“How safe and easy the poor man's life and his humble dwelling! How blind men still are to Heaven's gifts!”
O vitae tuta facultas
pauperis angustique lares! o munera nondum
intellecta deum!
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia
Book V, line 527 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
“You have taken from me the one privilege of civil war – the power of granting life to the defeated.”
Unica belli
praemia civilis, victis donare salutem,
perdidimus.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia
Book IX, line 1066 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
“More was lost there than mere life and existence: we were overthrown for all time to come.”
Plus est quam vita salusque
quod perit: in totum mundi prosternimur aevum.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia
Book VII, line 639 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
“Learn what life requires,
How little nature needs!”
Discite, quam parvo liceat producere vitam,
Et quantum natura petat.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia
Book IV, line 377 (tr. E. Ridley).
Compare: "But would [men] think with how small allowance / Untroubled nature doth herself suffice", Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, B. I, C. 9, st. 15.
Pharsalia
“When the existence and safety of so many nations depend upon your single life, and so large a part of the world has chosen you for its head, it is cruel of you to court death.”
Cum tot in hac anima populorum vita salusque
pendeat et tantus caput hoc sibi fecerit orbis,
saevitia est voluisse mori.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia
Book V, line 685 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
“No life is short that gives a man time to slay himself.”
Vita brevis nulli superest qui tempus in illa
quaerendae sibi mortis habet.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia
Book IV, line 478 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
“Such was the character, such the inflexible rule of austere Cato – to observe moderation and hold fast to the limit, to follow nature, to give his life for his country, to believe that he was born to serve the whole world and not himself.”
Hi mores, haec duri inmota Catonis
secta fuit, servare modum finemque tenere
naturamque sequi patriaeque inpendere vitam
nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia
Book II, line 380 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia