Lucilius has lost his friend Flaccus, and Seneca writes to console him. His advice is firmer than most of us would offer a grieving friend today: weep, but don’t wail; don’t put your sorrow on display; turn memory into something sweet. But this is also one of Seneca’s most human letters. He admits that he once grieved so hard for his young friend Serenus that he became an example of someone overcome by grief, and he shares the lesson that loss taught him: love your friends greedily while you have them, because no one knows the order in which we’ll go.
From Seneca to Lucilius
I’m sorry to hear that your friend Flaccus has died, but I wouldn’t want you to grieve more than is fitting. That you shouldn’t mourn at all, I hardly dare insist, though I know it’s the better way. But who will ever be blessed with that ideal steadiness of soul, unless he has already risen far beyond Fortune’s reach? Even such a person will be stung by an event like this, but it will be only a sting. The rest of us can be forgiven for bursting into tears, as long as our tears haven’t flowed to excess and we’ve checked them by our own effort. When we’ve lost a friend, our eyes shouldn’t be dry, and they shouldn’t overflow. We may weep, but we must not wail.
Grief on Display
Do you think the rule I’m giving you is harsh, when the greatest of the Greek poets grants the privilege of weeping for just one day, in the lines where he tells us that even Niobe thought about food? Do you want to know why people lament and weep to excess? It’s because we look for proof of our loss in our tears, and we don’t give way to sorrow so much as put it on parade. No one mourns for his own sake. Shame on our ill-timed foolishness! There’s an element of self-display even in our sorrow.
“What,” you say, “am I supposed to forget my friend?” It’s surely a short memory you’re granting him, if it lasts only as long as your grief. Soon some circumstance, however trivial, will smooth that brow of yours into laughter. It’s no further off than that, I’d say, that every regret is soothed and even the bitterest grief grows quiet. As soon as you stop watching yourself, the picture of sorrow you’ve been gazing at will fade. Right now you’re standing guard over your own suffering. But even as you guard it, it slips away from you, and the sharper it is, the faster it ends.
The Sweetness of Remembering
Let’s make sure that the memory of those we’ve lost becomes a pleasant one for us. No one returns gladly to a subject he can’t think about without pain. And so it’s inevitable that the names of those we’ve loved and lost come back to us with a kind of sting; but there’s pleasure even in that sting.
As my teacher Attalus used to say: “Remembering lost friends is pleasant in the same way that certain fruits have a pleasantly sharp taste, or the way that in very old wines it’s their very bitterness that delights us. In fact, after a certain time has passed, every painful thought is extinguished, and the pleasure comes to us unmixed.” If we take Attalus at his word, “thinking of friends who are alive and well is like enjoying a meal of cakes and honey; remembering friends who have died gives a pleasure that isn’t without a touch of bitterness. Yet who would deny that even these things, bitter and a little sour as they are, stir the appetite?”
For my part, I don’t agree with him. To me, the thought of my friends who have died is sweet and inviting. For I had them as though I would one day lose them; I have lost them as though I have them still.
Love Your Friends Greedily
So, Lucilius, act in a way that fits your own calm of mind, and stop misreading Fortune’s gifts. Fortune has taken away, but Fortune has given. Let’s enjoy our friends greedily, because we don’t know how long that privilege will be ours. Let’s think how often we leave them when we go on long journeys, and how often we fail to see them even when we’re staying in the same place. Then we’ll understand that we lost too much of their time while they were alive.
But will you put up with people who are utterly careless of their friends and then mourn them most miserably, who don’t love anyone until they’ve lost him? The reason they lament so unrestrainedly at such times is that they’re afraid people will doubt they really loved; too late, they go looking for proof of their feelings.
Look Around for Someone to Love
If we have other friends, we surely treat them badly and think poorly of them, if they count for so little that they can’t console us for the loss of one. If, on the other hand, we have no other friends, we’ve done ourselves more harm than Fortune has done us: Fortune has robbed us of one friend, but we’ve robbed ourselves of every friend we failed to make. Besides, someone who couldn’t love more than one person didn’t have much love even for that one. If a man whose only tunic was stolen chose to bewail his situation rather than look around for some way to escape the cold, or for something to cover his shoulders, wouldn’t you think him a complete fool?
You’ve buried someone you loved; look around for someone to love. It’s better to replace your friend than to weep for him.
Leave Grief Before It Leaves You
What I’m about to add is, I know, a well-worn saying, but I won’t leave it out just because everyone says it: time ends grief, even for someone who hasn’t ended it himself. But for a sensible person, the most shameful cure for sorrow is to grow tired of sorrowing. I’d rather you leave grief than have grief leave you; and you should stop grieving as soon as you can, since even if you wanted to, you couldn’t keep it up for long.
Our ancestors set a year as the limit of mourning for women, not because women needed to mourn that long, but so they would mourn no longer. For men no rules were laid down, because mourning at all wasn’t considered honorable. And yet, of all those grief-stricken women who could hardly be dragged from the funeral pyre or torn from the body, which one can you show me whose tears lasted a whole month? Nothing becomes tiresome so quickly as grief. When it’s fresh, it finds someone to console it and draws people toward it; but once it becomes chronic, it’s ridiculed, and rightly, for it’s either put on or foolish.
The Day I Was Unprepared
The person writing these words to you is none other than I, who wept so excessively for my dear friend Annaeus Serenus that, against my own wishes, I must be counted among the examples of people overcome by grief. Today, though, I condemn what I did, and I understand that the main reason I lamented so much was that I had never imagined his death could come before mine. The only thought that occurred to me was that he was younger, much younger, as if the Fates kept to the order of our ages!
So let’s keep thinking as much about our own mortality as about that of everyone we love. In earlier days I should have said: “My friend Serenus is younger than I am, but what does that matter? He should naturally die after me, but he may go before me.” It was precisely because I didn’t do this that I was unprepared when Fortune struck me so suddenly. Now is the time for you to reflect not only that all things are mortal, but that their mortality follows no fixed law. Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.
Sent On Ahead
So let’s reflect, my dear Lucilius, that we will soon reach the goal this friend has reached, to our sorrow. And perhaps, if the story the wise tell is true and there is a place to welcome us, the one we think we’ve lost has only been sent on ahead.
Farewell.
Breaking It Down: A Modern Take on Letter 63
Letter 63 is Seneca’s great letter on grief, and it can feel bracing to a modern reader. Today we know grief has no tidy timetable, and some of his advice (“replace your friend”) would sound cold at a funeral. His remarks about women and mourning also reflect Roman prejudice rather than truth; grief belongs to everyone. But read closely, the letter is tender. Seneca isn’t telling us not to feel. He’s warning against performing sorrow, urging us to treasure people while they’re here, and confessing that he himself was undone by loss. Its deepest lesson is gratitude: memory can become sweet.
1. Tears are allowed
“We may weep, but we must not wail.” Even the Stoic ideal allows a “sting.” Seneca’s aim is balance, not numbness.
2. Don’t perform your grief
“We look for proof of our loss in our tears.” Sorrow shown to prove our love to others can trap us. Grief is not a test we have to pass in public.
3. Memory outlasts mourning
Remembering a friend isn’t the same as staying in pain. A memory that lasts only as long as grief, Seneca says, is a short one. Love can stay long after the sharpest sorrow fades.
4. Stop standing guard over pain
He notices that we sometimes keep “standing guard over [our] own suffering.” Gently stepping back, even for a while, lets healing begin.
5. Let memory turn sweet
“The memory of those we’ve lost becomes a pleasant one for us.” Many people find this over time: a name that once brought only pain starts to bring a smile, too.
6. Hold people as gifts
“I had them as though I would one day lose them; I have lost them as though I have them still.” Knowing that we can lose people makes us cherish them now, and love keeps them with us after.
7. Fortune gave before it took
“Fortune has taken away, but Fortune has given.” Grief and gratitude can sit side by side. The loss is real because the gift was real.
8. Love greedily now
“We lost too much of their time while they were alive.” Call the friend. Make the visit. Time together slips away in small absences long before any final one.
9. Don’t wait for loss to love
Seneca has little patience for people who ignore friends and then mourn them loudly. Showing love while people can feel it matters more than any display afterward.
10. Keep your heart open
“Look around for someone to love.” No one replaces a person we’ve lost, but grief doesn’t have to close us off from new connection. Making friends is a way of honoring how much friendship meant.
11. Let go of grief gently
“I’d rather you leave grief than have grief leave you.” Seneca wants us to take an active part in healing rather than simply waiting it out.
12. Even Seneca struggled
He confesses he “wept so excessively for my dear friend Annaeus Serenus.” The teacher is also a learner. His honesty makes the advice kinder than it first sounds.
13. Mortality keeps no order
“Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.” Assuming the young will outlive the old left Seneca unprepared. Remembering this isn’t morbid; it helps us say what matters now.
14. A hopeful ending
Seneca closes with a gentle possibility: “the one we think we’ve lost has only been sent on ahead.” Whatever we believe about what follows, there is comfort in picturing a reunion rather than an ending.
Key Takeaways from Letter 63
- Allow your tears. Just don’t let them rule you.
- Grieve honestly, not for show. Love doesn’t need proof.
- Step back from your pain. Healing comes when we stop guarding it.
- Let memories turn sweet. Over time, names bring smiles.
- Be grateful for what was given. The gift came before the loss.
- Love people greedily now. We lose time with them in small ways.
- Don’t wait until it’s too late. Show love while it can be felt.
- Stay open to new friendship. Grief needn’t close your heart.
- Take part in your healing. Leave grief before it leaves you.
- Remember that anyone can go first. Say what matters today.
- Hold on to hope. Perhaps they’ve only gone on ahead.
“We may weep, but we must not wail.”
— Seneca, Letter 63
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Next up: Letter 64 — On the Philosopher’s Task
