“This Seneka, of which that I devise,
Because Nero had of him swiché drede,
For he fro vices wold him ay chastise
Discretely, as by word, and not by dede.
‘Sire,’ he wold say, ‘an Emperor mote nede
Be vertuous, and haten tyrannie.’
For which he made him in a bathe to blede
On both his armès till he mustè die.”
CHAUCER: _The Monke’s Tale_: _Nero_.
“Già tra le infamie delle regie sale
Due uomini vedevansi soltanto
A cui volera orribilmente male,
Questo amatore delle stragi, e pianto,
Uno di questi è Seneca, ch’ eguale
In Roma non aver per nobil vanto
Nelle dottrine di filosofia,
E nel fare una bella poesia. . . .
Nerone che non vuol d’ogni folliá,
Avere appreso un rigido censore,
Fece morir, con modi scellerati,
Tanto costui, che Seneca, svenati!”
_Storia di Nerone_: _A Florentine Halfpenny Ballad_.
“Alteri vivere oportet si vis tibi vivere.”
“Thou must live for others if thou wouldst live for thyself.”—
SENECA: _Epistolæ_.
There was once in Rome a young Emperor named Nerone. As a boy, he was by
no means badly inclined, and it seemed for a long time as if he would
grow up into a great and good man.
He had a tutor or teacher named Seneco, {88} who was benevolent and wise
beyond all the men of his time, and he had such influence on the young
Nerone, that for two years the youth behaved well and did no harm to
anyone.
But little by little he was led astray by courtiers who flattered and
corrupted him, and who of course did all they could to injure Seneco in
his esteem, saying that the sage was really an old knave, and that he was
engaged in plots with the design of becoming Emperor himself. And the
end of it all was that Nerone believed them.
So he sent a letter to Seneco, in which he declared that the time had
come for the old man to die; but that he might choose his own manner of
death by suicide.
Seneco, having read it, said: “What an evil youth is this, of what a
corrupted heart! Well, infamous as the command is, I will die! But I
will leave him a legacy which shall be his ruin.”
Thus he wrote to Nerone:
“I will die this very day, but I leave you a gift which is more than a
fortune. It is a book of magic and necromancy. If you wish for
anything, be it the love of a woman or the death of a man, or his
disaster, or to destroy all Rome, you will find in the book spells by
which it may be done.”
And when he knew that Nerone had the book, he went at once into a hot
bath, and said to his surgeon:
“Open my veins, so that I may bleed to death. I will die, but I know
that the Emperor will soon follow me.”