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around
whatever is pressing it), nor can air be damaged or even divided
by hitting and striking it, but flows around that which it gives
way to; so the soul, which is composed of the most rarefied
material, cannot be trapped or crushed within the body, but,
thanks to its fine texture, it forces its way right through any
overpowering weight. Just as however widely a thunderbolt’s
force and flash is diffused it returns through a tiny opening, so the
soul, which is even more rarefied than fire, can escape through
    9           any part of the body. And so we must ask this question: can it be
immortal? Well, be sure of this: if it survives the body, it can in
no way be destroyed, since no sort of immortality is qualified and
nothing can damage what is eternal.

LETTER 79
    [
Seneca asks Lucilius for details about Charybdis, and encourages him to write a poetical account of Mount Etna, as others have done. Literary emulation is possible and desirable, but wisdom and virtue cannot involve rivalry
]
    1           I am looking forward to your letter in which you will tell me
what you discovered in your trip around the whole of Sicily, with
full and reliable details about Charybdis in particular. For I am
well aware that Scylla is a rock and not, in fact, dangerous to
sailors, but I want you to tell me whether Charybdis matches up
to the tales about it. Also, if you happen to notice (which is well
worth noticing), do inform me whether it is lashed into whirlpools
by only one wind, or any storm at all stirs up that sea, and
whether it is true that anything caught up by that whirling eddy
is dragged under water for many miles and does not surface till it
    2           reaches the shore of Tauromenium. 1 If you write and tell me these details I’ll venture to commission you to climb Etna too for
my sake. Some people judge that it is being worn away and is
gradually sinking from the fact that sailors used to be able to see
it from further away. This might happen not because the mountain
is getting lower, but because its fire has declined and is ejected
with less force and volume, causing the smoke too to appear more
sluggishly during the day. Neither possibility can be ruled out,
that the mountain is daily diminished by being consumed, or that
it remains unchanged because the fire is not actually devouring
it, but, starting in some subterranean hollow, blazes away there,
feeding on other material and using the mountain itself not as
    3           food but as a way out. There is a well-known region of Lycia
(the local name is Hephaestion), where the ground is perforated
in several places, and a harmless fire plays around the area without
doing the least damage to the local plant life. In fact, the region
is lush and rich in vegetation, as the flames do not scorch anything,
but simply cause a glow without any strength in their heat.
    4                 But let us defer these questions for consideration when you’ve
written to tell me how far away from the crater are the snows,
which do not melt even in summer, so safe are they from the
nearby fire. However, there is no question of your doing this
investigation as a favour to me: you were going to indulge your
    5          obsession anyway, even if nobody asked you to. What could I
give you
not
to describe Etna in your poem and handle this theme
so well-worn by every poet? Ovid was in no way prevented from
treating it by the fact that Virgil had previously dealt with it fully;
and neither of them deterred Cornelius Severus from doing the
same. Besides, this subject is a rich field for all writers, and those
who have gone before do not seem to me to have pre-empted
what can be said about it, but rather to have shown the way.
    6          There is a