The Letter to Idomeneus

SUNDAY WEEKLY ZOOM - 12:30 PM EDT - Book Review: De Rerum Natura by Lucretius -- Read the post for our December 7, 2025 meeting -- or find out how to attend.

 

This translation is by R. D. Hicks Please post comments and questions at this link.

"On this blissful day, which is also the last of my life, I write this to you. My continual sufferings from strangury and dysentery are so great that nothing could increase them; but I set above them all the gladness of mind at the memory of our past conversations. But I would have you, as becomes your lifelong attitude to me and to philosophy, watch over the children of Metrodorus."

The version by Cyril Bailey from his book "Epicurus, The Extant Remains" is as follows:

"On this truly happy day of my life, as I am at the point of death, I write this to you. The disease in my bladder and stomach are pursuing their course, lacking nothing of their natural severity: but against all this is the Joy in my heart at the recollection of my conversations with you Do you, as I might expect from your devotion from boyhood to me and to philosophy, take good care of the children of Metrodorus."

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