Consolation to Apollonius (21-25)

But it is objected, the calamity was sudden, and I did not expect it. But thou oughtest to have done it, and considered the vanity and uncertainty of human affairs, that thy enemies might not have come suddenly upon thee and taken thee unawares. Theseus in Euripides seems to be excellently well prepared for events of this nature, for he saith thus—

This wholesome precept from the wise I learn,

To think of misery without concern.

My meditating thoughts are always spent

Either on death or else on banishment.

Foresight of evils doth employ my mind,

That me without defence they may not find; And though in ambuscade the mischief lies, Kill me it may, but shall not me surprise.[*] But those who are of a degenerate and thoughtless spirit never apply their mind to any thing that is either useful or becoming; but they grow exorbitant in their sorrows, and afflict the innocent body, making it sick for company, as Achaeus expresseth it.

Therefore Plato[*] doth rightly instruct us to acquiesce in cases of this nature, when it is not manifest whether they be good or evil, and when we get nothing by being uneasy under them; for grief is the greatest obstacle to deliberation as to what is best to be done. Therefore he commands us, as in the casting of dice, to accommodate ourselves to what befalls us, in the way which reason shows us to be best; and when any thing ails us, not to imitate the folly of children, who presently cry out and clap their hands to the place affected, but to accustom our minds to seek at once for remedies which may restore the part that is diseased to its first tone of health, making lamentation give place to the healing art. He that instituted laws for the Lycians commanded the citizens that when they mourned they should put on women’s apparel, intimating thereby that sorrow was an effeminate thing, and therefore was not fit for men of temper and liberal education. For it is indeed a weak and unmanly passion, and women are more subject to it than men, the barbarians more than the Greeks, and the dregs of mankind more than the refined part of them; and even amongst the barbarians, the bravespirited Celts and Gauls have not a propensity to it, or any that have generous sentiments; but the Egyptians, the Syrians, and the Lydians, and those who resemble them n the softness of their disposition. They report that some f these will hide themselves in retirements under ground,

and refuse to behold that sun of which their lamented friend is deprived. Ion, the tragedian, who heard something of this extravagance, introduceth a person speaking after this manner:—

Your blooming children’s nurse, I have come forth

A suppliant from tlle caves where I have mourned.

Some of these barbarians have deformed their bodies by cutting off their noses, ears, and other parts of themselves, thinking to gratify the dead by these mutilations, when in doing so they deviated excessively from that moderation which Nature prescribes us.

And, by Jove, we meet with some persons who affirm that the death of every one is not to be lamented, but only of those who die untimely; for they have not tasted of those things which we call enjoyments in the world, as a nuptial bed, proficiency in learning, the coming up to an height in any thing, the honor of magistracy and charges in the government. It is for the sake of these things that we condole with those who lose friends by untimely death, because they were frustrated of their hopes; but in the meanwhile we are ignorant that a sudden death doth not at all differ from any other, considering the condition of human nature. For as when a journey is enjoined into a remote country, and there is a necessity for every one to undertake it, and none hath liberty to refuse, though some go before and others follow, yet all must arrive at the same stage at last; so when we all lie under an obligation of discharging the same debt, it is not material whether we pay sooner or later. But if any one’s death may be called untimely, and consequently an evil, that appellation suits only with that of children and infants, and especially of those who are newly born. But this we bear steadfastly and with patience; but when those that are grown up die, we take on heavily, because we fondly hoped that when their years were full blown they would then have an uninterrupted

state of health. Now if the age of man were limited to the space of twenty years, we should not think that he who had arrived to fifteen died an untimely death, but that he had filled up a just measure of living; but one that had attained twenty, or at least had approached very near it, we should applaud for his good fortune, as if he had enjoyed the most happy and perfect life in the world. So if life were prolonged to two hundred years as its fixed period, and any one died at a hundred, we should howl over him as if he had been hastily cut off.

It is manifest then, by what hath been said now and what hath been mentioned before, that the death we call untimely is capable of consolation; and the saying is true, that Troilus wept less than Priam, [*] perishing as he did in his youth, while his father’s kingdom flourished and his riches abounded, which Priam afterwards laments as most deplorably lost. For observe what he saith to his son Hector, when he entreats him to decline the battle he was going to fight against Achilles:—

Yet shun Achilles! enter yet the wall;

And spare thyself, thy father, spare us all!

Save thy clear life; or, if a soul so brave

Neglect that thought, thy dearer glory save.

Pity, while yet I live, these silver hairs;

While yet thy father feels the woes he bears,

Yet curst with sense! a wretch whom in his rage

All trembling on the verge of helpless age

Great Jove has placed, sad spectacle of pain!

The bitter dregs of Fortune’s cup to drain:

To fill with scenes of death his closing eyes,

And number all his days by miseries!

My heroes slain, my bridal bed o’erturn’d,

My daughters ravish’d, and my city burn’d,

My bleeding infants dash’d against the floor;

These I have yet to see, perhaps yet more!

Perhaps even I, reserved by angry Fate,

The last sad relic of my ruin’d state,

(Dire pomp of sovereign wretchedness!) must fall,

And stain the pavement of my regal hall;

Where famish’d dogs, late guardians of my door,

Shall lick their mangled master’s spatter’d gore.

But when the Fates, in fulness of their rage,

Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age,

In dust the reverend lineaments deform,

And pour to dogs the life-blood scarcely warm:

This, this is misery! the last, the worst,

That man can feel,—man, fated to be cursed!

He said, and acting what no words can say,

Rent from his head the silver locks away.

With him the mournful mother bears a part;

Yet all her sorrows turn not Hector’s heart.

[*]

Having then so many examples of this kind before thine eyes, thou oughtest to make thyself sensible that not a few have been saved by death from those calamities they would certainly have fallen into had they lived longer. Contenting myself with those I have related already, I will omit the rest, that I may not seem tedious; and these are sufficient to show that we ought not to abandon ourselves to violent sorrow, beyond temper and the bounds of nature.

Crantor saith, To be innocent is the greatest comfort in afflictions. I assent to him, and affirm that it is the noblest remedy. Besides, the indication of our love to the deceased consists not in grieving ourselves for him, but in paying respect to his fame by honorable remembrance. For no good man deserves elegies, but panegyrics; and we should rather celebrate his loss by an honorable remembrance, than lament it; and offer up rather first-fruits of joy to the Gods, and not tears which sorrow extorts from us. For he who ceaseth to be amongst men becomes partaker of a divine life, is free from the servitude of the body, and all those solicitous cares which they who are embarrassed with a mortal life of necessity must undergo till they have finished the course which Providence hath marked out for them; and this life Nature hath not given us as a perpetual possession, but hath clogged it with restrictions and conditions of fate.