Every earthly event
is in Jupiter’s power, Jupiter’s, O my son,
According to his will
he ordains all things.
But our blind thought is anxious
and troubled by distant futures,
though human fate,
since heaven decrees what falls,
is to endure from day to day.
Lovely hope feeds all here
on sweet illusions,
so we weary ourselves in vain:
One lives for a brighter day,
another a better age,
and no one lives on earth
whose mind does not dream
that Pluto god of wealth, and all
the gods, will be generous and kind.
See how before hope is achieved
the one’s overcome by age,
the other drawn to dark Lethe by disease:
This one by cruel war, and that by the tide
of a rapacious sea: another consumed
by black care, or twisting the sad noose
round his neck, seeks peace below.
A fierce and motley tribe,
of a thousand ills,
torments and consumes wretched mortals.
But in my judgement
a wise man, free of common error,
should not accept such suffering,
nor devote so much love
to sadness and his own harm.