‘You’ve escaped! Then I hope you’ll know fear, and be
Cautious after learning your lesson: oh no, you’ll look
To the next chance of terror and ruin, you inveterate slave!
What creature that breaks its chains and flees, returns to them
So perversely? “I’m no adulterer,” you say: nor am I a thief
By Hercules, when I wisely avoid your silver plate.
Remove the risks though: and errant Nature will burst
Free of its reins. Are you my master, ruled by so many
Men and things? Touched by the rod three times, four times,
It will never release you from your miserable fears.
Add these words that carry no less weight than those:
Whether one who obeys a slave’s called a proxy, as
Your lot say, or a co-slave, what else am I to you?
Wretch, you who order me around serve another,
Like a wooden puppet jerked by alien strings.
So who is free? The wise man: in command of himself,
Unafraid of poverty, chains, or death, bravely
Defying his passions, despising honours, complete
In himself, smoothed and rounded, so that nothing
External can cling to his polished surface, whom
Fortune by attacking ever wounds herself. Can you
Claim any of this for your own? The woman demands
A fortune, bullies you, slams the door in your face,
Drowns you in cold water, then calls you back! Take your
Neck from the vile yoke. “I’m free, free,” say it! You can’t:
A despot, and no slight one, oppresses your spirit,
Pricking sharp spurs in your tired flanks, yanking when you shy.’