A Letter of Condolence to Apollonius (25-29)

Crantor [*] says that not being to blame for one’s unhappy state is no small alleviation for misfortunes; but I should say that it surpasses all others as a remedy for the cure of grief. But affection and love for the departed does not consist in distressing ourselves, but in benefiting the beloved one; and a benefit for those who have been taken away is the honour paid to them through keeping their memory green. For no good man, after he is dead, is deserving of lamentations, but of hymns and songs of joy; not of mourning, but of an honourable memory; not of sorrowing tears, but of offerings of sacrifice,—if the departed one is now a partaker in some life more divine, relieved of servitude to the body, and of these everlasting cares and misfortunes which those who have received a mortal life as their portion are constrained to undergo until such time as they shall complete their allotted earthly existence, which Nature has not given to us for eternity; but she has distributed to us severally the apportioned amount in accordance with the laws of fate.

Wherefore, over those who die men of good sense ought not to be carried away by sorrow beyond the natural and moderate limit of grief, which so affects the soul, into useless and barbarian

We should therefore often hold converse with ourselves after this fashion and say: What ? Shall we some day cease grieving, or shall we consort with unceasing misery to the very end of our life ? For to regard our mourning as unending is the mark of the most extreme foolishness, especially when we observe how those who have been in the deepest grief and greatest mourning often become most cheerful under the influence of time, and at the very tombs where they gave violent expression to their grief by wailing and beating their breasts, they arrange most elaborate banquets with musicians and all the other forms of diversion. It is accordingly the mark of a madman thus to assume that he shall keep his mourning permanently. If, however, men should reason that mourning will come to an end after some particular event, they might go on and reason that it will come to an end when time, forsooth, has produced some effect; for not even God can undo what has been done. So, then, that which in the present instance has come to pass contrary to our expectation and contrary to our opinion has only demonstrated what is wont, through

Full is the earth now of evils, and full of them too is the ocean,[*]

Such woes of woes for mortal men, And round about the Fates throng close; There is no vacant pathway for the air ?[*]

Not merely now, but long ago, as Crantor [*] says, the lot of man has been bewailed by many wise men, who have felt that life is a punishment and that for man to be born at all is the greatest calamity. Aristotle [*] says that Silenus when he was captured declared this to Midas. It is better to quote the very words of the philosopher. He says, in the work which is entitled Eudemus, or Of the Soul, the following: Wherefore, O best and blessedest of all, in addition to believing that those who have ended this life are blessed and happy, we also think that to say anything false or slanderous against them is impious, from our feeling that it is directed against those who have already become our betters and superiors. And this is such an old and ancient belief with us that no one knows at all either the beginning of the time or the name of the person who first promulgated it, but it continues to be a fixed belief for all time.[*]

We ought not, therefore, to lament those who die young on the ground that they have been deprived of those things which in a long life are accounted good; for this is uncertain, as we have often said—whether the things of which they have been deprived are good or evil; for the evils are much the more numerous. And whereas we acquire the good things only with difficulty and at the expense of many anxieties, the evils we acquire very easily. For they say that the latter are compact and conjoined, and are brought together by many influences, while the good things are disjoined, and hardly manage to unite towards the very end of life. We therefore resemble men who have forgotten, not merely, as Euripides [*] says, that

Mortals are not the owners of their wealth,

We keep and care for that which is the gods’, And when they will they take it back again.[*]

Laden with the happy burden Of sweet life and growing children, Looks upon the pleasant sunlight,[*]

There are two of the inscriptions at Delphi [*] which are most indispensable to living. These are: Know thyself and Avoid extremes, for on these two commandments hang all the rest. These two are in harmony and agreement with each other, and the one seems to be made as clear as possible through the other. For in self-knowledge is included the avoidance of extremes, and in the latter is included self-knowledge. Therefore Ion [*] speaks of the former as follows:

Not much to say is Know thyself; to do This, Zeus alone of gods doth understand.

The wise have landed with exceeding praise the words Avoid extremes.

If, then, one keeps these in mind as god-given injunctions, he will be able easily to adapt them to all the circumstances of life, and to bear with such circumstances intelligently, by being heedful of his own nature, and heedful, in whatever may befall him, not to go beyond the limit of propriety, either in being elated to boastfulness or in being humbled and cast down to wailings and lamentations, through weakness of the spirit and the fear of death which is implanted in us as a result of our ignorance of what is wont to happen in life in accordance with the decree of necessity or destiny. Excellent is the advice which the Pythagoreans [*] gave, saying:

Whatsoe’er woes by the gods’ dispensation all mortals must suffer, What be the fate you must bear, you should bear it and not be indignant.

It is the mark of just and knowing men In woes to feel no anger at the gods;

Of mortals he who yields to fate we think Is wise and knows the ways of Providence;

Of mortals he who bears his lot aright To me seems noblest and of soundest sense.