An old man indeed has nothing to hope for; yet he is in so much the
happier state than a young one, since he has already attained what the
other is only hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, the other has
lived long. And yet, good gods! what is there in man's life that can be
called long? For allow the latest period: let us anticipate the age of
the kings of the Tartessii. For there dwelt, as I find it recorded, a
man named Arganthonius at Gades, who reigned for eighty years, and lived
one hundred and twenty. But to my mind nothing whatever seems of long
duration, in which there is any end. For when that arrives, then the
time which has passed has flowed away; that only remains which you have
secured by virtue and right conduct. Hours indeed depart from us, and
days and months and years; nor does past time ever return, nor can it
be discovered what is to follow. Whatever time is assigned to each to
live, with that he ought to be content: for neither need the drama be
performed entire by the actor, in order to give satisfaction, provided
he be approved in whatever act he may be; nor need the wise man live
till the _plaudite_. For the short period of life is long enough for
living well and honorably; and if you should advance further, you need
no more grieve than farmers do when the loveliness of springtime hath
passed, that summer and autumn have come. For spring represents the time
of youth and gives promise of the future fruits; the remaining seasons
are intended for plucking and gathering in those fruits. Now the harvest
of old age, as I have often said, is the recollection and abundance of
blessings previously secured. In truth, everything that happens
agreeably to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. What, however, is
so agreeable to nature as for an old man to die? which even is the lot
of the young, though nature opposes and resists. And thus it is that
young men seem to me to die just as when the violence of flame is
extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die as the exhausted
fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any force: and as
fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the trees, but when
ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their lives from
youths, maturity from old men; a state which to me indeed is so
delightful, that the nearer I approach to death, I seem as it were to be
getting sight of land, and at length after a long voyage to be just
coming into harbor.