Virgil relates that Aeneas, when after his own perils and the shipwrecks of his people he was consoling the comrades who had barely survived, said: “Perhaps one day it will be a pleasure to remember even these things.”
1 Dixisse Aenean Virgilius refert, cum post pericula sua suorumque naufragia residuos aegre socios solaretur, Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuuabit.
This saying, once aptly coined, always carries a threefold force with very different effects: for things past are held to be all the more pleasant in the telling the heavier they were in the doing; and things to come, while they become desirable through weariness with the present, are always believed to be better;
2 haec sententia, semel apte ficta, semper uim sui triplicem diuersissimis effectibus refert, cum et praeterita tanto gratiora habentur in uerbis quanto grauiora referuntur in gestis et futura dum desiderabilia fastidio praesentium fiunt semper meliora creduntur,
but to the present things themselves no fair comparison of miseries can in any way be applied, for this reason: that the things which are, however slight they may be, afflict us with far greater annoyance than those which, whether past or still to come, though they are called great, meanwhile do not exist at all at that moment.
3 ipsis autem praesentibus ob hoc nulla in parte miseriarum iusta conparatio adhiberi potest, quia multo maiore molestia adficiunt quantulacumque sint ista quae sunt quam illa quae siue transacta siue uentura, etsi magna dicuntur, interim omnino tunc non sunt.
It is as if someone tormented by fleas at night, and made restless and sleepless by them, should happen to recall other sleepless nights which he once long endured from the most burning fevers: without doubt he will bear the disquiet of the present nights more impatiently than the memory of the former.
4 ueluti si quis nocturnis pulicibus titillatus atque ex eo uigiliis anxius alias forte, quas aliquando ex ardentissimis febribus diu sustinuit, uigilias recordetur, procul dubio inpatientius feret istarum inquietudinem quam illarum recordationem.
But although it may seem so to everyone’s senses, according to what each time can bear, will anyone nevertheless be found who, even in the midst of that very anxiety, would declare that fleas are worse than fevers? Or who would take it more bitterly to lie awake in good health than to have been unable to sleep when at the point of death?
5 sed quamuis apud omnium sensus pro captu temporum ita uideri queat, numquid tamen aliquis exsistet, qui uel in ipsa anxietate pronuntiet grauiores pulices esse quam febres? aut acerbius accipiat se uigilare sanum quam dormire non potuisse moriturum?
This being so, I grant to these delicate complainers of ours, after a fashion, that they may think heavy, as they feel them, the things by which we are now from time to time admonished, because it is expedient so; I do not, however, wink at their asserting that these things are also heavier by comparison.
6 quae cum ita sint, delicatis istis et querulis nostris utcumque concedo, ut haec, quibus nunc, quia sic expedit, interdum admonemur, sentiendo grauia putent, non tamen coniueo, ut etiam adserant conparando grauiora.
Just as if someone, coming out in the morning from the softest bedding and a most comfortable chamber, were to see that the surfaces of the pools had stiffened with the night’s frost and the grass had turned white, and, prompted by the unexpected sight, were to say, ‘It is cold today’: such a man would by no means seem to me deserving of reproof, for he would have spoken either according to common usage or from his own sensation.
7 quemadmodum si quis e mollissimis stratis cubiculoque percommodo matutinus egrediens nocturno gelu lacunarum dorsa obriguisse herbasque incanuisse prospiceret et inopinato uisu admonitus diceret 'frigus est hodie': hic mihi nequaquam reprehendendus uideretur, quia uel communi usu uel proprio sensu locutus esset.
But if, running back in alarm into his chamber and covering himself with his bedding, or rather burying himself in it, he were to cry out that the cold was altogether as great as it had never been even in the Apennines, when Hannibal, shut in and overwhelmed by the snows, lost his elephants, his horses and the greater part of his army:
8 at si trepidus in cubiculum recurrens stratisque sese adoperiens uel magis abdens clamaret, tantum omnino frigus esse quantum nec in Appennino aliquando fuerit, cum Hannibal elephantos equos plurimamque exercitus sui partem niuibus clausus atque oppressus amisit:
this man, sickening with childish self-indulgence, I would not only refuse to tolerate as he said such things, but I would even drag him from that very bedding, the witness of his idleness, out among the people and into public; and, having brought him out of doors, I would show him little children playing in that frost and with it, delighting in it and sweating,
9 hunc ego puerilibus licentiis nausiantem non modo dicentem ista non ferrem, sed etiam ab ipsis stratis, otii sui testibus, in populum publicumque protraherem, eique foras producto infantes in eo atque ex eo gelu ludentes iucundantes sudantesque monstrarem,
so that his wordy triviality, spoiled by pampered nurture, might be taught that the violence lay not in the weather, but the sluggishness in himself; and that, when things are weighed by comparison, it might be proved, not that our forebears had endured only small things, but that he himself was not equal to enduring even small ones.
10 ut uerbosa nugacitas delicatis uitiata nutrimentis non in tempore uiolentiam sed in se esse segnitiam doceretur et in conparatione rerum diiudicanda non maiores parua tolerasse sed se nec parua tolerare sufficere probaretur.
This I shall demonstrate more clearly by recalling to their memory the disasters of the past, setting forth first of all, as the order requires, the war with Pyrrhus. Its cause and origin were these.
11 Quod euidentius ipsis in memoriam reuolutis praeteritorum cladibus adprobabo Pyrrhi bello in primis, sicut ordo est, prodito. cuius causa et origo haec fuit.