On Tranquillity of Mind (15-19)

This, then, is a matter disturbing to tranquillity

of mind; and another, even more disturbing, arises when, like flies which slip off the smooth surfaces of mirrors, but stick to places which are rough or scratched, men drift away from joyous and agreeable matters and become entangled in the remembrance of unpleasant things; or rather, as they relate that when beetles have fallen into a place at Olynthus which is called Death-to-Beetles, [*] they are unable to get out, but turn and circle about there until they die in that place, so when men have slipped into brooding upon their misfortunes, they do not wish to recover or revive from that state. But, like colours in a painting,b so in the soul it is right that we should place in the foreground bright and cheerful experiences and conceal and suppress the gloomy; for to wipe them out and be rid of them altogether is impossible. For the harmony of the universe, like that of a lyre or a bow, is by alternatives, [*] and in mortal affairs there is nothing pure and unmixed. But as in music there are low notes and high notes, and in grammar there are vowels and consonants, yet a musician or a grammarian is not the man who dislikes and avoids the one or the other, but rather the man who knows how to use all and to blend them properly,[*] so also in human affairs, which contain the principles of opposition to each other (since, as Euripides[*] has it,

The good and bad cannot be kept apart,

But there’s some blending, so that all is well),

we should not be disheartened or despondent in adversity, but like musicians who achieve harmony by consistently deadening bad music with better and encompassing the bad with the good, we should make the blending of our life harmonious and conformable to our own nature. For it is not true, as Menander[*] says, that

By every man at birth a Spirit stands,

A guide of virtue for life’s mysteries;

but rather, as Empedocles[*] affirms, two Fates, as it were, or Spirits, receive in their care each one of us at birth and consecrate us:

Chthonia was there and far-seeing Heliope,

And bloody Deris, grave-eyed Harmonia,

Callisto, Aeschra, Thoosa, and Denaea,

Lovely Nemertes, dark-eyed Asapheia.

The result is that since we at our birth received the mingled seeds of each of these affections, and since therefore our nature possesses much unevenness, a man of sense prays for better things, but expects the contrary as well, and, avoiding excess, deals with both conditions. For not only does he who has least need of the morrow, as Epicurus[*] says, most gladly advance to meet the morrow, but also wealth and reputation and power and public office delight most of all those who least fear their

opposites. For the violent desire for each of these implants a most violent fear that they may not remain, and so renders pleasure in them weak and unstable, like a fluttering flame. But the man whom Reason enables to say to Fortune without fear and trembling,

Welcome to me if any good you bring;

But if you fail, the pain is very slight,[*]

his confidence and the absence of fear that their loss would be unbearable cause him to make most pleasant use of present advantages. For it is possible not only to admire the disposition of Anaxagoras,[*] which made him say at the death of his son, I knew that my son was mortal, but also to imitate it and to apply it to every dispensation of Fortune: I know that my wealth is temporary and insecure, I know that those who bestowed my magistracy can take it away, I know that my wife is excellent, but a woman, and that my friend is but a man, by nature an animal readily subject to change, as Plato[*] said. For men of such preparedness and of such disposition, if anything unwished yet not unexpected happens, disdain sentiments like these: I never should have thought it, or I had hoped for other things, or I did not expect this, and so do away with anything like throbbings and palpitations of the heart, and speedily restore again to quiet the madness and disturbance of their minds. Carneades, indeed, reminded us that in matters of great importance it is the unexpected[*] that is completely and wholly the cause of grief and dejection. For example, the kingdom of Macedonia was infinitely smaller than the Roman dominion, yet when Perseus lost Macedonia, both he himself bewailed his own evil genius and every one thought that he had become the most unfortunate and ill-starred man in the world[*]; but Aemilius, his conqueror, handed over to another his supreme command of practically the whole earth and sea, yet was crowned and offered sacrifice and was esteemed fortunate - and with good reason, for he knew that he had taken a command which would have to be relinquished again, whereas Perseus lost his kingdom when he had not expected to do so. And well has the Poet taught us how strong the effect of an unexpected happening is: Odysseus, for instance, shed a tear when his dog fawned upon him,[*] yet when he sat beside his weeping wife,[*] gave way to no such emotion; for into the latter situation he had come with his emotion under control and fortified by reason, but he had stumbled into the former without having expected it, and suddenly.

And, to speak generally, although some of the things which happen against our will do by their very nature bring pain and distress, yet since it is through false opinion that we learn and become accustomed to be disgruntled with the greatest part of them, it is not unprofitable to have the verse of Menander[*] ever ready against the latter:

No harm’s been done you, if you none admit

(for what, he means, if they touch neither body nor soul, are such things to you as the low birth of your father, or the adultery of your wife, or the deprivation of a crown or of front seats,[*] since when these misfortunes are present a man is not prevented from having both body and soul in the best of condition?); and against those things which seem to pain us by their very nature, as sicknesses, anxieties, and the death of friends and children, we should have ready that famous verse of Euripides[*]:

Alas! - Yet why alas? Our sufferings

Are but what we mortals must endure.

For no reasoning so effectively engages the emotional part of us, when it is being borne down and is slipping, as that which reminds us of the common and natural necessity to which man is exposed through his composite and corporeal nature: it is the only hold he gives to Fortune, while in his most vital and important parts he stands secure.

When Demetrius took the Megarians’ city, he asked Stilpo if any of his possessions had been plundered. And Stilpo said, I saw no one carrying off my property. [*] And therefore when Fortune plunders and strips us of everything else, we have something within ourselves of the sort that

Achaeans could never harry or plunder.[*]

Therefore[*] we should not altogether debase and depreciate Nature in the belief that she has nothing strong, stable, and beyond the reach of Fortune, but, on the contrary, since we know that the corrupt and perishable part of man wherein he lies open to Fortune is small, and that we ourselves are masters of the better part, in which the greatest of our blessings are situated - right opinions and knowledge and the exercise of reason terminating in the acquisition of virtue, all of which have their being inalienable and indestructible - knowing all this, we should face the future undaunted and confident and say to Fortune what Socrates,[*] when he was supposed to be replying to his accusers, was really saying to the jury, Anytus and Meletus are able to take away my life, but they cannot hurt me. Fortune, in fact, can encompass us with sickness, take away our possessions, slander us to people or despot; but she cannot make the good and valiant and high-souled man base or cowardly, mean, ignoble, or envious, nor can she deprive us of that disposition, the constant presence of which is of more help in facing life than is a pilot in facing the sea. For a pilot cannot calm a savage wave or a wind, nor can he find a harbour wherever he wishes at need, nor can he await the event confidently and without trembling; as long as he has not despaired, making use of his skill,

With the mainsail dropped to the lower mast

He flees from the murky sea,[*]

whereas when the sea towers over him, he sits there quaking and trembling. But the disposition of the wise man yields the highest degree of calm to his bodily affections, destroying by means of self-control, temperate diet, and moderate exertion the conditions leading to disease; even if the beginning of some evil comes from without, he rides it out with light and well-furled sail, as Asclepiades[*] has it, just as one passes through a storm. But if some great unforeseen disaster comes upon him and masters him, the harbour is close at hand and he may swim away from his body, as from a leaky boat.[*]

For it is the fear of death, not the desire for life, which makes the fool dependent on his body, clinging to it as Odysseus[*] did to the fig-tree through fear of Charybdis below,

Where breezes let him neither stay nor sail,[*]

so that he is displeased at this and fearful of that. But he who understands somehow or other the nature of the soul and reflects that the change it undergoes at death will be for the better, or at least not for the worse, has no small provision to secure tranquillity of mind for facing life - fearlessness towards death. For he who can live pleasantly when the agreeable and congenial part of life is in the ascendant, but when alien and unnatural principles prevail, can depart fearlessly, saying,

The god himself shall free me, when I will,[*]

what can we imagine might befall such a man as this that would vex or trouble or disturb him? For he[*] who said, I have anticipated you, Fortune, and taken from you every entry whereby you might get at me, encouraged himself, not with bolts or keys or battlements, but by precepts and reasoning in which everyone who desires may share. And one must not despair or disbelieve any of these arguments, but should admire and emulate them and, being filled with their inspiration, make trial of oneself and observe oneself in smaller matters with a view to the greater, not avoiding or rejecting from the soul the care of these things, nor taking refuge in the remark, Perhaps nothing will be more difficult than this. For languor and flabby softness are implanted by that self-indulgence of the soul which ever occupies itself with the easiest way, and retreats from the undesirable to what is most pleasant. But the soul which endeavours, by study and the severe application of its powers of reasoning, to form an idea of what sickness, suffering, and exile really are will find much that is false and empty and corrupt in what appears to be difficult and fearful, as the reason shows in each particular.[*]

And yet many shudder even at the verse of Menander,[*]

No man alive may say, I shall not suffer this,

since they do not know how much it helps in warding off grief to be able by practice and study to look Fortune in the face with eyes open, and not to manufacture in oneself smooth, soft [*] fancies, like one reared in the shade of many hopes which ever yield and hold firm against nothing. We can, however, make this reply to Menander: True,

No man alive may say, I shall not suffer this,

yet while still alive one can say, I will not do this: I will not lie nor play the villain nor defraud nor scheme. For this is in our power and is not a small, but a great help toward tranquillity of mind. Even as, on the contrary again,

My conscience, since I know I’ve done a dreadful deed,[*]

like[*] an ulcer in the flesh, leaves behind it in the soul regret which ever continues to wound and prick it. For the other pangs reason does away with, but regret is caused by reason itself, since the soul, together with its feeling of shame, is stung and chastised by itself. For as those who shiver with ague or burn with fevers are more distressed and pained than those who suffer the same discomforts through heat or cold from a source outside the body, so the pangs which Fortune brings, coming, as it were, from a source without, are lighter to bear; but that lament,

None is to blame for this but me myself,[*]

which is chanted over one’s errors, coming as it does from within, makes the pain even heavier by reason of the disgrace one feels. And so it is that no costly house nor abundance of gold nor pride of race nor pomp of office, no grace of language, no eloquence, impart so much calm and serenity to life as does a soul free from evil acts and purposes and possessing an imperturbable and undefiled character as the source of its life, a source whence flow fair actions[*] which have both an inspired and joyous activity joined with a lofty pride therein, and a memory sweeter and more stable than that hope of Pindar’s[*] which sustains old age. For do not censers,[*] Carneades said, even if they have been completely emptied, retain their fragrance for a long time,[*] and in the soul of the wise man do not fair actions leave behind the remembrance of them eternally delightful and fresh, by which joy in them is watered and flourishes, and he comes to despise those who bewail and abuse life as a land of calamities or a place of exile appointed here for our souls?