Читать книгу Yale Classics (Vol. 2) - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 73

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Needy Furius, house nor hoard possessing,

Bug or spider, or any fire to thaw you,

Yet most blest in a father and a step-dame,

Each for penury fit to tooth a flint-stone:

Is not happiness yours? a home united?

Son, sire, mother, a lathy dame to match him.

Who can wonder? in all is health, digestion,

Pure and vigorous, hours without a trouble.

Fires ye fear not, or house's heavy downfal,

Deeds unnatural, art in act to poison,

Dangers myriad accidents befalling.

Then your bodies? in every limb a shrivell'd

Horn, all dryness in all the world whatever,

Tann'd or frozen or icy-lean with ages.

Sure superlative happiness surrounds thee.

Thee sweat frets not, an o'er-saliva frets not,

Frets not snivel or oozy rheumy nostril.

Yet such purity lacks not e'en a purer.

White those haunches as any cleanly-silver'd

Salt, it takes you a month to barely dirt them.

Then like beans, or inert as e'er a pebble,

Those impeccable heavy loins, a finger's

Breadth from apathy ne'er seduced to riot.

Such prosperity, such superb profusion,

Slight not, Furius, idly nor reject not.

As for sesterces, all the would-be fortune,

Cease to wish it; enough, methinks, the present.