Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian — Kant — John Shaqi
Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian
Kant · en
Make roome for others, as others have done for you. Equalitie is the
chiefe ground-worke of equitie, who can complaine to be comprehended
where all are contained? So may you live long enough, you shall
never diminish anything from the time you have to die: it is
bootlesse; so long shall you continue in that state which you feare,
as if you had died, being in your swathing-clothes, and when you
were sucking.
--licet, quot vis, vivendo vincere secla.
Mors sterna tamen, nihilominus ilia manebit.
[Footnote: Ib. 1126.]
Though yeares you live, as many as you will,
Death is eternall, death remaineth still.
And I will so please you, that you shall have no discontent.
In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te,
Qui possit vivus tibi te lugere peremptum,
Stansque jacentem.
[Footnote: Idt. 1. Iii. 9.]
Thou know'st not there shall be not other thou,
When thou art dead indeed, that can tell how
Alive to waile thee dying, Standing to waile thee lying.
Nor shall you wish for life, which you so much desire
Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamque requirit,
[Footnote: ib. 963.]
Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit ullum.
[Footnote: Ib. 966.]
For then none for himselfe or life requires:
Nor are we of our selves affected with desires.
Death is lesse to be feared than nothing, if there were anything
lesse than nothing.
--multo mortem minus ad nos esse putandum,
Si minus esse potest quam quod nihil esse videmus.
[Footnote: Ib. 970.]
Death is much less to us, we ought esteeme,
If lesse may be, than what doth nothing seeme.
Nor alive, nor dead, it doth concern you nothing. Alive because you
are: Dead, because you are no more. Moreover, no man dies before his
houre. The time you leave behinde was no more yours than that which
was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.
Respice enim quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas
Temporis aeterni fuerit.
[Footnote: Ib. 1016.]
For marke, how all antiquitie foregone
Of all time ere we were, to us was none.
Wheresoever your life ended, there is it all. The profit of life
consists not in the space, but rather in the use. Some man hath
lived long, that hath a short life, Follow it whilst you have time.
It consists not in number of yeeres, but in your will, that you have
lived long enough. Did you thinke you should never come to the
place, where you were still going? There is no way but hath an end.
And if company may solace you, doth not the whole world walke the
same path?
--Omnia te, vita perfuncta, sequentur.
[Footnote: Ib. 1012.]
Life past, all things at last
Shall follow thee as thou hast past.
Doe not all things move as you doe, or keepe your course? Is there
any thing grows not old together with yourselfe? A thousand men, a
thousand beasts, and a thousand other creatures die in the very
instant that you die.