(The Happy Life)
These things, I find, are what brings a
man a happy life:
wealth left to you, or given by design;
rich land and soil, an even tempered
hearth;
no law but self, light business, and a
quiet mind;
great health in body, honorable power
to do only right;
a wise simplicity, friends of equal
term;
good company and counsel, a table
strong, without art;
nights carefree, no grief, no awkward drunkenness;
a bed of soft comfort, modest, true,
without cold;
sleep that dreams only sweet, hours of
darkness brief;
the need to be yourself, and nothing
more;
a man, a knight, a lord, discharged
without concern;
never fearing your final day, never
seeking it to come to term.
A modern translation of " The good life",
by Marcus Valerius
Martialis Book X: 47
