A Letter of Condolence to Apollonius (30-34)

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,[*]

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

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

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.

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,[*]

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.

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

Keeping these things before our mind, we shall rid ourselves of the useless and vain extremes of mourning, since the time remaining of our life is altogether short. We must therefore be chary of it, so that we may live it in cheerfulness of spirit and without the disturbance of mournful griefs, by giving up the outward signs of sorrow and by bethinking ourselves of the care of our bodies and the welfare of those who live with us. It is a good thing also to call to mind the arguments which most likely we have sometimes employed with relatives or friends [*] who found themselves in similar calamities, when we tried to comfort them and to persuade them to bear the usual happenings of life in the usual way and a man’s lot like a man; and it is a good thing, too, not to put ourselves in the position of being able to help others to find relief from grief, but ourselves to have no profit in recalling the means through which we must cure the soul’s distress—by healing remedies of reason [*]—since we should postpone anything else rather than the putting aside of grief. And yet one poet [*] says that the man who in any matter puts off till to-morrow is wrestling with destruction—a proverb which is repeated among all men. Much more, I think, is this true of the man who puts over to a future time the experiences which his soul finds so troublesome and so hard to face.

It is a good thing, too, to contemplate those men who nobly and high-mindedly and calmly have been resigned to the deaths which have befallen their sons—Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Demosthenes of Athens, Dion of Syracuse, King Antigonus, and very

Of these, Anaxagoras,[*] according to the traditional story, was talking about natural philosophy in conversation with his friends, when he heard from one of the messengers, who were sent to bring him the news, of the end which had befallen his son. He stopped for a moment and then said to those present, I knew that I had begotten a son who was mortal.

Pericles,[*] who was called the Olympian because of his surpassing power of reasoning and of understanding, learned that both his sons, Paralus and Xanthippus, had passed from life. Protagoras describes his conduct in these words: His sons were comely youths, but though they died within seven days of each other, he bore their deaths without repining. For he continued to hold to that serenity from which day by day he added greatly to his credit of being blest by Fortune and untroubled by sorrow, and to his high repute with the people at large. For each and every man, as he beheld Pericles bearing his sorrows so stoutly, felt that he was high-minded and manful and his own superior, being only too well aware of what would be his own helplessness under such circumstances. For Pericles, immediately after the tidings about his two sons, none the less placed the garland upon his head, according to the time-honoured custom at Athens, and, clad in garb of white, harangued the people,

taking lead in good counsel,

Xenophon, [*] the follower of Socrates, was once offering sacrifice when he learned from the messengers who had come from the field of battle that his son Gryllus had met his death while fighting. He took the garland from his head and questioned them as to how he had died. When the messengers reported that he died nobly, displaying the greatest valour and after slaying many of the enemy, Xenophon was completely silent for a few moments while mastering his emotion by the power of reason, and then, replacing the gai’land, he completed the sacrifice, remarking to the messengers, I prayed to the gods, not that my son should be immortal or even long of life (for it is not clear whether it be of advantage so), but that he should be brave and patriotic; and so it has come to pass.

Dion [*] of Syracuse was sitting in consultation with his friends, when there arose, in the house a commotion and a great screaming, and upon inquiring the cause and hearing what had happened—that his son had fallen from the roof and been killed—he was not at all disconcerted, but commanded the corpse to be given over to the women for the usual preparation for burial, and he himself did not leave off the discussion in which he was engaged.

His example, they say, Demosthenes [*] the orator emulated when he lost his only and much-loved daughter, of whom Aeschines, [*] thinking to reproach

Antigonus [*] the king, on learning of the death of his son Alcyoneus, which had occurred in the line of battle, gazed proudly upon the messengers who had brought news of the calamity, and, after waiting for a moment, said, bowing his head, Not so very early, Alcyoneus, have you departed this life, since you always rushed so recklessly against the enemy without a thought either of your own safety or of my counsels.

The whole world wonders at these men and admires them for their nobility of mind, but others have not the ability to imitate them in practice because of that weakness of spirit which results from lack of education. But although there are so many examples, which have been handed down to us through both Greek and Roman history, of men who have behaved nobly and honourably at the deaths of their relatives, yet what has been said will suffice to induce you to put aside mourning, which is the most distressing of all things, and also the fruit [*]

The fact that those who excel in virtues pass on to their fate while young, as though beloved of the gods, I have already called to your attention in an earlier part [*] of my letter, and I shall endeavour at this time to touch upon it very briefly, merely adding my testimony to that which has been so well said by Menander [*]:

Whom the gods love dies young.

Life bears the name of life, being but toil.

Ah well, but he, bearing with him the fair and fitting fame of your righteousness and his own conjoined, has departed early to eternity from out this mortal life, as from an evening party, before falling into any such grossness of conduct as is wont to be the concomitant of a long old age. And if the account of the ancient poets and philosophers is true, as it most likely is, and so there is for those of the departed who have been righteous a certain honour and preferment, as is said, and a place set apart in which their souls pass their existence, then you ought to be of good hope for your dear departed son that he will be reckoned among their number and will be with them.