Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - The Original Classic Edition. Cicero Marcus

the contempt of honors? They acquaint you with some who never enjoyed any, and were the happier for it; and of those who have preferred a private retired life to public employment, mentioning their names with respect; they tell you of the verse40 of that most powerful king who praises an old man, and pronounces him happy because he was unknown to fame and seemed likely to arrive at the hour of death in obscurity and without notice. Thus, too, they have examples for those who are deprived of their children: they who are under any great grief are comforted by instances of like affliction; and thus the endurance 116of every misfortune is rendered more easy by the fact of others having undergone the same, and the fate of others causes what has happened to appear less important than it has been previously thought, and reflection thus discovers to us how much opinion had imposed on us. And this is what the Telamon declares, "I, when my son was born," etc.; and thus Theseus, "I on my future misery did dwell;" and Anaxagoras, "I knew my son was mortal." All

       these men, by frequently reflecting on human affairs, had discovered that they were by no means to be estimated by the opinion of

       the multitude; and, indeed, it seems to me to be pretty much the same case with those who consider beforehand as with those who derive their remedies from time, excepting that a kind of reason cures the one, and the other remedy is provided by nature; by which we discover (and this contains the whole marrow of the matter) that what was imagined to be the greatest evil is by no means so great as to defeat the happiness of life. And the effect of this is, that the blow is greater by reason of its not having been foreseen, and not, as they suppose, that when similar misfortunes befall two different people, that man only is affected with grief whom this calamity has befallen unexpectedly. So that some persons, under the oppression of grief, are said to have borne it actually worse for hearing of this common condition of man, that we are born under such conditions as render it impossible for a man to be exempt from all evil.

       XXV. For this reason Carneades, as I see our friend Antiochus writes, used to blame Chrysippus for commending these verses of

       Euripides:

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       Man, doom'd to care, to pain, disease, and strife, Walks his short journey thro' the vale of life: Watchful attends the cradle and the grave,

       And passing generations longs to save:

       Last, dies himself: yet wherefore should we mourn? For man must to his kindred dust return;

       Submit to the destroying hand of fate, As ripen'd ears the harvest-sickle wait.41

       117He would not allow a speech of this kind to avail at all to the cure of our grief, for he said it was a lamentable case itself that we were fallen into the hands of such a cruel fate; and that a speech like that, preaching up comfort from the misfortunes of another, was a comfort adapted only to those of a malevolent disposition. But to me it appears far otherwise; for the necessity of bearing what is the common condition of humanity forbids your resisting the will of the Gods, and reminds you that you are a man, which reflection greatly alleviates grief; and the enumeration of these examples is not produced with a view to please those of a malevolent disposition, but in order that any one in affliction may be induced to bear what he observes many others have previously borne with tranquillity and moderation. For they who are falling to pieces, and cannot hold together through the greatness of their grief, should be supported by all kinds of assistance. From whence Chrysippus thinks that grief is called aapa, as it were aaaaa, that is to say, a dissolution of the whole man--the whole of which I think may be pulled up by the roots by explaining, as I said at the beginning, the cause of grief; for it is nothing else but an opinion and judgment formed of a present acute evil. And thus any bodily pain, let it be ever so grievous, may be endurable where any hopes are proposed of some considerable good; and we receive such consolation from a virtuous and illustrious life that they who lead such lives are seldom attacked by grief, or but slightly affected by it.

       XXVI. But as besides this opinion of great evil there is this other added also--that we ought to lament what has happened, that it is right so to do, and part of our duty, then is brought about that terrible disorder of mind, grief. And it is to this opinion that we owe all those various and horrid kinds of lamentation, that neglect of our persons, that womanish tearing of our cheeks, that striking on our thighs, breasts, and heads. Thus Agamemnon, in Homer and in Accius,

       Tears in his grief his uncomb'd locks;42

       from whence comes that pleasant saying of Bion, that the 118foolish king in his sorrow tore away the hairs of his head, imagining that his grief would be alleviated by baldness. But men do all these things from being persuaded that they ought to do so. And thus

       AEschines inveighs against Demosthenes for sacrificing within seven days after the death of his daughter. But with what eloquence,

       with what fluency, does he attack him! what sentiments does he collect! what words does he hurl against him! You may see by this that an orator may do anything; but nobody would approve of such license if it were not that we have an idea innate in our minds that every good man ought to lament the loss of a relation as bitterly as possible. And it is owing to this that some men, when in sor-row, betake themselves to deserts, as Homer says of Bellerophon:

       Distracted in his mind,

       Forsook by heaven, forsaking human kind, Wide o'er the Aleian field he chose to stray, A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way!43

       And thus Niobe is feigned to have been turned into stone, from her never speaking, I suppose, in her grief. But they imagine Hecuba to have been converted into a bitch, from her rage and bitterness of mind. There are others who love to converse with solitude itself when in grief, as the nurse in Ennius,

       Fain would I to the heavens find earth relate

       Medea's ceaseless woes and cruel fate.44

       XXVII. Now all these things are done in grief, from a persuasion of their truth and propriety and necessity; and it is plain that those who behave thus do so from a conviction of its being their duty; for should these mourners by chance drop their grief, and either act or speak for a moment in a more calm or cheerful manner, they presently check themselves and return to their lamentations again, and blame themselves for having been guilty of any intermissions 119from their grief; and parents and masters generally correct children not by words only, but by blows, if they show any levity by either word or deed when the family is under affliction, and, as

       it were, oblige them to be sorrowful. What! does it not appear, when you have ceased to mourn, and have discovered that your grief has been ineffectual, that the whole of that mourning was voluntary on your part? What does that man say in Terence who punishes himself, the Self-tormentor?

       I think I do my son less harm, O Chremes, As long as I myself am miserable.

       He determines to be miserable: and can any one determine on anything against his will?

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       I well might think that I deserved all evil.

       He would think he deserved any misfortune were he otherwise than miserable! Therefore, you see, the evil is in opinion, not in na-ture. How is it when some things do of themselves prevent your grieving at them? as in Homer, so many died and were buried daily that they had not leisure to grieve: where you find these lines--

       The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall, And endless were the grief to weep for all. Eternal sorrows what avails to shed?

       Greece honors not with solemn fasts the dead: Enough when death demands the brave to pay The tribute of a melancholy day.

       One chief with patience to the grave resign'd, Our care devolves on others left behind.45

       Therefore it is in our own power to lay aside grief upon occasion; and is there any opportunity (seeing the thing is in our own power)

       that we should let slip of getting rid of care and grief ? It was plain that the friends of Cnaeus Pompeius, when they saw him fainting under his wounds, at the very moment of that most miserable and bitter sight were under great uneasiness how they themselves,

       120surrounded by the enemy as they were, should escape, and were employed in nothing but encouraging the rowers and aiding their escape; but when they reached Tyre, they began to grieve and lament over him. Therefore, as fear with them, prevailed