A Letter of Condolence to Apollonius (29-31)

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.

And the tragic poet Aeschylus [*] says:

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

and Euripides[*]:

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

and in another place [*] he says:

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

Most people grumble about everything, and have a feeling that everything which happens to them contrary to their expectations is brought about through the spite of Fortune and the divine powers. Therefore they wail at everything, and groan, and curse their luck. To them one might say in retort:

God is no bane to you; ’tis you yourself,[*]

you and your foolish and distorted notions due to your lack of education. It is because of this fallacious and deluded notion that men cry out against any sort of death. If a man die while on a journey, they groan over him and say:

Wretched his fate; not for him shall his father or much revered mother Close his dear eyelids in death.[*]

But if he die in his own land with his parents at his bedside, they deplore his being snatched from their arms and leaving them the memory of the painful sight. If he die in silence without uttering a word about anything, they say amid their tears:

No, not a word did you say to me, which for the weight of its meaning Ever might dwell in my mind.[*]

But if he talked a little at the time of his death, they keep his words always before their mind as a sort of kindling for their grief. If he die suddenly, they deplore his death, saying, He was snatched away; [*] but if he lingered long, they complain that he wasted away and suffered before he died. Any pretext is sufficient to arouse grief and lamentations. This movement the poets initiated, and especially the first of them, Homer,[*] who says:

E’en as a father laments as the pyre of his dead son he kindles, Wedded not long; by his death he brought woe to his unhappy parents. Not to be told is the mourning and grief that he caused for his parents.

And yet so far it is not evident that the father is justified in bewailing thus. But note this next line:

Only and darlingest son, who is heir to his many possessions.[*]

For who knows but that God, having a fatherly care for the human race, and foreseeing future events, early removes some persons from life untimely? Wherefore we must believe that they undergo nothing that should be avoided. (For

In what must be, there’s naught that men need dread,[*]

nor in any of those events which come to pass in accordance with the postulates or the logical deductions of reason), both because the great majority of deaths forestall other and greater troubles and because it were better for some not to be born even, for others to die at the very moment of birth, for others after they have gone on in life a little way, and for still others while they are in their full vigour. Toward all such deaths we should maintain a cheerful frame of mind, since we know that we cannot escape destiny. It is the mark of educated men to take it for granted that those who seem to have been deprived of life untimely have but forestalled us for a brief time; for the longest life is short and momentary in comparison with eternity. And we know, too, that many who have protracted their period of mourning have, after no long time, followed their lamented friends, without having gained any advantage from their mourning, but only useless torment by their misery.

Since the time of sojourn in life is very brief, we ought not, in unkempt grief and utterly wretched mourning, to ruin our lives by racking ourselves with mental anguish and bodily torments, but to turn to the better and more human course, by striving earnestly to converse with men who will not, for flattery, grieve with us and arouse our sorrows, but will endeavour to dispel our griefs through noble and dignified consolation. We should hearken to Homer and keep in mind those lines of his [*] which Hector spoke to Andromache, endeavouring, in his turn, to comfort her:

Dearest, you seem much excited; be not overtroubled in spirit; No man beyond what is fated shall send me in death unto Hades. For not a man among mortals, I say, has escaped what is destined, Neither the base nor the noble, when once he has entered life’s pathway.

Of this destiny the poet elsewhere [*] says:

When from his mother he came, in the thread of his life Fate entwined it.