the least? Does it not seem to you
that the soul, which sees more and further, sees that it is passing to
a better state, while that body whose vision is duller, does not see
it? I, indeed, am transported with eagerness to see your fathers, whom
I have respected and loved; nor in truth is it those only I desire to
meet whom I myself have known; but those also of whom I have heard or
read, and have myself written. Whither, indeed, as I proceed, no one
assuredly should easily force me back, nor, as they did with Pelias,
cook me again to youth. For if any god should grant me that from this
period of life I should become a child again and cry in the cradle, I
should earnestly refuse it; nor in truth should I like, after having
run, as it were, my course, to be called back to the starting-place
from the goal. For what comfort has life? What trouble has it not,
rather? But grant that it has; yet it assuredly has either satiety or
limitation (of its pleasures). For I am not disposed to lament the
loss of life, which many men, and those learned men too, have often
done; neither do I regret that I have lived, since I have lived in
such a way that I conceive I was not born in vain; and from this life
I depart as from a temporary lodging, not as from a home.

For nature has assigned it to us as an inn to sojourn in, not a place
of habitation. Oh, glorious day! when I shall depart to that divine
company and assemblage of spirits, and quit this troubled and polluted
scene. For I shall go not only to those great men of whom I have
spoken before, but also to my son Cato, than whom never was better man
born, nor more distinguished for pious affection, whose body was
burned by me, whereas, on the contrary, it was fitting that mine
should be burned by him. But his soul not deserting me, but oft
looking back, no doubt departed to those regions whither it saw that I
myself was destined to come. This, tho a distress to me, I seemed
patiently to endure; not that I bore it with indifference, but I
comforted myself with the recollection that the separation and
distance between us would not continue long. For these reasons, O
Scipio (since you said that you with Laelius were accustomed to wonder
at this), old age is tolerable to me, and not only not irksome, but
even delightful. And if I am wrong in this, that I believe the souls
of men to be immortal, I willingly delude myself; nor do I desire that
this mistake, in which I take pleasure, shou