Dr. C. Cengiz Çevik (Klasik Filolog) – Blog
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Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones VI. Cp.XXXII.10-11
Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones VI. Cp.XXXII.10-11:
“Solamente perdemos algunas horas. Admitamos que sean días, que sean meses, que sean años; solamente perdemos lo que era indispensable perder. ¿Qué importa, yo pregunto, que llegue o no a este tiempo? El tiempo huye, y a pesar de toda nuestra avidez por retenerle, escapa. No me pertenece el porvenir ni el pasado. Estoy suspendido en un punto móvil del tiempo fugitivo; y mucho es ya estarlo un poco. ¡Cuán ingeniosa es la respuesta de Lœyo al que le decía: «Tengo sesenta años»! -¿Hablas de sesenta años que ya no tienes? le contestó el sabio. -No comprendemos que la vida es fugaz, que el tiempo no es nuestro; no lo comprendemos cuando solamente contamos los años perdidos ya. Grabemos en el ánimo y no cesemos de repetir esta advertencia: Es necesario morir. ¿Cuándo? Poco importa. La muerte es la ley de la naturaleza, el tributo y el deber de los mortales, el remedio, en fin, de todos los males. Todo el que la teme, la deseará algún día. Abandónalo todo, oh Lucilio, y procura solamente no temer el nombre de la muerte: háztela familiar a fuerza de pensar en ella, de manera que, si fuese necesario, puedas salir a su encuentro.”
İngilizcesi (tr. by John Clarke):
“It is but hours we lose. But suppose it is days, or months, or years, what we lose is, surely, bound to perish. What differ ence, pray, is it whether I manage to reach them or not? Time flows on ; it leaves behind those most eager to seize it. Neither what is to be is mine, nor what was. I am poised upon a point of fleeting time; it is a great thing to have been moderate in one s ambitions. Laelius the Wise made a neat retort once to a person who said, I am sixty years old: you mean, said he, the sixty you no longer are. We show our failure to grasp the terms of this elusive life of ours, and the conditions of time that is never our own, in reckoning up as ours years that are now lost. Let us fix this in our minds, and constantly remind ourselves, I must die. When? What matter is that to you? Death is a law of nature; death is a tribute and a duty imposed on mortals; it is the remedy of all ills. Whoever now fears it will one day long for it. Giving up all else, Lucilius, make this your one meditation, not to dread the name death. By long reflection make death an intimate friend, that, if so required, you may be able even to go forth to welcome it.”
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Dr. C. Cengiz Çevik (Klasik Filolog) - Blog 
>"Finally it is generally agreed that no activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied -not rhetoric or liberal studies- since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak, crammed into it. Living is the least important activity of the preoccupied man; yet there is nothing which is harder to learn. There are many instructors in the other arts to be found everywhere: indeed, some of these arts mere boys have grasped so thoroughly that they can even teach them. But learning how to live takes a whole life, and, which may surprise you more, it takes a whole life to learn how to die." *On the Shortness of Life* (trans. C.D.N. Costa).
>vay anasını!
>Tikola'nın alıntıladığı Yaşamın Kısalığı Üzerine adlı eser de (De Brevitate Vitae) Seneca'nın ahlâk metinleri içinde kendine has, önemli bir yere sahiptir. Genel olarak Seneca'yı bir ahlâk filozofu olarak görüyoruz ancak gerek bağlı bulunduğu Stoa ekolünün etkisiyle gerekse kendine has duyuşuyla çileciliği körükledikçe körüklemiştir. Seneca'yı muadilleri yanında daha aforizma-tif kılan yönü de bu olsa gerek.