On Tranquillity of Mind (11)

Yet since, however, through our folly we have grown accustomed to live with eyes fixed on everyone else rather than on ourselves, and since our nature contains much envy and malice and does not rejoice so much in our own blessings as it is pained by those which other men possess, do not look only at the splendour and notoriety of those you envy and wonder at, but open and, as it were, draw aside the gaudy curtain of their repute and outward appearance, and get inside them, and you will see many disagreeable things and many things to vex them there. Thus, when that renowned Pittacus,[*] whose fame for bravery and for wisdom and justice was great, was entertaining some guests, his wife entered in a rage and upset the table; his guests were dismayed, but Pittacus said, Every one of us has some trouble. He that has only mine is doing very well indeed.

This man’s held happy in the market-place,

But when he enters home, thrice-wretched he:

His wife rules all, commands, and always fights.

His woes are more than mine, for mine are none![*]

Many such evils attend wealth and repute and kingship, evils unknown to the vulgar, for ostentation hinders the vision.

O happy son of Atreus, child of destiny,

Blessed with a kindly guardian spirit![*]

Such felicitation comes from externals only - for his arms and horses and far-flung host of warriors; but against the emptiness of his glory the voice of his sufferings cries out in protest from the very heart:

The son of Cronus, Zeus, entangled me

In deep infatuation,[*]

and

I envy you, old man;

I envy any man whose life has passed

Free from danger, unknown and unrenowned.[*]

By such reflections also, then, it is possible to reduce the violence of our fault-finding with fate, fault-finding which, through admiration of our neighbours’ lot, both debases and destroys our own.