Seneca, Moral Epistle 26.1-3
“I was just telling you that I am in sight of old age. Well, I fear that I am already past it. Now some other word applies to these years, or at least to this body,–since old age is the title of a time of weariness, not being broken. Count me among the derelicts and those just reaching the end.
Still, I am thankful to myself with you as my witness: I don’t see any weakness to my mind, although I feel it in my body. Only my faults and those servants of my faults have grown old. My spirit is strong and takes joy in the fact that it is not all wrapped up in this body. It has laid the great part of its burden down to rest. Yet it celebrates and communes with me about old age. It says that this is its season to bloom. And I want to believe it–let me make good use of it.”
Modo dicebam tibi, in conspectu esse me senectutis; iam vereor, ne senectutem post me reliquerim. Aliud iam his annis, certe huic corpori, vocabulum convenit, quoniam quidem senectus lassae aetatis, non fractae, nomen est; inter decrepitos me numera et extrema tangentis.
Gratias tamen mihi apud te ago; non sentio in animo aetatis iniuriam, cum sentiam in corpore. Tantum vitia et vitiorum ministeria senuerunt; viget animus et gaudet non multum sibi esse cum corpore. Magnam partem oneris sui posuit. Exultat et mihi facit controversiam de senectute. Hunc ait esse florem suum. Credamus illi; bono suo utatur.
