Consolation to Apollonius (6-10)

But the most sovereign remedy against sorrow is our reason, and out of this arsenal we may arm ourselves with defence against all the casualties of life; for every one ought to lay down this as a maxim, that not only is he himself mortal in his nature, but life itself decays, and things are easily changed into quite the contrary to what they are; for our bodies are made up of perishing ingredients. Our fortunes and our passions too are subject to the same mortality; indeed all things in this world are in perpetual flux,—

Which no man can avoid with all his care.[*]

It is an expression of Pindar, that we are held to the dark bottom of hell by necessities as hard as iron. And Euripides says:—

No worldly wealth is firm and sure;

But for a day it doth endure.[*]

And also:—

From small beginnings our misfortunes grow,

And little rubs our feet do overthrow;

A single day is able down to cast

Some things from height, and others raise as fast.[*]

Demetrius Phalereus affirms that this was truly said, but that the poet had been more in the right if for a single day he had put only a moment of time.

For earthly fruits and mortal men’s estate

Turn round about in one and selfsame rate;

Some live, wax strong, and prosper day by day,

While others are cast down and fade away.From the Ino of Euripides.

And Pindar hath it in another place,

What are we, what are we not?

Man is but a shadow’s dream.Pindar, Pyth. VIII. 135.

He used an artificial and very perspicuous hyperbole to draw human life in its genuine colors; for what is weaker than a shadow? Or what words can be found out whereby to express a shadow’s dream? Crantor hath something consonant to this, when, condoling Hippocles upon the loss of his children, he speaks after this manner:—

These are the things which all the old philosophers talk of and have instructed us in; which though we do not agree to in every particular, yet this hath too sharp a truth in it, that our life is painful and full of difficulties; and if it doth not labor with them in its own nature, yet we ourselves have infected it with that corruption. For the inconstancy of Fortune joined us at the beginning of our journey, and hath accompanied us ever since; so that it can produce nothing that is sound or comfortable unto us; and the bitter potion was mingled for us as soon as we were born. For the principles of our nature being mortal is the cause that our judgment is depraved, that diseases, cares, and all those fatal inconveniences afflict mankind.

But what need of this digression? Only that we may be made sensible that it is no unusual thing if a man be unfortunate; but we are all subject to the same calamity. For as Theophrastus saith, Fortune surpriseth us unawares, robs us of those things we have got by the sweat of our

industry, and spoils the gaudy appearance of a prosperous condition; and this she doth when she pleaseth, not being stinted to any periods of time. These and things of the like nature it is easy for a man to ponder with himself, and to hearken to the sayings of ancient and wise men; among whom divine Homer is the chief, who sung after this manner:—

Of all that breathes or grovelling creeps on earth,

Most man is vain! calamitous by birth:

To-day, with power elate, in strength he blooms;

The haughty creature on that power presumes:

Anon from Heaven a sad reverse he feels;

Untaught to bear, ’gainst Heaven the wretch rebels.

For man is changeful, as his bliss or woe;

Too high when prosperous, when distress’d too low.Odyss. XVIII. 130.

And in another place:—

What or from whence I am, or who my sire

(Replied the chief), can Tydeus’ son enquire?

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,

Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;

Another race the following spring supplies;

They fall successive, and successive rise.

So generations in their course decay;

So flourish these, when those are past away.Il. VI. 145.

How prettily he managed this image of human life appears from what he hath said in another place:—

For what is man? Calamitous by birth,

They owe their life and nourishment to earth;

Like yearly leaves, that now with beauty crown’d,

Smile on the sun, now wither on the ground.Il. XXI. 463.

When Pausanias the king of Sparta was frequently bragging of his performances, and bidding Simonides the lyric poet in raillery to give him some wise precept, he, knowing the vain-glory of him that spoke, admonished him to remember that he was a man. Philip the king of Macedon, when he had received three despatches of good news at the same time, of which the first was that his chariots

had won the victory in the Olympic games, the second, that his general Parmenio had overcome the Dardanians in fight, and the third, that his wife Olympias had brought him forth an heir,—lifting up his eyes to heaven, he passionately cried out, Propitious Daemon! let the affliction be moderate by which thou intendest to be even with me for this complicated happiness. Theramenes, one of the thirty tyrants of Athens, when he alone was preserved from the ruins of a house that fell upon the rest of his friends as they were sitting at supper, and all came about him to congratulate him on his escape,—broke out in an emphatical accent, Fortune! for what calamity dost thou reserve me? And not long after, by the command of his fellow-tyrants, he was tormented to death.

But Homer seems to indicate a particular praise to himself, when he brings in Achilles speaking thus to Priam, who was come forth to ransom the body of Hector:—

Rise then; let reason mitigate our care:

To mourn avails not: man is born to bear.

Such is, alas! the Gods’ severe decree:

They, only they, are blest, and only free.

Two urns by Jove’s high throne have ever stood,

The source of evil one, and one of good;

From thence the cup of mortal man he fills,

Blessings to these, to these distributes ills;

To most he mingles both; the wretch decreed

To taste the bad unmix’d is cursed indeed;

Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven,

He wanders, outcast both of earth and heaven.Il. XXIV. 522.

Hesiod, who was the next to Homer both in respect of time and reputation, and who professed to be a disciple of the Muses, fancied that all evils were shut up in a box, and that Pandora opening it scattered all sorts of mischiefs through both the earth and seas:—

The cover of the box she did remove,

And to fly out the crowding mischief strove;

But slender hope upon the brims did stay,

Ready to vanish into air away;

She with retrieve the haggard in did put,

And on the prisoner close the box did shut;

But plagues innumerable abroad did fly,

Infecting all the earth, the seas, and sky,

Diseases now with silent feet do creep,

Torment us waking, and afflict our sleep.

These midnight evils steal without a noise,

For Jupiter deprived them of their voice.[*]

After these the comedian, talking of those who bear afflictions uneasily, speaks consonantly to this purpose:—

If we in wet complaints could quench our grief,

At any rate we’d purchase our relief;

With proffered gold would bribe off all our fears,

And make our eyes distil in precious tears.

But the Gods mind not mortals here below,

Nor the least thought on our affairs bestow;

But with an unregarding air pass by,

Whether our cheeks be moist, or whether dry.

Unhappiness is always sorrow’s root,

And tears do hang from them like crystal fruit.

And Dictys comforts Danae, who was bitterly taking on, after this manner:—

Dost think that thy repinings move the grave,

Or from its jaws thy dying son can save?

If thou would’st lessen it, thy grief compare;—

Consider how unhappy others are;

How many bonds of slavery do hold;

How many of their children robbed grow old;

How sudden Fate throws off th’ usurped crown,

And in the dirt doth tread the tyrant down.

Let this with deep impression in thee sink,

And on these revolutions often think.From the Danae of Euripides.

He bids her consider the condition of those who have suffered equal or greater afflictions, and by such a parallel to comfort up her own distempered mind.

And here that opinion of Socrates comes in very pertinently, who thought that if all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart. After this manner Antimachus the poet allayed

his grief when he lost his wife Lyde, whom he tenderly loved; for he writ an elegy upon her, which he called by her own name, and in it he numbered up all the calamities which have befallen great men; and so by the remembrance of other men’s sorrows he assuaged his own. By this it may appear, that he who comforts another who is macerating himself with grief, and demonstrates to him, by reckoning up their several misfortunes, that he suffers nothing but what is common to him with other men, takes the surest way to lessen the opinion he had of his condition, and brings him to believe that it is not altogether so bad as he took it to be.

Aeschylus also doth justly reprimand those who think death to be an evil, declaring after this manner:—

Some as a thing injurious death do fly;

But of all mischiefs ’tis the remedy.

And he who spoke thus very nicely imitated him:—

Come, with impatience I expect thee, Death;

And stop with thy obliging hand my breath:

To thee as a physician all resort,

And we through tempests sail into thy port.

And it is great to speak this sentence with courage:—

Where is the slave who never fears to die?From Euripides.

Or this:—

And shadows never scare me, thanks to hell.

But what is it at length in death, that is so grievous and troublesome? For I know not how it comes to pass that, when it is so familiar and as it were related to us, it should seem so terrible. How can it be rational to wonder, if that cleaves asunder which is divisible, if that melts whose nature is liquefaction, if that burns which is combustible, and so, by a parity of reason, if that perisheth which by nature is perishable? For when is it that death is not in us? For, as Heraclitus saith, it is the same thing to be dead and alive, asleep and awake, a young man and decrepit; for these alternately are changed one into another. For as a potter can form the shape of an animal out of his clay and then as easily deface it, and can repeat this backwards and forwards as often as he pleaseth, so Nature too out of the same materials fashioned first our grandfathers, next our fathers, then us, and in process of time will engender others, and again others upon these. For as the flood of our generation glides on without any intermission and will never stop, so in the other direction the stream of our corruption flows eternally on, whether it be called Acheron or Cocytus by the poets. So that the same cause which first showed us the light of the sun carries us down to infernal darkness. And in my mind, the air which encompasseth us seems to be a lively image of the thing; for it brings on the vicissitudes of night and day, life and death, sleeping and waking. For this cause it is that life is called a fatal debt, which our fathers contracted and we are bound to pay; which is to be done calmly and without any complaint, when the creditor demands it; and by this means we shall show ourselves men of sedate passions.