Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today.

Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts,

audio books that you like here recommend here at Daily Stoic and other long form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend.

We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly that you're able to apply it to actual life. Thank you for listening.

We were talking recently about this, what makes you happy? Is it accomplishing stuff? Is it doing stuff or is it contentment?

And then the older you get, the more you realize that contentment is really where it's at.

And no one talks about contentment more beautifully than the poet Horace, the Roman poet.

He had this beautiful country place, which he talks about beautifully. I actually quote him, I believe at the end of stillness is the key as well.

And he wasn't just a writer about the beauty of the world, but he's a writer about how we get to the good life. How virtue gets us to the place of the good life, virtue gets us to a place of contentment.

And we're going to finish up this series of excerpts from the audio book of How to Be Content, published by the Princeton University Press, ancient wisdom for modern reader series.

I love this. This is translated by Stephen Harrison, but it's just a wonderful series. And this is a great introduction to the poems of Horace, which you see pop up in the Stoke writings from time to time.

And I'm excited to bring this to you. Thanks to the Princeton University Press for allowing us to excerpt this. You can get physical copies at the painted porch. I'll link to them in today's show notes. You can grab the audio book anywhere.

We'll see you book anywhere. Audio books are sold, but let's dive into some Horace here.

He who longs only for what is enough is not stirred to fear by the seas tumult or by the fierce force of the falling northern star or of the rising kid or by the vines beaten down by hail and the disappointing farm where the trees blame now the rain waters, now the constellations that roast the fields, now the hostile winters.

Fish feel the seas shrunk as piles are driven into the deep down there the constant contractor with his slave crew consigns his rubble together with the master who scorns dry land.

But fear and threats can climb as high as the master and dark care stays on the copper sheathed tri-ream and takes her seat behind the horsemen.

But if neither friggin marble or the wearing of purple that surpasses the brightness of stars cannot relieve the sick man or falarion wine or rointment from the Persian East.

Why should I labor to build a hall with doorposts to attract envy setting a new fashion for height? Why should I exchange my say-bind valley for riches that bring bigger burdens?

Odds book three poem one lines 25 through 48.

By seeking only a material sufficiency rather than great riches argues Horace the good man is insured against distress and disappointment.

Appropriate indifference to storms at sea and unsatisfactory agricultural productivity again locate the argument vividly in the world of the Roman elite where maritime trading and farm ownership and their associated risks were widespread.

The poem then focuses specifically on excessive modern building projects and the driving of piles into the sea in order to support massive villas that obliterate the natural difference between sea and land.

...