Letters 92.9

They have ordered reason to serve this latter; they have made the Supreme Good of the noblest living being an abject and mean affair, and a monstrous hybrid, too, composed of various members which harmonize but ill. For as our Vergil, describing Scylla, says:

Above, a human face and maiden’s breast,— A beauteous breast,—below, a monster huge Of bulk and shapeless, with a dolphin’s tail Joined to a wolf-like belly.

And yet to this Scylla are tacked on the forms of wild animals, dreadful and swift; but from what monstrous shapes have these wiseacres compounded wisdom!

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 92.9, translated by Richard Mott Gummere