Seneca, Epistula 3.1–4 (continued)
[3] Tū quidem ita vīve ut nihil tibi committās nisi quod committere etiam inimīcō tuō possīs; sed quia interveniunt quaedam quae cōnsuētūdō fēcit arcāna, cum amīcō omnēs cūrās, omnēs cōgitātiōnēs tuās miscē. Fidēlem sī putāveris, faciēs; nam quīdam fallere docuērunt dum timent fallī, et illī iūs peccandī suspicandō fēcērunt. Quid est quārē ego ūlla verba cōram amīcō meō retraham? quid est quārē mē cōram illō nōn putem sōlum? [4] Quīdam quae tantum amīcīs committenda sunt obviīs nārrant, et in quāslibet aurēs quidquid illōs ūrit exonerant; quīdam rūrsus etiam cārissimōrum cōnscientiam reformīdant et, sī possent, nē sibi quidem crēditūrī interius premunt omne sēcrētum. Neutrum faciendum est; utrumque enim vitium est, et omnibus crēdere et nūllī, sed alterum honestius dīxerim vitium, alterum tūtius.
Interrogata
- Are there some secrets you would not share with a friend?
- Have you ever shared secrets with a person who was not your friend? Why?
- Which flaw are you more likely to exhibit: trusting too much or too little?
Commentariolum
Share your secrets with your friends; they will become trustworthy if you trust them. But don’t be so trusting that you share all your troubles with just anybody you meet. Trusting too much and trusting too little are both faults to avoid.
15-16 inimīcō tuō: this comes as something of a surprise, but the idea is that your life should be so faultless as to be unassailable even by your enemies.
17 putāveris: what tense? what kind of conditional?
faciēs: you need to supply an eum (meaning the friend) here (and with putāveris); then you need to understand fidēlem again from the first clause.
18 quīdam: Seneca is not shy about naming names, but here (as below) he leaves vague who these poor moral actors are.
peccandī suspicandō: back-to-back gerunds! what a good time to review this verbal noun form and its uses!! (AG 500-507).
19 quid est quārē: this is a rather abundant way of saying “why”, as quārē could introduce the question all by itself; instead, here it comes as an indirect question after quid est; compare French qu’est que c’est
20 cōram: here the preposition (which takes the abl.).
20-21 quae…sunt: the understood florid for quae (ea, for example) is the direct object of nārrant.
21 illōs: refers to the quīdam in line 19.
quīdam: this second quīdam refers to people with the opposite problem (rūrsus).
22 possent: what kind of conditional?
nē…quidem: remember how this construction works?
24-25 alterum…alterum: the first refers to the first fault (omnibus crēdere) and the second refers to the second fault (crēdere nulli).
25 dīxerim: the perfect is often used in potential subjunctives.
