He infers from the ailments of old age that the end draws near, which consoles him as a Catholic
In this Occidental, in, Lycius,
this epoch, climacteric of your life,
each uncertain step will be a fall,
every easy fall a precipice.
Does your step falter? Good sense must prevail!
the wholeness of all matter falls apart.
What prudence ever clearly warned by dust
the ruin awaited of the edifice?
Not only all its skin, the deadly snake,
but with its skin its very years can shed
and man cannot. How human thought is blind!
Oh, he's a lucky man, who giving up
his heavier part to rest on silent stone
the lighter to a sovereign sapphire binds.
Translated by Alix Ingber
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