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[85]
For these reasons, Scipio, my old age sits light
upon me (for you said that this has been a cause of
wonder to you and Laelius), and not only is not
burdensome, but is even happy. And if I err in
my belief that the souls of men are immortal, I
gladly err, nor do I wish this error which gives me
pleasure to be wrested from me while I live. But
if when dead I am going to be without sensation
(as some petty philosophers think), then I have no
fear that these seers, when they are dead, will have
the laugh on me! Again, if we are not going to
be immortal, nevertheless, it is desirable for a man
to be blotted out at his proper time. For as Nature
has marked the bounds of everything else, so she
has marked the bounds of life. Moreover, old age
is the final scene, as it were, in life's drama, from
[p. 99]
which we ought to escape when it grows wearisome
and, certainly, when we have had our fill.
Such, my friends, are my views on old age. May
you both attain it, and thus be able to prove
by experience the truth of what you have heard
from me.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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