Bravery Even to Live
Lucilius objects: no one pays a vow in thanks for the rack. Seneca agrees that the hardship itself is not desirable. He would prefer no torture, no war, no illness. If they come, he wants to meet them with courage, and that courage is desirable. In praying for an honourable life you have already prayed for the occasions without which honour sometimes cannot be kept. Regulus goes back to Carthage. The Decii ride into the line. Cato reopens the wound. A life with nothing to meet is not tranquillity. It is a sea that has died.
Key Insight
Do not confuse a wish for ease with a wish for a self that can still be praised. You may refuse the rack. You may not refuse the standard that would still have to show up if the rack arrived. The dead sea is what remains when the standard has never been asked to work.
“That which I ought not to wish to do, I lack the ability to do.”Explore full theme analysis
