The Happy Life

This is an adaptation I wrote after reading some Martialis, a Roman Poet. Dedication is at the bottom of the work.

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 

Author's Note

The original work of Martialis is of course not mine. This is simply a rethinking of his work put to a more modern tone.

Reviews

[Just Kim]

very emotional write. well expressed