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BOOK III], CHAPTER V 7
lead the mind toward reformation; in its turn it holds sway, and more harshly and imperiously; not for a single hour, sleeping or waking, does it leave me at rest from teaching about death, endurance, and repentance. I guard myself from temperance as I used to do from enjoyment; it draws me too far back, even to dulness; now I desire to be master of myself in all ways. Wisdom has her excesses, and has no less need than folly of moderation. And so, for fear lest I dry up, wither, and wax mouldy from prudence, I quietly turn aside in the intervals of my bodily ills, — Mens intenta suis ne siet usque malis,' —
and avert my eyes from that stormy and cloudy sky which I have before me, and which, God be praised! I regard quite without fear but not without debate and meditation; and I set about to amusing myself with the remembrance of past follies. Animus quod perdidit optat, Atque in preeterita se totus imagine versat.?
Let childhood look forward, old age backward; was not that the significance of the double face of Janus? The years drag me along if they will, but with backward steps. So long as my eyes can discern that pleasant lost season, I now and then turn them thither. Though it escapes from my blood and my veins, at least I will not uproot its image from my memory;
hoc est Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui.*
(c) Plato advises old men to be present at the exercises, dances, and games of the young, in order to be gladdened by the agility and beauty of the body in others which is theirs no longer, and to recall to their memory the charms and comeli- ness of that blooming age; and desires that in those sports they should attribute the honour of victory to the youth who
? Lest my mind be intent on its own troubles. — Ovid, Tristia, IV, 1.4. The original has me foret, instead of ne siet.
® The mind longs for what it has lost, and in imagination throws itself altogether into the past. — Petronius, Satyricon, 128.
- To be able to enjoy one’s past life is to live twice. — Martial, X,
24.7.