Book 1, Chapter 7
Original Latin
Ita iocaris, quasi ego dicam eos miseros, qui nati non sint, et non eos miseros, qui mortui sunt.
Esse ergo eos dicis.
Immo, quia non sint, cum fuerint, eo miseros esse.
Pugnantia te loqui non vides? quid enim tam pugnat, quam non modo miserum, sed omnino quicquam esse, qui non sit? an tu egressus porta Capena cum Calatini Scipionum Serviliorum Metellorum sepulcra vides, miseros putas illos?
Quoniam me verbo premis, posthac non ita dicam, miseros esse, sed tantum miseros, ob id ipsum, quia non sint.
Non dicis igitur: ‘miser est M. Crassus’, sed tantum: ‘miser M. Crassus’?
Ita plane.
Quasi non necesse sit, quicquid isto modo pronunties, id aut esse aut non esse! an tu dialecticis ne imbutus quidem es?
14 in primis enim hoc traditur: omne pronuntiatum (sic enim mihi in praesentia occurrit ut appellarem ἀξίωμα, utar post alio, si invenero melius) —id ergo est pronuntiatum, quod est verum aut falsum. cum igitur dicis: ‘miser M. Crassus’, aut hoc dicis: ‘miser est Crassus’, ut possit iudicari, verum id falsumne sit, aut nihil dicis omnino.
Age, iam concedo non esse miseros, qui mortui sint, quoniam extorsisti, ut faterer, qui omnino non essent, eos ne miseros quidem esse posse. quid? qui vivimus, cum moriendum sit, nonne miseri sumus? quae enim potest in vita esse iucunditas, cum dies et noctes cogitandum sit iam iamque esse moriendum?
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted translation from the Latin. Latin transcription by the Perseus Project, Trustees of Tufts University, CC BY-SA 4.0.
“You joke as though I were saying that those who have not been born are miserable, rather than those who have died.”
“Then you say that they exist.”
“No: they are miserable because they do not exist after having existed.”
“Do you not see that you contradict yourself? What could be more contradictory than for someone who does not exist to be not merely miserable, but anything at all? When you go out through the Capena Gate and see the tombs of Calatinus, the Scipios, the Servilii, and the Metelli, do you think those men miserable?”
“Since you press me on a word, from now on I shall not say that they ‘are miserable,’ but simply ‘miserable’—precisely because they do not exist.”
“So you do not say, ‘Marcus Crassus is miserable,’ but simply, ‘Miserable Marcus Crassus’?”
“Exactly.”
“As though anything you express in that way did not necessarily either exist or not exist! Have you not even had an introduction to dialectic?
14 “One of its first lessons is this: every proposition—for that is the word that occurs to me at present for the Greek ἀξίωμα, an assertion; I shall use another later if I find a better one—every proposition, then, is something either true or false. So when you say ‘Miserable Marcus Crassus,’ either you are saying ‘Crassus is miserable,’ so that it can be judged true or false, or you are saying nothing at all.”
“Come, I now concede that the dead are not miserable, since you have wrung from me the admission that those who do not exist at all cannot even be miserable. But what about us who are alive? Since we must die, are we not miserable? What pleasure can there be in life, when day and night we must think that at any moment we have to die?”
Plain English translation
Complete independent machine-assisted translation directly from the Latin. Latin transcription by the Perseus Project, Trustees of Tufts University, CC BY-SA 4.0.
“You’re joking as though I were saying that people who haven’t been born are unhappy, rather than people who’ve died.”
“So you’re saying they exist.”
“No, I’m saying they’re unhappy because they don’t exist now, though they once did.”
“Don’t you see you’re contradicting yourself? What could be more contradictory than saying someone who doesn’t exist is unhappy, or is anything at all? When you go out through the Capene Gate and see the tombs of Calatinus, the Scipios, the Servilii, and the Metelli, do you think those people are unhappy?”
“Since you’re pinning me down over a word, I won’t say ‘they are unhappy’ from now on. I’ll just say ‘unhappy’—precisely because they don’t exist.”
“So you don’t say, ‘Marcus Crassus is unhappy,’ just ‘unhappy Marcus Crassus’?”
“Exactly.”
“As if anything you assert that way didn’t have to be either so or not so! Haven’t you learned even the basics of logic?
14 “One of its first lessons is this: every statement—‘statement’ is what occurs to me for now as a word for axíōma; I’ll use another later if I find a better one—well, a statement is something that’s either true or false. So when you say ‘unhappy Marcus Crassus,’ you’re either saying ‘Crassus is unhappy,’ so that we can judge whether it’s true or false, or you’re saying nothing at all.”
“All right, I now admit that the dead aren’t unhappy. You’ve forced me to acknowledge that people who don’t exist at all can’t even be unhappy. But what about those of us who are alive? Aren’t we unhappy, since we have to die? How can there be any pleasure in life, when day and night we have to think that we’ll have to die at any moment?”
About this section
Book 1, Chapter 7 is part of Tusculan Disputations by Marcus Tullius Cicero. This page sets the Latin original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 7 of 189 in the work, which is kept in the Roman tradition.
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