A few things I was unsure about here.
(25) Quocirca si reditum in hunc locum desperaveris, in quo omnia sunt magnis et praestantibus viris, quanti tandem est ista hominum gloria, quae pertinere vix ad unius anni partem exiguam potest?
Igitur, alte spectare si voles atque hanc sedem et aeternam domum contueri, neque te sermonibus vulgi dederis nec in praemiis humanis spem posueris rerum tuarum! Suis te oportet illecebris ipsa virtus trahat ad verum decus;
quid de te alii loquantur, ipsi videant! Sed loquentur tamen; sermo autem omnis ille et angustiis cingitur iis regionum, quas vides, nec umquam de ullo perennis fuit et obruitur hominum interitu et oblivione posteritatis exstinguitur.'
Wherefore, if you have lost hope of a return to this place -- in which are all
[things of?]* great and excellent men -- of what worth, in the end, is mere human fame, which can last through barely a tiny part of a single year
[i.e. the Great Year, described above]?
Therefore, if you desire
[literally, will desire]** to gaze on high
[or, from above] and behold this abode and the eternal home, you will neither devote yourself to the talk of the multitude nor put
[your] hope in human rewards of
[i.e. for] your deeds***! It is essential that virtue itself, by its own attractions, should lead you to true glory; let others say about you what they themselves perceive!**** They shall talk nonetheless; yet all that talk is contained by the narrowness of the regions which you saw, and neither was
[such talk] about anyone ever eternal; it is buried in the dying of humans***** and annihilated by the forgetfulness of future generations.
* I don't understand why this is in neuter plural -- if it is referring to the men themselves, it should be masculine, but "things of" seems very vague...
** I'm assuming this is future perfect, but I haven't seen a conditional before with future perfect in both clauses -- is there a reason why it's used here, and what does it imply?
*** There are countless meanings of
res and this was just my best attempt to pick one; but I'm not sure I placed this right. It could also be something like "hope
of your future/affairs/reputation", or something other possibility I'm missing...
**** This is mostly a guess; but between the two subjunctives, the
quid, and
ipsi, I'm thoroughly confused as to the meaning here. I don't know if the
quid means something like "
why should others speak of you" or refers to the substance of what the "others" are saying; and I don't know if the subjunctives are concessive or causal or potential or something else entirely...
***** Or, the death of humans; I'm not sure if this is a supine (from
intereo) or just an ablative (from
interitus); either could work.