither wishes for nor fears the morrow: for what new pleasure can any hour now bestow upon him? he knows it all, and has indulged in it all even to satiety. Fortune may deal with the rest as she will, his life is already safe from her: such a man may gain something, but cannot lose anything: and, indeed, he can only gain anything in the same way as one who is already glutted and filled can get some extra food which he takes although he does not want it. You have no grounds, therefore, for supposing that any one has lived long, because he has wrinkles or grey hairs: such a man has not lived long, but has only been long alive. Why! would you think that a man had voyaged much if a fierce gale had caught him as soon as he left his port, and he had been driven round and round the same place continually by a succession of winds blowing from opposite quarters? such a man has not travelled much, he has only been much tossed about.

七、在这些人当中，我首先算上那些把时间全花在饮酒和放荡上的人：因为没有人忙得比他们更可耻：别的人追求的荣耀虽然只是假货，他们的追求却还值得几分赞许——尽管你可以对我说起那些守财奴，那些易怒的人，那些毫无缘由地憎恨别人、甚至发动战争的人——可是这些人犯的罪，都还是像人那样犯的罪；而那些沉溺于口腹与淫欲的人，犯的罪却是可耻的。查看一下他们生活中的每一个钟点吧：想想他们花多少时间在算计上，多少在谋划上，多少在恐惧上，多少在奉承别人和接受奉承上，多少在为自己或为别人作担保上，多少在宴饮上——宴饮在他们那里倒真成了一桩正经事务——你就会看到，无论是他们的快乐还是他们的痛苦，都不给他们留一点喘息的时间。总之，人人都同意，一个心有旁骛的人，什么事都做不好，无论是演说还是文学；因为一颗心若是朝向别的事物，什么也不能在其中深深扎根，你想往里面塞什么，它都会拒绝。没有人比忙碌的人更不懂得怎样生活：而再没有什么比这更难学到的了。别的技艺，到处都有许多人自称能教：其中有些，小孩子就能学得十分透彻，甚至能去教别人：可是要学会怎样生活，却要花上整整一生；而且，也许更会让你吃惊的是，要学会怎样死，也要花上整整一生。许多杰出的人摆脱了一切牵绊，放弃了财富、事务和享乐，把学习怎样生活当作自己直到生命尽头的本分：可是他们之中的大多数，离开这个世界时仍然承认自己还不懂得怎样生活，更不懂得怎样像智者那样生活。相信我，要不让自己的任何一点时间被人窃走，需要一个伟大的、超越了人性弱点的人：正因为如此，他的生命是很长的，因为他把每一个可能的部分都献给了自己：没有一部分闲置荒废，或落在别人手里；因为他找不到任何东西值得拿他的时间去换，他对时间极为吝惜。所以，他的时间是够用的；而那些把大部分生命交给了公众的人，必然是不够用的。可你不必以为后一种人从未意识到自己的损失：的确，你会听到那些为巨大的荣华所困扰的人中，大多数时不时在成群的门客、法庭上的辩护和其他体面的烦劳之中喊出来：“我不得过我自己的生活。”他为什么不得过呢？因为所有叫你去为他们辩护的人，都把你从你自己身边带走了。你有多少日子被那个被告用掉了？被那个竞选官职的人？被那个埋葬继承人埋葬得都累了的老妇人？被那个装病来勾起觊觎他遗产之人贪心的人？被你那位有权势的朋友——他用你来壮大他的随从队伍，而不是把你当朋友？把你的账算一算，把你一生的日子过一遍吧；你会看到，留给你自己的，只有很少的几天，而且只是那些对别的用途毫无用处的日子。那个得到了他渴望已久的束棒的人，急着要摆脱它们，不停地说：“这一年什么时候才能结束？”另一个人主办公共赛会，曾经愿意付出很大代价来换取这个机会，可现在他说：“我什么时候才能脱身？”还有一个是各个法庭争相延请的辩护人，吸引了大批听众，他们挤满了整个广场，远远超出了能听见他声音的距离；他说：“什么时候才放假？”每个人都匆匆忙忙地度过他的一生，苦于对将来的渴望和对现在的厌倦：可是一个把自己的全部时间都用于自己的目的、把每一天都当作安排自己一生的规划来安排的人，既不盼望明天，也不害怕明天：因为现在还有什么新的快乐是任何一个钟点能给他的呢？他什么都知道了，什么都享受过了，甚至到了餍足的地步。命运可以随意摆布其余的一切，他的生命已经安然于她的掌握之外：这样的人可以有所得，却不会有所失：而且，他有所得，也只像一个已经吃饱喝足的人还能得到一点额外的食物一样，虽然他并不需要，也还是收下了。所以，你没有理由因为一个人有了皱纹或白发，就以为他活得长：这样的人并没有活得长，只是存在得久罢了。怎么！如果一个人刚离开港口就遇上一场狂风，被从相反方向接连刮来的风吹得在同一个地方不停地打转，你会认为他航行了很远吗？这样的人并没有走多远，只是被抛来抛去得多罢了。

VIII. I am filled with wonder when I see some men asking others for their time, and those who are asked for it most willing to give it: both parties consider the object for which the time is given, but neither of them thinks of the time itself, as though in asking for this one asked for nothing, and in giving it one gave nothing: we play with what is the most precious of all things: yet it escapes men’s notice, because it is an incorporeal thing, and because it does not come before our eyes; and therefore it is held very cheap, nay, hardly any value whatever is put upon it. Men set the greatest store upon presents or pensions, and hire out their work, their services, or their care in order to gain them: no one values time: they give it much more freely, as though it cost nothing. Yet you will see these same people clasping the knees of their physician as suppliants when they are sick and in present peril of death, and if threatened with a capital charge willing to give all that they possess in order that they may live: so inconsistent are they. Indeed, if the number of every man’s future years could be laid before him, as we can lay that of his past years, how anxious those who found that they had but few years remaining would be to make the most of them? Yet it is easy to arrange the distribution of a quantity, however small, if we know how much there is: what you ought to husband most carefully is that which may run short you know not when. Yet you have no reason to suppose that they do not know how dear a thing time is: they are wont to say to those whom they especially love that they are ready to give them a part of their own years. They do give them, and know not that they are giving them; but they give them in such a manner that they themselves lose them without the others gaining them. They do not, however, know whence they obtain their supply, and therefore they are able to endure the waste of what is not seen: yet no one will give you back your years, no one will restore them to you again: your life will run its course when once it has begun, and will neither begin again or efface what it has done. It will make no disturbance, it will give you no warning of how fast it flies: it will move silently on: it will not prolong itself at the command of a king, or at the wish of a nation: as it started on its first day, so it will run: it will never turn aside, never delay. What follows, then? Why! you are busy, but life is hurrying on: death will be here some time or other, and you must attend to him, whether you will or no.

八、当我看见有些人向别人索要时间，而被索要的人又极其乐意给予时，我满心惊异：双方都考虑这时间是为了什么目的而给，却谁也不去想时间本身，仿佛索要它就是什么也没索要，给出它就是什么也没给出：我们拿一切东西中最宝贵的那一样来儿戏：可是人们注意不到它，因为它是无形的，因为它不出现在我们眼前；所以它被看得极贱，不，几乎毫无价值。人们最看重礼物或年金，为了得到它们而出租自己的劳作、服务或心力：却没有人看重时间：他们给出时间要大方得多，仿佛它不花分文。可是你会看到，同样是这些人，在生病、面临眼前的死亡危险时，会像乞援者一样抱住医生的膝盖；如果受到死罪的威胁，会愿意交出所有的一切，只求能活下去：他们就是这样自相矛盾。的确，如果每个人将来的年数都能摆在他面前，就像我们能把他过去的年数摆出来一样，那些发现自己所剩无几的人，会多么急切地要充分利用它们啊！而一样东西，无论多么少，只要我们知道有多少，安排起它的分配来是容易的：你最应当仔细节省的，是那种不知什么时候就会用完的东西。可你没有理由以为他们不知道时间是多么宝贵的东西：他们常对自己特别爱的人说，愿意把自己的一部分岁月给他们。他们确实给了，却不知道自己在给；而他们给的方式是这样的：他们自己失去了这些岁月，别人却并没有得到。不过，他们不知道自己的储备从何而来，所以能忍受那看不见的东西被浪费：可是没有人会把你的岁月还给你，没有人会把它们再交回你手里：你的生命一旦开始，就会走完它的路程，既不会重新开始，也不会抹去它做过的事。它不会发出任何喧响，不会提醒你它飞逝得多快：它会默默地向前移动：它不会因为国王的命令或民众的愿望而延长：它在第一天怎样出发，就会怎样奔跑：它永远不会转向，永远不会停留。那么，结果会怎样呢？你在忙碌，生命却在匆匆赶路：死亡总有一天会到来，无论你愿意不愿意，你都得去应付他。

IX. Can anything be mentioned which is more insane than the ideas of leisure of those people who boast of their worldly wisdom? They live laboriously, in order that they may live better; they fit themselves out for life at the expense of life itself, and cast their thoughts a long way forwards: yet postponement is the greatest waste of life: it wrings day after day from us, and takes away the present by promising something hereafter: there is no such obstacle to true living as waiting, which loses to-day while it is depending on the morrow. You dispose of that which is in the hand of Fortune, and you let go that which is in your own. Whither are you looking, whither are you stretching forward? everything future is uncertain: live now straightway. See how the greatest of bards cries to you and sings in wholesome verse as though inspired with celestial fire:—

九、还有什么比那些自夸通达世故的人对闲暇的看法更疯狂的吗？他们辛辛苦苦地活着，为了能活得更好；他们以生命本身为代价来为生活做准备，把心思投向很远的将来：可是拖延是对生命最大的浪费：它从我们手里一天接一天地夺走日子，用许诺将来的什么东西来夺走现在：对于真正的生活，没有什么障碍比等待更大，等待寄望于明天，却失去了今天。你在处置那操在命运手里的东西，却放走了操在你自己手里的东西。你在望向哪里？你在向哪里伸手？将来的一切都是不确定的：现在就立刻去生活吧。看哪，那位最伟大的诗人仿佛受了天火的感召，用有益的诗句向你呼喊、向你歌唱：——

“The best of wretched mortals’ days is that Which is the first to fly.”

“可怜的凡人一生中最好的日子，是最先飞走的那一天。”

Why do you hesitate, says he, why do you stand back? unless you seize it it will have fled: and even if you do seize it, it will still fly. Our swiftness in making use of our time ought therefore to vie with the swiftness of time itself, and we ought to drink of it as we should of a fast-running torrent which will not be always running. The poet, too, admirably satirizes our boundless thoughts, when he says, not “the first age,” but “the first day.” Why are you careless and slow while time is flying so fast, and why do you spread out before yourself a vision of long months and years, as many as your greediness requires? he talks with you about one day, and that a fast-fleeting one. There can, then, be no doubt that the best days are those which fly first for wretched, that is, for busy mortals, whose minds are still in their childhood when old age comes upon them, and they reach it unprepared and without arms to combat it. They have never looked forward: they have all of a sudden stumbled upon old age: they never noticed that it was stealing upon them day by day. As conversation, or reading, or deep thought deceives travellers, and they find themselves at their journey’s end before they knew that it was drawing near, so in this fast and never-ceasing journey of life, which we make at the same pace whether we are asleep or awake, busy people never notice that they are moving till they are at the end of it.

他说，你为什么犹豫，为什么退缩？你若不抓住它，它就飞走了；即使你抓住了它，它也仍然会飞走。所以，我们利用时间的迅速，应当与时间本身的迅速相匹敌，我们应当像从一道不会永远奔流的湍急山洪中饮水那样去饮用时间。这位诗人还绝妙地讽刺了我们漫无边际的念头，因为他说的不是“最先的岁月”，而是“最先的日子”。时间飞逝得如此之快，你为什么还漫不经心、慢慢吞吞，为什么还在自己面前铺开一幅漫长的图景，你的贪心要多少个月、多少年，就铺开多少？他同你谈的是一天，而且是飞逝的一天。所以，毫无疑问，最好的日子最先飞走，对可怜的凡人，也就是对忙碌的凡人来说正是如此：老年临到他们时，他们的心智还停留在童年，他们毫无准备、手无寸铁地走进了老年。他们从不向前看：他们是突然撞上老年的：他们从未注意到老年一天天地向他们悄悄逼近。正如谈话、读书或沉思会让旅人忘了路程，还不知道快到了，就已经到了旅途的终点；同样，在这段迅疾而永不停歇的人生旅途上——无论睡着还是醒着，我们都以同样的步速走着——忙碌的人直到走到尽头，才发觉自己一直在走。

X. If I chose to divide this proposition into separate steps, supported by evidence, many things occur to me by which I could prove that the lives of busy men are the shortest of all. Fabianus, who was none of your lecture-room philosophers, but one of the true antique pattern, used to say, “We ought to fight against the passions by main force, not by skirmishing, and upset their line of battle by a home charge, not by inflicting trifling wounds: I do not approve of dallying with sophisms; they must be crushed, not merely scratched.” Yet, in order that sinners may be confronted with their errors, they must be taught, and not merely mourned for. Life is divided into three parts: that which has been, that which is, and that which is to come: of these three stages, that which we are passing through is brief, that which we are about to pass is uncertain, and that which we have passed is certain: this it is over which Fortune has lost her rights, and which can fall into no other man’s power: and this is what busy men lose: for they have no leisure to look back upon the past, and even if they had, they take no pleasure in remembering what they regret: they are, therefore, unwilling to turn their minds to the contemplation of ill-spent time, and they shrink from reviewing a course of action whose faults become glaringly apparent when handled a second time, although they were snatched at when we were under the spell of immediate gratification. No one, unless all his acts have been submitted to the infallible censorship of his own conscience, willingly turns his thoughts back upon the past. He who has ambitiously desired, haughtily scorned, passionately vanquished, treacherously deceived, greedily snatched, or prodigally wasted much, must needs fear his own memory; yet this is a holy and consecrated part of our time, beyond the reach of all human accidents, removed from the dominion of Fortune, and which cannot be disquieted by want, fear, or attacks of sickness: this can neither be troubled nor taken away from one: we possess it for ever undisturbed. Our present consists only of single days, and those, too, taken one hour at a time: but all the days of past times appear before us when bidden, and allow themselves to be examined and lingered over, albeit busy men cannot find time for so doing. It is the privilege of a tranquil and peaceful mind to review all the parts of its life: but the minds of busy men are like animals under the yoke, and cannot bend aside or look back. Consequently, their life passes away into vacancy, and as you do no good however much you may pour into a vessel which cannot keep or hold what you put there, so also it matters not how much time you give men if it can find no place to settle in, but leaks away through the chinks and holes of their minds. Present time is very short, so much so that to some it seems to be no time at all; for it is always in motion, and runs swiftly away: it ceases to exist before it comes, and can no more brook delay than can the universe or the host of heaven, whose unresting movement never lets them pause on their way. Busy men, therefore, possess present time, alone, that being so short that they cannot grasp it, and when they are occupied with many things they lose even this.

十、如果我愿意把这个论题分成几个步骤，一一举证，我能想到许多事情来证明忙碌之人的生命是最短的。法比亚努斯不是你们那种讲堂里的哲学家，而是一位真正古风式的哲学家，他常说：“我们应当用全力去同激情搏斗，而不是同它们小打小闹；要用一次直捣中坚的冲锋打乱它们的阵线，而不是给它们造成些无关痛痒的小伤：我不赞成玩弄诡辩；必须把它们碾碎，而不只是挠一挠。”可是，要让犯错的人直面自己的错误，就必须教导他们，而不只是为他们哀叹。生命分为三个部分：已经过去的，正在经历的，和将要到来的：这三段之中，我们正在经历的是短暂的，将要经历的是不确定的，已经经历的是确定的：正是在这一段上，命运已经失去了她的权力，它也不会落入任何别人的掌握：而这正是忙碌的人所失去的：因为他们没有闲暇回顾过去，即使有，他们也不愿回想那些令他们后悔的事：所以他们不愿把心思转向那些虚度的时光，不愿重新检视一段行为，因为那些在一时快意的魔力下被抓到手的东西，再拿起来看第二遍时，毛病就会显得刺眼。除非一个人的一切行为都已经受过他自己良心那绝不出错的审查，没有人会心甘情愿地回想过去。一个曾经野心勃勃地欲求、傲慢地蔑视、凶狠地征服、阴险地欺骗、贪婪地攫取、或者挥霍无度地浪费过许多东西的人，必然会害怕自己的记忆；可是这一段却是我们时间里神圣而奉献过的部分，它超出了一切人间变故的范围，脱离了命运的统治，不会被匮乏、恐惧或疾病的侵袭所扰乱：它既不会被搅乱，也不会被夺走：我们永远安然地拥有它。我们的现在只由一个个单独的日子组成，而且是一个钟点一个钟点地拿来；但过去的所有日子，一经召唤就会出现在我们面前，任我们审视、任我们流连，虽然忙碌的人找不到时间这样做。回顾自己生命的所有部分，是一颗安宁平和的心的特权：而忙碌的人的心，就像套着轭的牲口，既不能转向，也不能回头。结果，他们的生命流进了空虚之中；正如往一个存不住、盛不下东西的器皿里倒多少东西都没有用，同样，如果时间找不到安顿之处，而是从人心的缝隙和窟窿里漏掉了，那么给他们多少时间也都无济于事。现在的时间是很短的，短到在有些人看来简直不算时间；因为它总在运动，飞快地流走：它还没有到来就已经不复存在，正如宇宙或天上的群星一样，一刻也不能耽搁，它们那永不停息的运行从不让它们在路上停顿。所以，忙碌的人只拥有现在的时间，而它短得让他们抓不住；当他们被许多事情占据时，连这一点时间也失去了。

XI. In a word, do you want to know for how short a time they live? see how they desire to live long: broken-down old men beg in their prayers for the addition of a few more years: they pretend to be younger than they are: they delude themselves with their own lies, and are as willing to cheat themselves as if they could cheat Fate at the same time: when at last some weakness reminds them that they are mortal, they die as it were in terror: they may rather be said to be dragged out of this life than to depart from it. They loudly exclaim that they have been fools and have not lived their lives, and declare that if they only survive this sickness they will spend the rest of their lives at leisure: at such times they reflect how uselessly they have laboured to provide themselves with what they have never enjoyed, and how all their toil has gone for nothing: but those whose life is spent without any engrossing business may well find it ample: no part of it is made over to others, or scattered here and there; no part is entrusted to Fortune, is lost by neglect, is spent in ostentatious giving, or is useless: all of it is, so to speak, invested at good interest. A very small amount of it, therefore, is abundantly sufficient, and so, when his last day arrives, the wise man will not hang back, but will walk with a steady step to meet death.

十一、总而言之，你想知道他们活的时间有多短吗？看看他们是多么渴望活得长吧：衰朽的老人在祈祷中乞求再添几年寿命：他们装得比实际年轻：他们用自己的谎言哄骗自己，乐于欺骗自己，仿佛同时也能骗过命运：当终于有某种衰弱提醒他们自己是必死的，他们死时仿佛满怀恐惧：与其说他们是离开了这个世界，不如说是被拖出了这个世界。他们大声嚷着说自己是傻瓜，没有过过自己的生活，并且宣称只要能熬过这场病，就要在闲暇中度过余生：这时他们才想到，他们为了置办自己从未享用过的东西，劳碌得多么徒劳，他们的一切辛苦都落了空：可是那些一生没有被任何事务缠身的人，会觉得自己的生命十分充裕：它没有一部分让给了别人，没有一部分东零西散；没有一部分交托给命运，因疏忽而失去，花在炫耀的施舍上，或者毫无用处：可以说，它整个都投在了获利丰厚的地方。所以，它哪怕很少一点，也绰绰有余；于是，当他的最后一天到来时，智者不会畏缩不前，而会迈着坚定的步子去迎接死亡。

XII. Perhaps you will ask me whom I mean by “busy men”? you need not think that I allude only to those who are hunted out of the courts of justice with dogs at the close of the proceedings, those whom you see either honourably jostled by a crowd of their own clients or contemptuously hustled in visits of ceremony by strangers, who call them away from home to hang about their patron’s doors, or who make use of the praetor’s sales by auction to acquire infamous gains which some day will prove their own ruin. Some men’s leisure is busy: in their country house or on their couch, in complete solitude, even though they have retired from all men’s society, they still continue to worry themselves: we ought not to say that such men’s life is one of leisure, but their very business is sloth. Would you call a man idle who expends anxious finicking care in the arrangement of his Corinthian bronzes, valuable only through the mania of a few connoisseurs? and who passes the greater part of his days among plates of rusty metal? who sits in the palaestra (shame, that our very vices should be foreign) watching boys wrestling? who distributes his gangs of fettered slaves into pairs according to their age and colour? who keeps athletes of the latest fashion? Why, do you call those men idle, who pass many hours at the barber’s while the growth of the past night is being plucked out by the roots, holding councils over each several hair, while the scattered locks are arranged in order and those which fall back are forced forward on to the forehead? How angry they become if the shaver is a little careless, as though he were shearing a man! what a white heat they work themselves into if some of their mane is cut away, if some part of it is ill-arranged, if all their ringlets do not lie in regular order! who of them would not rather that the state were overthrown than that his hair should be ruffled? who does not care more for the appearance of his head than for his health? who would not prefer ornament to honour? Do you call these men idle, who make a business of the comb and looking-glass? what of those who devote their lives to composing, hearing, and learning songs, who twist their voices, intended by Nature to sound best and simplest when used straightforwardly, through all the turns of futile melodies: whose fingers are always beating time to some music on which they are inwardly meditating; who, when invited to serious and even sad business may be heard humming an air to themselves?—such people are not at leisure, but are busy about trifles. As for their banquets, by Hercules, I cannot reckon them among their unoccupied times when I see with what anxious care they set out their plate, how laboriously they arrange the girdles of their waiters’ tunics, how breathlessly they watch to see how the cook dishes up the wild boar, with what speed, when the signal is given, the slave-boys run to perform their duties, how skilfully birds are carved into pieces of the right size, how painstakingly wretched youths wipe up the spittings of drunken men. By these means men seek credit for taste and grandeur, and their vices follow them so far into their privacy that they can neither eat nor drink without a view to effect. Nor should I count those men idle who have themselves carried hither and thither in sedans and litters, and who look forward to their regular hour for taking this exercise as though they were not allowed to omit it: men who are reminded by some one else when to bathe, when to swim, when to dine: they actually reach such a pitch of languid effeminacy as not to be able to find out for themselves whether they are hungry. I have heard one of these luxurious folk—if indeed, we ought to give the name of luxury to unlearning the life and habits of a man—when he was carried in men’s arms out of the bath and placed in his chair, say inquiringly, “Am I seated?” Do you suppose that such a man as this, who did not know when he was seated, could know whether he was alive, whether he could see, whether he was at leisure? I can hardly say whether I pity him more if he really did not know or if he pretended not to know this. Such people do really become unconscious of much, but they behave as though they were unconscious of much more: they delight in some failings because they consider them to be proofs of happiness: it seems the part of an utterly low and contemptible man to know what he is doing. After this, do you suppose that playwrights draw largely upon their imaginations in their burlesques upon luxury: by Hercules, they omit more than they invent; in this age, inventive in this alone, such a number of incredible vices have been produced, that already you are able to reproach the playwrights with omitting to notice them. To think that there should be any one who had so far lost his senses through luxury as to take some one else’s opinion as to whether he was sitting or not? This man certainly is not at leisure: you must bestow a different title on him: he is sick, or rather dead: he only is at leisure who feels that he is at leisure: but this creature is only half alive, if he wants some one to tell him what position his body is in. How can such a man be able to dispose of any time?

十二、也许你会问我，我说的“忙碌的人”指的是谁？你不必以为我只是指那些在审讯结束时被狗从法庭里赶出来的人，指那些你看见或者被自己的一大群门客体面地簇拥推搡、或者在礼节性的拜访中被陌生人轻蔑地推来搡去的人，那些陌生人把他们从家里叫出来，到恩主门前去候着；或者指那些利用大法官的拍卖去获取可耻之利、而这利终有一天会毁了他们自己的人。有些人的闲暇是忙碌的：在乡间别墅里，在卧榻上，完全独处，即使已经退出了一切人的交往，他们仍然在折磨自己：我们不应该说这种人过的是闲暇的生活，他们的忙碌本身就是一种懒惰。一个人把焦虑而琐细的心思都花在摆弄他的科林斯青铜器上，而这些青铜器之所以值钱，只是因为少数鉴赏家的痴迷；他一天中的大部分时间都在一堆生锈的金属片中间度过；你会说这样的人是闲着的吗？一个人坐在角力场里（可耻啊，连我们的恶习都是外来的）看男孩们摔跤；一个人按年龄和肤色把他那一队队戴着镣铐的奴隶两两配对；一个人豢养着最时髦的运动员；你会说他们是闲着的吗？怎么，那些在理发师那里一坐就是好几个钟头、让人把前一夜长出的毛发连根拔掉、对每一根头发都郑重商议、让人把散乱的发绺梳理整齐、把往后倒的头发硬推到额前去的人，你会说他们是闲着的吗？剃头匠稍不经心，他们就会多么恼怒，仿佛他剃的是一位大丈夫似的！要是他们的鬃毛被剪掉了一些，要是有哪一部分没梳好，要是他们的鬈发没有一律整整齐齐地躺好，他们会气得多么白热！他们之中谁不宁可国家倾覆，也不愿自己的头发被弄乱？谁不关心自己头部的仪容胜过关心自己的健康？谁不宁要装饰而不要荣誉？这些把梳子和镜子当作正经事务的人，你会说他们是闲着的吗？还有那些把一生都献给作曲、听曲、学曲的人呢？自然本意让人的声音直截了当地使用时最好听、最质朴，他们却把它扭过一切无谓曲调的弯弯绕绕；他们的手指总在为心里默想的什么曲子打着拍子；即使被请去参加严肃乃至悲伤的事，也能听见他们在自顾自地哼着小调——这样的人不是在闲暇中，而是在为琐事忙碌。至于他们的宴会，赫拉克勒斯在上，我不能把它们算作他们空闲的时候：我看见他们多么焦虑地摆放银器，多么费力地整理侍者短袍上的腰带，多么屏息凝神地看着厨子怎样把野猪装盘，信号一发出，奴仆少年们多么飞快地跑去各司其职，禽鸟被多么熟练地切成大小合宜的块，那些可怜的少年多么费心地擦去醉汉吐出的东西。人们借这些手段来博取有品味、有气派的名声，他们的恶习一直跟随他们深入私人生活，以至于他们吃喝时都不能不考虑效果。我也不会把那些让人用轿子和肩舆抬着到处走、把这项锻炼的固定钟点看得仿佛不许省略一样的人算作闲着的人：这些人要别人来提醒他们什么时候洗澡，什么时候游泳，什么时候吃饭：他们竟然慵懒柔弱到了这种地步，连自己饿不饿都弄不清了。我听说过这些奢靡之徒中的一个——如果把忘掉人的生活和习惯称作奢靡还算恰当的话——他被人从浴池里抱出来，放进椅子里，竟然问道：“我坐下了吗？”一个连自己什么时候坐下都不知道的人，你以为他能知道自己是不是活着、是不是看得见、是不是在闲暇中吗？我简直说不清，他是真不知道，还是假装不知道，哪一种更让我可怜他。这种人确实对许多事浑然不觉，可他们表现得仿佛对更多的事都浑然不觉：他们喜爱某些缺陷，因为他们认为这些缺陷是幸福的证明：在他们看来，知道自己在做什么，似乎是极其卑贱可鄙之人的事。说了这些，你还以为剧作家们在讽刺奢靡的滑稽戏里大大地发挥了想象吗？赫拉克勒斯在上，他们略去的比他们编造的还多；在这个只在这一方面富于发明的时代，已经产生了如此之多令人难以置信的恶习，你已经可以责怪剧作家们没有注意到它们了。想想看，竟然有人因为奢靡而失去理智到这种地步，连自己是不是坐着都要听别人的意见！这个人当然不是在闲暇中：你必须给他另一个称号：他是病了，或者不如说，是死了：只有感到自己在闲暇中的人，才是在闲暇中：而这个家伙，如果要别人来告诉他自己的身体处在什么姿势，就只是半个活人。这样一个人，又怎么能支配任何时间呢？

XIII. It would take long to describe the various individuals who have wasted their lives over playing at draughts, playing at ball, or toasting their bodies in the sun: men are not at leisure if their pleasures partake of the character of business, for no one will doubt that those persons are laborious triflers who devote themselves to the study of futile literary questions, of whom there is already a great number in Rome also. It used to be a peculiarly Greek disease of the mind to investigate how many rowers Ulysses had, whether the Iliad or the Odyssey was written first, and furthermore, whether they were written by the same author, with other matters of the same stamp, which neither please your inner consciousness if you keep them to yourself, nor make you seem more learned, but only more troublesome, if you publish them abroad. See, already this vain longing to learn what is useless has taken hold of the Romans: the other day I heard somebody telling who was the first Roman general who did this or that: Duillius was the first who won a sea-fight, Curius Dentatus was the first who drove elephants in his triumph: moreover, these stories, though they add nothing to real glory, do nevertheless deal with the great deeds of our countrymen: such knowledge is not profitable, yet it claims our attention as a fascinating kind of folly. I will even pardon those who want to know who first persuaded the Romans to go on board ship. It was Claudius, who for this reason was surnamed Caudex, because any piece of carpentry formed of many planks was called caudex by the ancient Romans, for which reason public records are called Codices, and by old custom the ships which ply on the Tiber with provisions are called codicariae. Let us also allow that it is to the point to tell how Valerius Corvinus was the first to conquer Messana, and first of the family of the Valerii transferred the name of the captured city to his own, and was called Messana, and how the people gradually corrupted the pronunciation and called him Messalla: or would you let any one find interest in Lucius Sulla having been the first to let lions loose in the circus, they having been previously exhibited in chains, and hurlers of darts having been sent by King Bocchus to kill them? This may be permitted to their curiosity: but can it serve any useful purpose to know that Pompeius was the first to exhibit eighteen elephants in the circus, who were matched in a mimic battle with some convicts? The leading man in the state, and one who, according to tradition, was noted among the ancient leaders of the state for his transcendent goodness of heart, thought it a notable kind of show to kill men in a manner hitherto unheard of. Do they fight to the death? that is not cruel enough: are they torn to pieces? that is not cruel enough: let them be crushed flat by animals of enormous bulk. It would be much better that such a thing should be forgotten, for fear that hereafter some potentate might hear of it and envy its refined barbarity. O, how doth excessive prosperity blind our intellects! at the moment at which he was casting so many troops of wretches to be trampled on by outlandish beasts, when he was proclaiming war between such different creatures, when he was shedding so much blood before the eyes of the Roman people, whose blood he himself was soon to shed even more freely, he thought himself the master of the whole world; yet he afterwards, deceived by the treachery of the Alexandrians, had to offer himself to the dagger of the vilest of slaves, and then at last discovered what an empty boast was his surname of “The Great.” But to return to the point from which I have digressed, I will prove that even on this very subject some people expend useless pains. The same author tells us that Metellus, when he triumphed after having conquered the Carthaginians in Sicily, was the only Roman who ever had a hundred and twenty captured elephants led before his car: and that Sulla was the last Roman who extended the pomoerium, which it was not the custom of the ancients to extend on account of the conquest of provincial, but only of Italian territory. Is it more useful to know this, than to know that the Mount Aventine, according to him, is outside of the pomoerium, for one of two reasons, either because it was thither that the plebeians seceded, or because when Remus took his auspices on that place the birds which he saw were not propitious: and other stories without number of the like sort, which are either actual falsehoods or much the same as falsehoods? for even if you allow that these authors speak in all good faith, if they pledge themselves for the truth of what they write, still, whose mistakes will be made fewer by such stories? whose passions will be restrained? whom will they make more brave, more just, or more gentlemanly? My friend Fabianus used to say that he was not sure that it was not better not to apply oneself to any studies at all than to become interested in these.

十三、要把那些在跳棋、球戏或晒太阳烤身体中虚掷生命的各色人等一一描述，就说来话长了：如果一个人的快乐带着事务的性质，他就不是在闲暇中；因为没有人会怀疑，那些致力于研究无谓的文学问题的人，是劳碌的无事忙，而这种人在罗马也已经有很多了。探究尤利西斯有多少个桨手，《伊利亚特》和《奥德赛》哪一部先写成，以及它们是否出自同一位作者，还有其他诸如此类的事情，过去是希腊人特有的一种心病；这些东西，你若留给自己，并不能让你内心愉悦；你若公之于众，也不会让你显得更有学问，只会显得更烦人。看哪，这种想学无用之物的虚妄渴望已经攫住了罗马人：前几天我听见有人在讲，哪一位罗马将军第一个做了这件事或那件事：杜伊利乌斯第一个打赢了海战，库里乌斯·登塔图斯第一个在凯旋式上驱赶大象：不过，这些故事虽然对真正的荣耀毫无增益，毕竟还涉及我们同胞的丰功伟业：这样的知识没有益处，却作为一种迷人的愚蠢吸引着我们的注意。我甚至会原谅那些想知道是谁第一个说服罗马人登上船只的人。那是克劳狄乌斯，他因此得了“考德克斯”的别名，因为古罗马人把任何由许多木板拼成的木工制品都叫作 caudex，所以公共档案被称为 Codices，而按照古老的习惯，在台伯河上运送给养的船只被称为 codicariae。我们也姑且承认，讲一讲瓦列里乌斯·科尔维努斯怎样第一个征服了墨萨纳，又怎样成为瓦列里乌斯家族中第一个把被攻陷之城的名字移到自己名字上、被称为墨萨纳的人，以及民众怎样逐渐把这个读音念走了样，叫他墨萨拉，这些是切题的：可是，卢基乌斯·苏拉第一个在竞技场里放出了狮子——此前狮子都是锁着链子展出的——而博库斯国王派来投枪手去杀死它们，你会让人对这个也感兴趣吗？这也可以让他们去满足好奇心吧：可是知道庞培第一个在竞技场里展出了十八头大象，让它们同一些罪犯打了一场模拟的战斗，这能有什么用处吗？这位城邦的头号人物，据传说，在古代城邦领袖中以无比的善良心肠而著称，却认为用一种前所未闻的方式杀人是一种值得一看的表演。他们拼死相斗吗？那还不够残忍；他们被撕成碎片吗？那还不够残忍：让他们被庞然巨兽踩成肉饼吧。这样的事最好被人遗忘，免得将来有哪位掌权者听说了，羡慕起这种精致的野蛮来。啊，过度的荣华是怎样蒙蔽了我们的心智！就在他把一队又一队可怜人抛给异域的野兽去践踏的时候，就在他宣布让如此不同的生灵相互开战的时候，就在他当着罗马人民的面流了那么多血的时候——不久之后他自己还要更肆意地流罗马人民的血——他以为自己是整个世界的主人；可是后来，他被亚历山大里亚人的背信弃义所骗，不得不把自己交给最卑贱的奴隶的匕首，到那时他才终于发现，他那“伟大者”的称号是多么空洞的夸耀。不过，还是回到我离题之前的地方吧，我要证明，即使在这个题目上，有些人也在白费力气。同一位作者告诉我们，墨特鲁斯在西西里征服了迦太基人之后举行凯旋式时，是唯一一个让一百二十头俘获的大象走在他战车前面的罗马人：又说苏拉是最后一个扩展城界的罗马人，而按古人的习惯，只有征服了意大利的领土才扩展城界，征服行省的领土是不扩展的。知道这个，难道比知道下面这件事更有用吗：据他说，阿文提诺山在城界之外，原因有二，要么是因为平民曾撤退到那里，要么是因为雷穆斯在那里占卜时，他看到的鸟不吉利：还有无数诸如此类的故事，它们要么就是谎言，要么同谎言差不多？因为即使你承认这些作者说的都出于诚意，即使他们担保自己所写的都是真的，可是，这样的故事能让谁少犯些错误？能约束谁的激情？能让谁更勇敢、更公正、更有君子风度？我的朋友法比亚努斯常说，他说不准，与其对这些东西产生兴趣，是不是倒不如根本不去做任何学问。

XIV. The only persons who are really at leisure are those who devote themselves to philosophy: and they alone really live: for they do not merely enjoy their own lifetime, but they annex every century to their own: all the years which have passed before them belong to them. Unless we are the most ungrateful creatures in the world, we shall regard these noblest of men, the founders of divine schools of thought, as having been born for us, and having prepared life for us: we are led by the labour of others to behold most beautiful things which have been brought out of darkness into light; we are not shut out from any period, we can make our way into every subject, and, if only we can summon up sufficient strength of mind to overstep the narrow limit of human weakness, we have a vast extent of time wherein to disport ourselves: we may argue with Socrates, doubt with Carneades, repose with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, out-herod it with the Cynics. Since Nature allows us to commune with every age, why do we not abstract ourselves from our own petty fleeting span of time, and give ourselves up with our whole mind to what is vast, what is eternal, what we share with better men than ourselves? Those who gad about in a round of calls, who worry themselves and others, after they have indulged their madness to the full, and crossed every patron’s threshold daily, leaving no open door unentered, after they have hawked about their interested greetings in houses of the most various character,—after all, how few people are they able to see out of so vast a city, divided among so many different ruling passions: how many will be moved by sloth, self-indulgence, or rudeness to deny them admittance: how many, after they have long plagued them, will run past them with feigned hurry? how many will avoid coming out through their entrance-hall with its crowds of clients, and will escape by some concealed backdoor? as though it were not ruder to deceive their visitor than to deny him admittance!—how many, half asleep and stupid with yesterday’s debauch, can hardly be brought to return the greeting of the wretched man who has broken his own rest in order to wait on that of another, even after his name has been whispered to them for the thousandth time, save by a most offensive yawn of his half-opened lips. We may truly say that those men are pursuing the true path of duty, who wish every day to consort on the most familiar terms with Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, and the rest of those high priests of virtue, with Aristotle and with Theophrastus. None of these men will be “engaged,” none of these will fail to send you away after visiting him in a happier frame of mind and on better terms with yourself, none of them will let you leave him empty-handed: yet their society may be enjoyed by all men, and by night as well as by day.

十四、唯一真正有闲暇的人，是那些献身于哲学的人；也只有他们是真正在生活：因为他们不只享有自己的一生，还把每一个世纪都并入了自己的生命：在他们之前过去的所有岁月，都属于他们。除非我们是世上最忘恩负义的生灵，我们就该把这些最高贵的人、这些神圣学派的创立者，看作是为我们而生的，是为我们预备了生活的：别人的劳作引领我们，去观看那些从黑暗中被带到光明里来的最美的事物；没有哪一个时代把我们拒之门外，我们可以进入每一个题目；只要我们能鼓起足够的心力，越过人性弱点的狭窄界限，就有无比广阔的时间供我们徜徉：我们可以同苏格拉底辩论，同卡尔涅阿德斯一起怀疑，同伊壁鸠鲁一起安歇，同斯多葛派一起克服人性，同犬儒派一起超越它。既然自然允许我们与每一个时代交谈，我们为什么不把自己从这段渺小而易逝的时光中抽离出来，全心投向那广大的、永恒的、我们与比我们更好的人所共有的东西呢？那些到处串门拜访的人，折腾自己也折腾别人，把他们的疯狂尽情发泄，每天跨过每一位恩主的门槛，不放过任何一扇敞开的门，在形形色色的人家里兜售他们别有用心的问候；可到头来，在这样一座被那么多不同的欲望所分割的大城里，他们又能见到几个人呢？有多少人会因为懒散、放纵或粗鲁而不让他们进门？有多少人在被他们纠缠了许久之后，会假装匆忙，从他们身边跑过去？有多少人会避开挤满门客的前厅，从某道隐蔽的后门溜走？仿佛欺骗来访者不比拒绝他更无礼似的！又有多少人，半睡半醒，因为昨夜的放纵而昏昏沉沉，那可怜人为了伺候别人的安睡而打断了自己的睡眠，他的名字已经被低声通报了第一千遍，他们也几乎不肯回他一声问候，只从半张的嘴唇里打一个最失礼的哈欠。我们可以真心地说，那些愿意每天与芝诺、毕达哥拉斯、德谟克利特以及其他德行的大祭司亲密交往，与亚里士多德、与泰奥弗拉斯托斯亲密交往的人，才走在真正尽本分的路上。这些人里没有一个会“没空”，没有一个不会在你拜访之后，让你带着更愉快的心情、与自己更和睦地离开，没有一个会让你空手而归：而他们的陪伴，人人都可以享有，夜里和白天一样。

XV. None of these men will force you to die, but all of them will teach you how to die: none of these will waste your time, but will add his own to it. The talk of these men is not dangerous, their friendship will not lead you to the scaffold, their society will not ruin you in expenses: you may take from them whatsoever you will; they will not prevent your taking the deepest draughts of their wisdom that you please. What blessedness, what a fair old age awaits the man who takes these for his patrons! he will have friends with whom he may discuss all matters, great and small, whose advice he may ask daily about himself, from whom he will hear truth without insult, praise without flattery, and according to whose likeness he may model his own character. We are wont to say that we are not able to choose who our parents should be, but that they were assigned to us by chance; yet we may be born just as we please: there are several families of the noblest intellects: choose which you would like to belong to: by your adoption you will not receive their name only, but also their property, which is not intended to be guarded in a mean and miserly spirit: the more persons you divide it among the larger it becomes. These will open to you the path which leads to eternity, and will raise you to a height from whence none shall cast you down. By this means alone can you prolong your mortal life, nay, even turn it into an immortal one. High office, monuments, all that ambition records in decrees or piles up in stone, soon passes away: lapse of time casts down and ruins everything; but those things on which Philosophy has set its seal are beyond the reach of injury: no age will discard them or lessen their force, each succeeding century will add somewhat to the respect in which they are held: for we look upon what is near us with jealous eyes, but we admire what is further off with less prejudice. The wise man’s life, therefore, includes much: he is not hedged in by the same limits which confine others: he alone is exempt from the laws by which mankind is governed: all ages serve him like a god. If any time be past, he recals it by his memory; if it be present, he uses it; if it be future, he anticipates it: his life is a long one because he concentrates all times into it.

十五、这些人里没有一个会逼你去死，但每一个都会教你怎样死；没有一个会浪费你的时间，反而会把他自己的时间加给你。与他们交谈没有危险，与他们交友不会把你送上刑台，与他们交往不会让你倾家荡产：你想从他们那里拿走什么都可以；你想把他们的智慧畅饮多深，他们都不会阻拦。一个以这些人为恩主的人，有怎样的福分、怎样美好的晚年在等着他！他会有朋友，可以同他们商量大大小小的一切事情，可以每天向他们请教关于自己的事，从他们那里听到不带侮辱的真话、不带谄媚的赞扬，还可以按照他们的样子来塑造自己的品格。我们常说，我们不能选择谁做我们的父母，父母是偶然分派给我们的；可是我们却可以随心所愿地出生：有好几个由最高贵的心智组成的家族，你想属于哪一个，就选哪一个吧：你被收养之后，得到的不只是他们的姓氏，还有他们的家产，而这份家产不必用卑琐吝啬的心去守护：分给的人越多，它就变得越大。这些人会为你打开通向永恒的道路，把你升到一个谁也不能把你推下来的高处。只有这样，你才能延长你必死的生命，不，甚至把它变成不朽的生命。高官显爵、纪念碑，野心在法令里记下的、在石头上堆起的一切，很快就会消逝：岁月的流逝会推倒、毁坏一切；但哲学盖上了印记的东西，是任何伤害都够不着的：没有哪个时代会抛弃它们，或削弱它们的力量，每一个后来的世纪，都会为人们对它们的敬意再添上一些：因为我们用嫉妒的眼光看待近旁的东西，而对更远的东西，赞赏时偏见更少。所以，智者的生命包含着很多：他不受限制别人的那些界限所限；只有他不受支配人类的那些法则约束：一切时代都像侍奉神一样侍奉他。过去的时间，他用记忆把它唤回；现在的时间，他使用它；将来的时间，他预先把握它：他的生命之所以长，是因为他把一切时间都汇聚在其中。

XVI. Those men lead the shortest and unhappiest lives who forget the past, neglect the present, and dread the future: when they reach the end of it the poor wretches learn too late that they were busied all the while that they were doing nothing. You need not think, because sometimes they call for death, that their lives are long: their folly torments them with vague passions which lead them into the very things of which they are afraid: they often, therefore, wish for death because they live in fear. Neither is it, as you might think, a proof of the length of their lives that they often find the days long, that they often complain how slowly the hours pass until the appointed time arrives for dinner: for whenever they are left without their usual business, they fret helplessly in their idleness, and know not how to arrange or to spin it out. They betake themselves, therefore, to some business, and all the intervening time is irksome to them; they would wish, by Hercules, to skip over it, just as they wish to skip over the intervening days before a gladiatorial contest or some other time appointed for a public spectacle or private indulgence: all postponement of what they wish for is grievous to them. Yet the very time which they enjoy is brief and soon past, and is made much briefer by their own fault: for they run from one pleasure to another, and are not able to devote themselves consistently to one passion: their days are not long, but odious to them: on the other hand, how short they find the nights which they spend with courtezans or over wine? Hence arises that folly of the poets who encourage the errors of mankind by their myths, and declare that Jupiter to gratify his voluptuous desires doubled the length of the night. Is it not adding fuel to our vices to name the gods as their authors, and to offer our distempers free scope by giving them deity for an example? How can the nights for which men pay so dear fail to appear of the shortest? they lose the day in looking forward to the night, and lose the night through fear of the dawn.

十六、那些忘却过去、忽视现在、惧怕将来的人，过着最短促、最不幸的生活：当他们走到尽头，这些可怜人才太晚地明白：他们一直在忙碌，而一直什么也没做。你不必因为他们有时呼唤死亡，就以为他们的生命很长：他们的愚蠢用种种模糊的激情折磨他们，把他们引向他们所害怕的那些事物本身：所以，他们常常盼望死亡，正是因为他们活在恐惧之中。你也许会以为，他们常常觉得日子漫长，常常抱怨在约定的晚餐时间到来之前钟点过得多么慢，这证明了他们的生命很长；其实不然：因为每当他们离开了惯常的事务，他们就在闲暇中无可奈何地烦躁，不知道怎样安排它、怎样把它打发过去。于是他们又去找些事务来做，而其间的所有时间都让他们厌烦；赫拉克勒斯在上，他们巴不得跳过这段时间，就像他们巴不得跳过角斗表演或别的什么公共表演、私人享乐的约定日期之前的那些日子一样：凡是推迟他们所盼望之事的东西，都让他们难受。可是他们所享受的时间本身却是短暂的，转眼即逝，而且因为他们自己的过错变得更短：因为他们从一种快乐奔向另一种快乐，不能始终专注于一种激情：他们的日子并不长，只是可憎；另一方面，他们和娼妓一起或在酒杯旁度过的夜晚，在他们看来又是多么短啊！于是有了诗人们的那种愚妄：他们用神话助长人类的错误，宣称朱庇特为了满足自己的情欲，把夜晚的长度加了一倍。把众神说成我们恶习的始作俑者，以神为榜样给我们的病症放开缰绳，这不是在给我们的恶习火上加油吗？人们为之付出如此高昂代价的夜晚，怎能不显得最短呢？他们在盼望夜晚中失去了白天，又在害怕天亮中失去了夜晚。

XVII. Such men’s very pleasures are restless and disturbed by various alarms, and at the most joyous moment of all there rises the anxious thought: “How long will this last?” This frame of mind has led kings to weep over their power, and they have not been so much delighted at the grandeur of their position, as they have been terrified by the end to which it must some day come. That most arrogant Persian king, when his army stretched over vast plains and could not be counted but only measured, burst into tears at the thought that in less than a hundred years none of all those warriors would be alive: yet their death was brought upon them by the very man who wept over it, who was about to destroy some of them by sea, some on land, some in battle, and some in flight, and who would in a very short space of time put an end to those about whose hundredth year he showed such solicitude. Why need we wonder at their very joys being mixed with fear? they do not rest upon any solid grounds, but are disturbed by the same emptiness from which they spring. What must we suppose to be the misery of such times as even they acknowledge to be wretched, when even the joys by which they elevate themselves and raise themselves above their fellows are of a mixed character. All the greatest blessings are enjoyed with fear, and no thing is so untrustworthy as extreme prosperity: we require fresh strokes of good fortune to enable us to keep that which we are enjoying, and even those of our prayers which are answered require fresh prayers. Everything for which we are dependent on chance is uncertain: the higher it rises, the more opportunities it has of falling. Moreover, no one takes any pleasure in what is about to fall into ruin: very wretched, therefore, as well as very short must be the lives of those who work very hard to gain what they must work even harder to keep: they obtain what they wish with infinite labour, and they hold what they have obtained with fear and trembling. Meanwhile they take no account of time, of which they will never have a fresh and larger supply: they substitute new occupations for old ones, one hope leads to another, one ambition to another: they do not seek for an end to their wretchedness, but they change its subject. Do our own preferments trouble us? nay, those of other men occupy more of our time. Have we ceased from our labours in canvassing? then we begin others in voting. Have we got rid of the trouble of accusation? then we begin that of judging. Has a man ceased to be a judge? then he becomes an examiner. Has he grown old in the salaried management of other people’s property? then he becomes occupied with his own. Marius is discharged from military service; he becomes consul many times: Quintius is eager to reach the end of his dictatorship; he will be called a second time from the plough: Scipio marched against the Carthaginians before he was of years sufficient for so great an undertaking; after he has conquered Hannibal, conquered Antiochus, been the glory of his own consulship and the surety for that of his brother, he might, had he wished it, have been set on the same pedestal with Jupiter; but civil factions will vex the saviour of the state, and he who when a young man disdained to receive divine honours, will take pride as an old man in obstinately remaining in exile. We shall never lack causes of anxiety, either pleasurable or painful: our life will be pushed along from one business to another: leisure will always be wished for, and never enjoyed.

十七、这种人的快乐本身就是不安的，被种种惊惧所扰乱，在最欢乐的时刻也会升起一个焦虑的念头：“这能持续多久？”正是这种心态，让国王们为自己的权力而哭泣，他们为自己地位的显赫而高兴，远不如为它终有一天必然到来的结局而恐惧。那位最傲慢的波斯国王，当他的大军铺满广阔的平原，多得数不过来、只能丈量的时候，一想到不到一百年，所有这些战士没有一个还会活着，就放声大哭：可是给他们带来死亡的，正是为他们哭泣的这个人；他就要让他们一些死在海上，一些死在陆上，一些死在战斗中，一些死在溃逃中，在很短的时间内，就要了结他为其第一百年而如此挂心的那些人。他们的欢乐本身也掺杂着恐惧，这又何足为奇呢？这些欢乐并不建立在任何坚实的基础上，而是被它们所由产生的那种空虚所搅扰。连他们借以抬高自己、使自己高出同伴的欢乐都是掺杂不纯的，那么，那些连他们自己也承认是悲惨的时光，又该是怎样的悲惨呢？一切最大的福分，都是在恐惧中享受的，没有什么东西比极度的荣华更靠不住：我们需要新的好运，才能保住正在享有的东西，即使是那些已经应验的祈祷，也还需要新的祈祷。凡是我们依赖于机运的东西，都是不确定的：它升得越高，跌落的机会就越多。而且，没有人会从行将倾覆的东西中得到快乐：所以，那些辛辛苦苦去获得、又要更辛苦地去保住的人，他们的生命必然是非常悲惨的，也是非常短促的：他们历尽无数辛劳得到了想要的东西，又战战兢兢地守着已经得到的东西。与此同时，他们毫不计较时间，而时间是他们永远得不到新的、更多的供给的：他们用新的事务替换旧的事务，一个希望引出另一个希望，一种野心引出另一种野心：他们不去寻求结束自己的不幸，只是换了不幸的题目。我们自己的升迁让我们烦恼吗？不，别人的升迁占去我们更多的时间。我们停止了拉选票的劳碌吗？接着又开始了投票的劳碌。我们摆脱了控告的麻烦吗？接着又开始了审判的麻烦。一个人不再做审判官了吗？接着他又成了主审官。他在为人管理产业、领取薪酬的差事上变老了吗？接着他又忙起了自己的产业。马略退了伍；他又多次当上了执政官：昆克提乌斯急着结束他的独裁官任期；他还会第二次被人从犁边叫回来：西庇阿年纪还不足以担当如此重任时，就进军讨伐迦太基人；他征服了汉尼拔，征服了安条克，成了自己执政官任期的荣耀和他兄弟执政官任期的担保人，只要他愿意，本可以被立在与朱庇特并列的台座上；可是内部的党争会困扰这位城邦的救星，这个在青年时不屑接受神圣荣誉的人，到了老年却以执意留在流放中为傲。我们永远不会缺少忧虑的缘由，无论是快乐的还是痛苦的：我们的生命会从一件事务被推向另一件事务：闲暇将永远被盼望，却永远不被享有。

XVIII. Whefore, my dearest Paulinus, tear yourself away from the common herd, and since you have seen more rough weather than one would think from your age, betake yourself at length to a more peaceful haven: reflect what waves you have sailed through, what storms you have endured in private life, and brought upon yourself in public. Your courage has been sufficiently displayed by many toilsome and wearisome proofs; try how it will deal with leisure: the greater, certainly the better part of your life, has been given to your country; take now some part of your time for yourself as well. I do not urge you to practise a dull or lazy sloth, or to drown all your fiery spirit in the pleasures which are dear to the herd: that is not rest: you can find greater works than all those which you have hitherto so manfully carried out, upon which you may employ yourself in retirement and security. You manage the revenues of the entire world, as unselfishly as though they belonged to another, as laboriously as if they were your own, as scrupulously as though they belonged to the public: you win love in an office in which it is hard to avoid incurring hatred; yet, believe me, it is better to understand your own mind than to understand the corn-market. Take away that keen intellect of yours, so well capable of grappling with the greatest subjects, from a post which may be dignified, but which is hardly fitted to render life happy, and reflect that you did not study from childhood all the branches of a liberal education merely in order that many thousand tons of corn might safely be entrusted to your charge: you have given us promise of something greater and nobler than this. There will never be any want of strict economists or of laborious workers: slow-going beasts of burden are better suited for carrying loads than well-bred horses, whose generous swiftness no one would encumber with a heavy pack. Think, moreover, how full of risk is the great task which you have undertaken: you have to deal with the human stomach: a hungry people will not endure reason, will not be appeased by justice, and will not hearken to any prayers. Only just a few days ago, when G. Caesar perished, grieving for nothing so much (if those in the other world can feel grief) as that the Roman people did not die with him, there was said to be only enough corn for seven or eight days’ consumption: while he was making bridges with ships and playing with the resources of the empire, want of provisions, the worst evil that can befall even a besieged city, was at hand: his imitation of a crazy outlandish and misproud king very nearly ended in ruin, famine, and the general revolution which follows famine. What must then have been the feelings of those who had the charge of supplying the city with corn, who were in danger of stoning, of fire and sword, of Gaius himself? With consummate art they concealed the vast internal evil by which the state was menaced, and were quite right in so doing; for some diseases must be cured without the patient’s knowledge: many have died through discovering what was the matter with them.

十八、所以，我最亲爱的保利努斯，把你自己从芸芸众生中拉出来吧；你所经历的风浪，比你的年纪让人想到的要多，那么终于该驶进一个更平静的港湾了：想想你曾驶过怎样的波涛，在私人生活中忍受过怎样的风暴，又在公共生活中给自己招来过怎样的风暴。你的勇气已经在许多艰辛劳累的考验中得到了充分的展示；试试看它怎样对付闲暇吧：你生命中更大的、当然也是更好的那一部分，已经献给了你的国家；现在也取出你的一部分时间留给自己吧。我并不是劝你去过一种沉闷或懒散的闲逸生活，也不是劝你把你满腔的热忱都淹没在众人所珍爱的享乐之中：那不是休息：你可以找到比你迄今如此勇毅地完成的一切更伟大的工作，在退隐与安稳中致力于它们。你管理着整个世界的收入，像管理别人的东西那样无私，像管理自己的东西那样辛劳，像管理公家的东西那样一丝不苟：在一个很难不招人怨恨的职位上，你赢得了爱戴；可是，相信我，懂得自己的心，比懂得粮食市场更好。把你那敏锐的、足以应对最伟大题目的才智，从一个也许体面、却难以使生活幸福的职位上撤回来吧；想一想，你从童年起就学习博雅教育的各门学问，并不只是为了让好几千吨粮食能放心地交给你掌管：你曾让我们期待某种比这更伟大、更高贵的东西。严格的理财者和勤苦的办事者是永远不会缺的：走得慢的驮兽比良种马更适合驮重物，没有人会用沉重的驮包去拖累良马那慷慨的迅捷。再想想，你所承担的这项大任是多么危险：你要对付的是人的肚子：饥饿的民众不会听从理性，不会被公正平息，也不会听从任何恳求。就在不多天前，盖乌斯·恺撒死去的时候——如果另一个世界里的人也能感到悲伤的话，他最悲伤的莫过于罗马人民没有随他一起死去——据说粮食只够吃七八天了：当他用船只搭桥、拿帝国的资源当儿戏的时候，缺粮——这是连一座被围困的城市都可能遭受的最大的灾祸——已经迫在眉睫：他模仿一个疯狂的、异域的、骄横的国王，几乎以毁灭、饥荒和随饥荒而来的普遍动乱告终。那么，那些负责为城市供应粮食的人，当时又该是什么心情？他们面临着被石头砸死、被火与剑所害、被盖乌斯本人所害的危险。他们以极其高明的手段掩盖了威胁着国家的巨大内患，他们这样做是完全正确的；因为有些病必须在病人不知情的情况下医治：许多人正是因为发现了自己得的是什么病而死去的。

XIX. Betake yourself to these quieter, safer, larger fields of action: do you think that there can be any comparison between seeing that corn is deposited in the public granary without being stolen by the fraud or spoilt by the carelessness of the importer, that it does not suffer from damp or overheating, and that it measures and weighs as much as it ought, and beginning the study of sacred and divine knowledge, which will teach you of what elements the gods are formed, what are their pleasures, their position, their form? to what changes your soul has to look forward? where Nature will place us when we are dismissed from our bodies? what that principle is which holds all the heaviest particles of our universe in the middle, suspends the lighter ones above, puts fire highest of all, and causes the stars to rise in their courses, with many other matters, full of marvels? Will you not cease to grovel on earth and turn your mind’s eye on these themes? nay, while your blood still flows swiftly, before your knees grow feeble, you ought to take the better path. In this course of life there await you many good things, such as love and practice of the virtues, forgetfulness of passions, knowledge of how to live and die, deep repose. The position of all busy men is unhappy, but most unhappy of all is that of those who do not even labour at their own affairs, but have to regulate their rest by another man’s sleep, their walk by another man’s pace, and whose very love and hate, the freest things in the world, are at another’s bidding. If such men wish to know how short their lives are, let them think how small a fraction of them is their own.

十九、到这些更安静、更安全、更广阔的天地里去吧：你认为，监督粮食存入公仓时不被运粮人欺诈偷盗、不因他们的疏忽而损坏，不受潮、不发热，量起来、称起来都足数，这同开始研究神圣的知识能有什么可比之处吗？这种知识会告诉你：众神是由什么元素构成的，他们的乐趣是什么，他们的处境、他们的形貌是怎样的；你的灵魂将面临怎样的变化；当我们离开身体时，自然会把我们安放在哪里；是什么原理把我们这个宇宙中最重的微粒都维系在中央，把较轻的悬在上方，把火放在最高处，让群星沿着它们的轨道升起，还有其他许多充满奇迹的事情。你难道不愿停止在地上匍匐，把你心灵的眼睛转向这些题目吗？不，趁你的血液还流得快，趁你的双膝还未衰弱，你就应当走上那条更好的道路。在这种生活里，有许多好东西在等着你，比如对德行的热爱和践行，对激情的遗忘，懂得怎样生、怎样死，还有深深的安宁。一切忙碌之人的处境都是不幸的，而最不幸的，是那些连忙的都不是自己的事、却要按别人的睡眠来安排自己的休息、按别人的步子来调整自己的行走、连爱与恨这世上最自由的东西都要听别人吩咐的人。这样的人如果想知道自己的生命有多短，就让他们想一想，其中属于他们自己的部分是多么微小吧。

XX. When, therefore, you see a man often wear the purple robes of office, and hear his name often repeated in the forum, do not envy him: he gains these things by losing so much of his life. Men throw away all their years in order to have one year named after them as consul: some lose their lives during the early part of the struggle, and never reach the height to which they aspired: some after having submitted to a thousand indignities in order to reach the crowning dignity, have the miserable reflexion that the only result of their labours will be the inscription on their tombstone. Some, while telling off extreme old age, like youth, for new aspirations, have found it fail from sheer weakness amid great and presumptuous enterprises. It is a shameful ending, when a man’s breath deserts him in a court of justice, while, although well stricken in years, he is still striving to gain the sympathies of an ignorant audience for some obscure litigant: it is base to perish in the midst of one’s business, wearied with living sooner than with working; shameful, too, to die in the act of receiving payments, amid the laughter of one’s long-expectant heir. I cannot pass over an an instance which occurs to me: Turannius was an old man of the most painstaking exactitude, who after entering upon his ninetieth year, when he had by G. Caesar’s own act been relieved of his duties as collector of the revenue, ordered himself to be laid out on his bed and mourned for as though he were dead. The whole house mourned for the leisure of its old master, and did not lay aside its mourning until his work was restored to him. Can men find such pleasure in dying in harness? Yet many are of the same mind: they retain their wish for labour longer than their capacity for it, and fight against their bodily weakness; they think old age an evil for no other reason than because it lays them on the shelf. The law does not enrol a soldier after his fiftieth year, or require a senator’s attendance after his sixtieth: but men have more difficulty in obtaining their own consent than that of the law to a life of leisure. Meanwhile, while they are plundering and being plundered, while one is disturbing another’s repose, and all are being made wretched alike, life remains without profit, without pleasure, without any intellectual progress: no one keeps death well before his eyes, no one refrains from far-reaching hopes. Some even arrange things which lie beyond their own lives, such as huge sepulchral buildings, the dedication of public works, and exhibitions to be given at their funeral-pyre, and ostentatious processions: but, by Hercules, the funerals of such men ought to be conducted by the light of torches and wax tapers, as though they had lived but a few days.

二十、所以，当你看见一个人常常穿着官职的紫袍，听见他的名字在广场上被常常提起，不要羡慕他：他得到这些，是以失去那么多生命为代价的。人们抛掷掉自己所有的岁月，只为了让一年以他的名字命名为执政官之年：有些人在争夺的初期就丢了性命，从未到达他们所向往的高处：有些人为了达到那至高的尊荣而忍受了上千次屈辱之后，却悲哀地意识到，他们一切劳碌的唯一结果，只是墓碑上的一行铭文。有些人像对待青春那样，把垂暮之年也派给新的抱负，在宏大而狂妄的事业之中，却因纯粹的衰弱而力不从心。一个人年事已高，却仍在为某个无名的诉讼人争取无知听众的同情，在法庭上断了气，这是可耻的结局：在事务之中死去，先厌倦了活着而不是先厌倦了工作，这是卑下的；在收款的时候死去，在久候的继承人的笑声中死去，也是可耻的。我不能放过我想到的一个例子：图兰尼乌斯是个极其一丝不苟的老人，他进入九十岁以后，盖乌斯·恺撒亲自下令免去了他征收税款的职务，他就命人把自己停放在床上，让全家像他已经死了一样为他哀悼。全家为老主人的闲暇而哀悼，直到他的工作恢复了，才脱下丧服。人们真能从死在任上得到这样的乐趣吗？可是许多人都是这样想的：他们对劳作的渴望比他们劳作的能力持续得更久，他们同自己身体的衰弱搏斗；他们认为老年是一种恶，没有别的理由，只因为它把他们搁置一旁。法律规定五十岁以后不再征召士兵，六十岁以后不再要求元老出席：可是人们要得到自己的同意去过闲暇的生活，比得到法律的同意还难。与此同时，当他们掠夺别人、又被别人掠夺，一个人扰乱另一个人的安宁，所有的人都同样不幸的时候，生命依然没有收获，没有乐趣，在心智上也毫无长进：没有人把死亡好好地放在眼前，没有人克制自己那长远的希望。有些人甚至安排起那些超出他们自己生命之外的事情来，比如巨大的陵墓建筑、公共工程的落成献礼、在他们火葬堆前举行的表演，还有排场浩大的送葬行列：可是，赫拉克勒斯在上，这种人的葬礼应当在火把和蜡烛的光亮下举行，就像他们只活了寥寥几天一样。