A Letter of Condolence to Apollonius (20-24)

In general one might say to the man who mourns, Shall you at some time cease to take this to heart, or shall you feel that you must grieve always every day of your life ? For if you purpose to remain always in this extreme state of affliction, you will bring complete wretchedness and the most bitter misery upon yourself by the ignobleness and cowardice of your soul. But if you intend some time to change your attitude, why do you not change it at once and extricate yourself from this misfortune ? Give attention now to those arguments by the use of which, as time goes on, your release shall be accomplished, and relieve yourself now of your sad condition. For in the case of bodily afflictions the quickest way of relief is the better. Therefore concede now to reason and education what you surely will later concede to time, and release yourself from your troubles.

But I cannot, he says, for I never expected or looked for this experience. But you ought to have looked for it, and to have previously pronounced judgement on human affairs for their uncertainty and fatuity, and then you would not now have been taken off your guard as by enemies suddenly come upon you. Admirably does Theseus in Euripides [*] appear to have prepared himself for such crises, for he says:

But I have learned this from a certain sage, And on these cares and troubles set my mind, And on myself laid exile from my land And early deaths and other forms of ills,

That if I suffer aught my fancy saw, It should not, coming newly, hurt the more.

Wherefore very excellently Plato [*] appears to advise us in such misfortunes to maintain a calm demeanour, since neither the evil nor the good in them is at all plain, and since no advance is made by the man who takes things much to heart. For grief stands in the way of sane counsel about an event and prevents one from arranging his affairs with relation to what has befallen, as a player does at a throw of the dice, in whatever way reason may convince him would be best. We ought not, therefore, when we have fallen to act like children and hold on to the injured place and scream, but we should accustom our soul speedily to concern itself with curing the injury and raising up the fallen, and we should put away lamentation by remedial art.

They say that the lawgiver of the Lyclans [*] ordered his citizens, whenever they mourned, to clothe themselves first in women’s garments and then to mourn, wishing to make it clear that mourning is womanish and unbecoming to decorous men who lay claim to the education of the free-born. Yes, mourning is verily feminine, and weak, and ignoble, since

The nurse of lusty children I have come, To supplicate you, from the mourning pits.

But I dare say that, in answer to this, some may assert their belief that there need not be mourning for every death, but only for untimely deaths, because of the failure of the dead to gain what are commonly held to be the advantages of life, such as marriage, education, manhood, citizenship, or public office (for these are the considerations, they say, which most cause grief to those who suffer misfortune through untimely deaths, since they are robbed of their hope out of due time); but they do not realize that the untimely death shows no disparity if it be considered with reference to the [*]

It is evident, therefore, that even the death which we call untimely readily admits of consolation, both for these reasons and for those previously given. For in fact Troïlus shed fewer tears than did Priam; [*]

Come then within the walled city, my son, so to save from destruction All of the men and the women of Troy, nor afford a great triumph Unto the offspring of Peleus, and forfeit the years of your lifetime. Also for me have compassion, ill-starred, while yet I have feeling; Hapless I am; on the threshold of eld will the Father, descended from Cronus, Make me to perish in pitiful doom, after visions of evils, Sons being slain and our daughters as well being dragged to be captives, Chambers of treasure all wantonly plundered and poor little children Dashed to the earth in the terrible strife by the merciless foeman, Wives of my sons being dragged by the ravishing hands of Achaeans. Me, last of all, at the very front doors shall the dogs tear to pieces, Ravening, eager for blood, when a foeman wielding his weapon, Keen-edged of bronze, by a stroke or a throw, takes the life from my body. Yet when the dogs bring defilement on hair and on beard that is hoary, And on the body as well of an old man slain by the foeman, This is the saddest of sights ever seen by us unhappy mortals. Thus did the old man speak, and his hoary locks plucked by the handful, Tearing his hair from his head, but he moved not the spirit of Hector.