A Letter of Condolence to Apollonius (10-14)

Aeschylus [*] seems admirably to rebuke those who think that death is an evil. He says:

Men are not right in hating Death, which is The greatest succour from our many ills.

In imitation of Aeschylus some one else has said:

O Death, healing physician, come.[*]

For it is indeed true that

A harbour from all distress is Hades.[*]

For it is a magnificent thing to be able to say with undaunted conviction:

What man who recks not death can be a slave?[*]

and

With Hades’ help shadows I do not fear.[*]

For what is there cruel or so very distressing in being dead ? It may be that the phenomenon of death, from being too familiar and natural to us, seems somehow, under changed circumstances, to be painful, though I know not why. For what wonder if the separable be separated, if the soluble be dissolved, if the combustible be consumed, and the corruptible be corrupted ? For at what time is death not existent in our very selves ? As Heracleitus [*] says: Living and dead are potentially the same thing, and so too waking and sleeping, and young and old; for the latter revert to the former, and the former in turn to the latter. For as one is able from the same clay to model figures of living things and to obliterate them, and again to model and obliterate, and alternately to repeat these operations without ceasing, so Nature, using the same material, a long time ago raised up our forefathers, and then in close succession to them created our fathers, and then ourselves, and later will create others and still others in a neverending cycle; and the stream of generation, thus flowing onward perpetually, will never stop, and so likewise its counterpart, flowing in the opposite direction—which is the stream of destruction, whether it be designated by the poets as Acheron or as Cocytus. The same agency which at the first showed us the light of the sun brings also the darkness of Hades. May not the air surrounding us serve to symbolize this, causing as it does day and night alternately, which bring us life and death, and sleep and waking ? Wherefore it is said that life is a debt to destiny, the idea being that the loan which our forefathers contracted is to be repaid by us. This debt we ought to discharge cheerfully and without bemoaning whenever the lender asks for payment; for in this way we should show ourselves to be most honourable men.

I imagine also that it was because Nature saw the indefiniteness and the brevity of life that she caused the time allowed us before death to be kept from us. And it is better so; for if we knew this beforehand, some persons would be utterly wasted by griefs before their time, and would be dead long before they died. Observe too the painfulness of life, and the exhaustion caused by many cares; if we should wish to enumerate all these, we should too readily condemn life, and we should confirm the opinion which now prevails in the minds of some that it is better to be dead than to live. Simonides [*] at any rate says:

Petty indeed is men’s strength; All their strivings are vain; Toil upon toil in a life of no length.

Death hovers over them all, Death which is foreordained. Equal the share by the brave is attained In death with the base.

And Pindar [*] says:

A pair of miseries with each good The deathless gods mete out to mortal man. The foolish cannot bear them as they should.

And Sophocles [*] says:

Mourn you a mortal if he’s passed away, Not knowing if the future brings him gain ?

And Euripides [*] says:

Know you the nature of this mortal world ? I wot not. For whence could you ? But hear me. By all mankind is owed a debt to death, And not a single man can be assured If he shall live throughout the coming day. For Fortune’s movements are inscrutable.

Since, then, the life of men is such as these poets say it is, surely it is more fitting to felicitate those who have been released from their servitude in it than to pity them and bewail them, as the majority do through ignorance.

Socrates [*] said that death resembles either a very deep sleep or a long and distant journey, or, thirdly, a sort of destruction and extinction of both the body and the soul, but that by no one of these possibilities is it an evil. Each of these conceptions he pursued further, and the first one first. For if

death is a sleep, and there is nothing evil in the state of those who sleep, it is evident that there is likewise nothing evil in the state of those who are dead. Nay, what need is there even to state that the deepest sleep is indeed the sweetest ? For the fact is of itself patent to all men, and Homer [*] bears witness by saying regarding it:

Slumber the deepest and sweetest, and nearest to death in its semblance.

In another place [*] also he says:

Here she chanced to encounter the brother of Death, which is Slumber,

and

Slumber and Death, the twin brothers,[*]

thereby indicating their similarity in appearance, for twins show most similarity. And again somewhere [*] he says that death is a brazen sleep, in allusion to our insensibility in it. And not inelegantly did the man [*] seem to put the case who called sleep the Lesser Mysteries of death; for sleep is really a preparatory rite for death. Very wise was the remark of the cynic Diogenes, who, when he had sunk into slumber and was about to depart this life, was roused by his physician, who inquired if anything distressed him. Nothing, he said, for the one brother merely forestalls the other. [*]

If death indeed resembles a journey, even so

it is not an evil. On the contrary, it may even be a good. For to pass one’s time unenslaved by the flesh and its emotions, by which the mind is distracted and tainted with human folly, would be a blessed piece of good fortune. For the body, says Plato, [*] in countless ways leaves us no leisure because of its necessary care and feeding. Moreover, if any diseases invade it, they hinder our pursuit of reality, and it fills us with lusts and desires and fears and all manner of fancies and folly, so that, as the saying goes, because of it we really have no opportunity to think seriously of anything. It is a fact that wars and strifes and battles are brought about by nothing else except the body and its desires; for all wars are waged for the acquisition of property, and property we are forced to acquire because of the body, since we are slaves in its service; and the result is that, because of these things, we have no leisure for study. And the worst of all is, that even if we do gain some leisure from the demands of the body, and turn to the consideration of some subject, yet at every point in our investigation the body forces itself in, and causes tumult and confusion, and disconcerts us, so that on account of it we are unable to discern the truth. Nay, the fact has been thoroughly demonstrated to us that, if we are ever going to have any pure knowledge, we must divest ourselves of the body, and with the soul itself observe the realities. And, as it appears, we shall possess what we desire and what we profess to long for—and that is wisdom—only, as our reasoning shows, after we are dead, but not while we are alive. For if it is impossible in company with the body to have any pure knowledge, then one of two things is true: either it is not possible to attain knowledge anywhere, or else only after death. For then the soul will be quite by itself, separate from the body, but before that time never. And so, while we live, we shall, as it appears, be nearest to knowledge if, as far as possible, we have no association or communion with the body, except such as absolute necessity requires, and if we do not taint ourselves with its nature, but keep ourselves pure of it until such time as God himself shall release us. And thus, being rid of the irrationality of the body, we shall, in all likelihood, be in the company of others in like state, and we shall behold with our own eyes the pure and absolute, which is the truth; since for the impure to touch the pure may well be against the divine ordinance.

So, even if it be likely that death transports us into another place, it is not an evil; for it may possibly prove to be a good, as Plato has shown. Wherefore very wonderful were the words which Socrates [*] uttered before his judges, to this effect: To be afraid of death, Sirs, is nothing else than to seem to be wise when one is not; for it is to seem to know what one does not know. For in regard to death nobody knows even whether it happens to be for mankind the greatest of all good things, yet they fear it as if they knew well that it is the greatest of evils. From this view it seems that the poet does not dissent who says:

Let none fear death, which is release from toils,[*]

—ay, and from the greatest of evils as well.

It is said that the Deity also bears witness to this. For tradition tells us that many for their righteousness have gained this gift from the gods. Most of these I shall pass over, having regard to due proportion in my composition; but I shall mention the most conspicuous, whose story is on the lips of all men.

First I shall relate for you the tale of Cleobis and Biton, the Argive youths.[*] They say that their mother was priestess of Hera, and when the time had come for her to go up to the temple, and the mules that always drew her wagon were late in arriving, and the hour was pressing, these young men put themselves to the wagon and drew their mother to the temple; and she, overjoyed at the devotion of her sons, prayed that the best boon that man can receive be given them by the goddess. They then lay down to sleep and never arose again, the goddess granting them death as a reward for their devotion.

Of Agamedes and Trophonius, Pindar [*] says that after building the temple at Delphi they asked Apollo for a reward, and he promised them to make payment on the seventh day, bidding them in the meantime to eat, drink, and be merry. They did what was commanded, and on the evening of the seventh day lay down to sleep and their life came to an end.

It is said that Pindar himself enjoined upon the

deputies of the Boeotians who were sent to consult the god that they should inquire, What is the best thing for mankind ? and the prophetic priestess made answer, that he himself could not be ignorant of it if the story which had been written about Trophonius and Agamedes were his; but if he desired to learn it by experience, it should be made manifest to him within a short time. As a result of this inquiry Pindar inferred that he should expect death, and after a short time his end came.

They say that the following incident happened to the Italian Euthynoüs.[*] He was the son of Elysius, of Terina, a man foremost among the people there in virtue, wealth, and repute, and Euthynoüs came to his end suddenly from some unknown cause. Now it occurred to Elysius, as it might have occurred to anybody large property and estate. Being in perplexity as to how he might put his suspicions to the test, he visited a place where the spirits of the dead are conjured up, and having offered the preliminary sacrifice prescribed by custom, he lay down to sleep in the place, and had this vision. It seemed that his own father came to him, and that on seeing his father he related to him what had happened touching his son, and begged and besought his help to discover the man who was responsible for his son’s death. And his father said, It is for this that I am come. Take from this person here what he brings for you, and from this you will learn about everything over which you are now grieving. The person whom he indicated was a young man who followed him, resembling his son Euthynoüs and close to him in years and stature.

So Elysius asked who he was; and he said, I am the ghost of your son, and with these words he handed him a paper. This Elysius opened and saw written there these three lines:

Verily somehow the minds of men in ignorance wander; Dead now Euthynoüs lies; destiny so has decreed. Not for himself was it good that he live, nor yet for his parents.[*]

Such, you observe, is the purport of the tales recorded in ancient writers.