Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian — Kant — John Shaqi
Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian
Kant · en
Nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet:
[Footnote: Manil. At. l. iv]
As we are borne we die; the end
Doth of th' originall depend.
All the time you live, you steale it from death: it is at her
charge. The continuall worke of your life, is to contrive death: you
are in death, during the time you continue in life: for, you are
after death, when you are no longer living. Or if you had rather
have it so, you are dead after life: but during life, you are still
dying: and death doth more rudely touch the dying than the dead, and
more lively and essentially. If you have profited by life, you have
also beene fed thereby, depart then satisfied.
Cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis?
[Footnote: Lucret. 1. iii. 982.]
Why like a full-fed guest,
Depart you not to rest?
If you have not knowne how to make use of it: if it were
unprofitable to you, what need you care to have lost it to what end
would you enjoy it longer?
--cur amplius addere quaeris
Rursum quod pereat male,
et ingratum occidat omne?
[Footnote: Lucret. 1. iii. 989.]
Why seeke you more to gaine, what must againe
All perish ill, and passe with griefe or paine?
Life in itselfe is neither good nor evill: it is the place of good
or evill, according as you prepare it for them. And if you have
lived one day, you have seene all: one day is equal to all other
daies. There is no other light, there is no other night. This Sunne,
this Moone, these Starres, and this disposition, is the very same
which your forefathers enjoyed, and which shall also entertaine your
posteritie.
Non alium videre patres, aliumve nepotes
Aspicient.
[Footnote: Manil. i. 523.]
No other saw our Sires of old,
No other shall their sonnes behold.
And if the worst happen, the distribution and varietie of all the
acts of my comedie, is performed in one yeare. If you have observed
the course of my foure seasons; they containe the infancie, the
youth, the viriltie, and the old age of the world. He hath plaied
his part: he knowes no other wilinesse belonging to it, but to begin
againe, it will ever be the same, and no other.
Versamur ibidem, atque insumus usque,
[Footnote: Lucret. 1. iii. 123.]
We still in one place turne about,
Still there we are, now in, now out.
Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus.
[Footnote: Virg. Georg. 1. ii. 403.]
The yeare into it selfe is cast
By those same steps, that it hath past.
I am not purposed to devise you other new sports.
Nam tibi praterea quod machiner, inveniamque
Quod placeat nihil est; eadem suni omnia semper.
[Footnote: Lucret. 1. ii. 978.]
Else nothing, that I can devise or frame,
Can please thee, for all things are still the same.