Marcus Tullius Cicero - On The Laws (De Legibus) - Book II lyrics

Book 2 [Book 2 opens with another approach to the foundation and true nature of law, this one starting from the divine force and mind behind all things. Quintus is speaking initially in this excerpt.] [7] But if it seems good, let us settle here in the shade and return to the part of the conversation where we digressed. M: You exact [a debt] magnificently, Quintus (but I thought I had escaped!), and no [debt] can be left unpaid to you. Q: Then begin, for we are granting you the entire day. M: “From Iupiter the beginnings of the Muses,” as I began in my Aratean poem. Q: What is the point of that? M: Because now too we must take the beginnings of our discussion from the same [Iupiter] and from the other immortal gods. Q: Truly well done, brother, and so it ought to happen. [8] M: Then let us see again, before we approach individual laws, the significance and nature of law, so that, since we must judge everything according to it, we do not occasionally slide into error in the conversation and ignore the force of its reason, by which we must mark out rights. Q: Certainly, by Hercules, and that is the right way of teaching. M: Therefore, I see that this has been the sense of very wise men: law was not thought out by natural human abilities; it is not some resolution of peoples, but something eternal that rules the whole universe through the wisdom of commanding and prohibiting. So, they said, the first and the last law is the mind of the god compelling or forbidding all things by reason. As a result of that, the law that the gods gave to the human race has been rightly praised: for it is the reason and mind of a wise being, suitable for ordering and deterring. [9] Q: Several times already you have touched on that point. But before you come to laws concerning the organization of the people, explain, if you please, the significance of that law of heaven, so that the tide of habit may not swallow us and drag us to the custom of usual conversation. M: In fact, Quintus, from childhood we have learned to name “If he calls into court” and other things of that sort laws. But it is truly proper for it to be understood that this and other orders and prohibitions of peoples have the force of calling them to deeds rightly done and calling them away from faults, a force that is not just older than the age of peoples and states, but also equal to that of the god protecting and ruling heaven and earth. [10] In fact the divine mind cannot exist without reason, nor can divine reason not have this force in prescribing by law things that are right and depraved. The fact that it had been nowhere written that one man should stand on the bridge against all the enemy's troops and order the bridge to be cut off from behind him does not mean that we will think any less that Cocles performed so great a deed in accordance with the law and command of courage. The absence of a written law at Rome concerning defilements during Lucius Tarquinius's reign did not mean that Sextus Tarquinius did not violate Lucretia, daughter of Tricipitinus, contrary to that everlasting law. For reason existed, having originated from the nature of things, both impelling toward doing rightly and calling away from transgression. Reason did not begin to be a law precisely when it was written, but when it arose. But it arose together with the divine mind. On account of this, the true and chief law, suitable for ordering and forbidding, is the right reason of Iupiter the Highest. [11] Q: I agree, brother, as what is right and true is [also eternal], and it does not either rise or fall with the letters by which resolutions are written. M: Therefore, as that divine mind is the highest law, so too when it is in man, it has been perfected in the mind of the wise man. Moreover, when things have been written down for peoples variously and to suit the occasion, they hold the name of laws by enthusiasm more than by substance. For they teach that all law that can indeed rightly be called law is praiseworthy by the same such arguments. It is surely settled that laws have been invented for the health of citizens, the safety of states, and the quiet and blessed life of men, and that those who first sanctioned resolutions of this sort showed to their peoples that they would write and provide those things by which, once they have been received and adopted, they would live honorably and blessedly, and that they would of course name “laws” those things that had been so composed and sanctioned. From this it is fit to be understood that those who have written down orders that were destructive and unjust to their peoples, since they did the opposite of what they promised and claimed, provided something other than laws, so it can be clear that interpreting the very name of law involves the significance and sense of choosing what is just and true. [12] I ask you, then, Quintus, just as they [probably the Stoics] usually do: if the state lacks something on account of the lack of which it must be held to be worth nothing, must that thing be counted among the good things? Q: And indeed among the greatest things. M: Moreover, should a state lacking law be held to exist in no place for that very reason? Q: It cannot be said [to be] otherwise. M: Then it is necessary that law be held to be among the best things. Q: I agree precisely. [13] M: What of the fact that peoples approve many things destructively, many things disastrously, that no more approach the name of law than if robbers consecrated certain laws in their own meeting? For the instructions of physicians cannot be so called in truth if in ignorance and inexperience they have prescribed deadly things in place of salutary ones; nor will it be a law of any kind among a people even if the people accepts something destructive. Therefore, law is a distinction between just and unjust things, modeled on nature, that most ancient and chief of all things, to which human laws are directed that visit the wicked with punishment and defend and protect the good. Q: I understand very clearly, and I now think that anything else must indeed be neither held to be, nor called, a law. [14] M: Then you think that the Titian and the Apuleian laws are no laws? Q: Indeed, and not even the Livian. M: And rightly, especially since they were repealed in one moment by one little line of the senate. But that law, the significance of which I have explained, can be neither removed nor repealed. Q: Then of course you will propose laws that may never be repealed? Book 3 [Cicero is speaking as M., and there is an approach being made to specific and particular applications of the true law; in this instance, the text is running up to specific legal regulations about the magistrates in the republic Cicero is structuring.] [2] You see, then, that this is the significance of the magistrate, that he rule over and prescribe things that are right, advantageous, and linked to the laws. For as the laws do to the magistrates, so the magistrates rule over the people; and it can truly be said that a magistrate is a speaking law and a law is a silent magistrate. [3] Furthermore, nothing is so suitable to right and the condition of nature (when I say that, I want it understood that I am speaking of the law) as command, without which no home or state or nation or the whole human race can exist, nor can the entire nature of things or the universe itself. For the universe obeys the god, and the seas and lands obey the universe, and human life complies with the orders of the supreme law. [4] And so that I may come to things “nearer home” and more known to us: all ancient nations formerly obeyed kings. This kind of command was first entrusted to the most just and wisest men, and that was extremely effective in our own republic, as long as regal power ruled over it. From that time forward it was pa**ed on in turn to their descendants; and that remains among those who even now reign. But for those whom royal power did not please, they wanted not to obey no one, but not always to obey one man. But since we are giving laws for free peoples, and since I have previously spoken in a book what I feel about the best republic, at this time I will adapt the laws to the form of state that I approve. [5] Therefore, there is need of magistrates, without whose prudence and diligence the state cannot exist; the entire control of the republic is encompa**ed in their configuration. Not only must a mode of commanding be prescribed for them, but also a mode of complying for the citizens. For it is necessary that he who commands well should obey at some time, and he who temperately obeys seems to be worthy of commanding at some time. And so it is proper both for him who obeys to hope that he will command at some time, and for him who commands to think that in a brief time he will have to obey. In fact we prescribe not only that they comply with and obey the magistrates, but also that they respectfully remember and cherish them, as Charondas carries out in his laws. Our Plato truly concluded that just as those who oppose the heavenly beings belong to the race of Titans, so are these who oppose the magistrates. Since this is so, let us now come to the laws themselves, if you please. A: Both that very thing and that very order of things truly please me.