Consolatio ad Apollonium

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. II. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1928 (printing).

In general one might say to the man who mourns, Shall you at some time cease to take this to heart, or shall you feel that you must grieve always every day of your life ? For if you purpose to remain always in this extreme state of affliction, you will bring complete wretchedness and the most bitter misery upon yourself by the ignobleness and cowardice of your soul. But if you intend some time to change your attitude, why do you not change it at once and extricate yourself from this misfortune ? Give attention now to those arguments by the use of which, as time goes on, your release shall be accomplished, and relieve yourself now of your sad condition. For in the case of bodily afflictions the quickest way of relief is the better. Therefore concede now to reason and education what you surely will later concede to time, and release yourself from your troubles.

But I cannot, he says, for I never expected or looked for this experience. But you ought to have looked for it, and to have previously pronounced judgement on human affairs for their uncertainty and fatuity, and then you would not now have been taken off your guard as by enemies suddenly come upon you. Admirably does Theseus in Euripides [*](In an unknown play; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. Euripides, No. 964 D; Cf. the translation by Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iii. 14 (29).) appear to have prepared himself for such crises, for he says:

But I have learned this from a certain sage, And on these cares and troubles set my mind, And on myself laid exile from my land And early deaths and other forms of ills,
That if I suffer aught my fancy saw, It should not, coming newly, hurt the more.

But the more ignoble and untutored sometimes cannot even recall themselves to the consideration of anything seemly and profitable, but go out of their way to find extremes of wretchedness, even to punishing their innocent body and to forcing the unafflicted, as Achaeus [*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 757, Achaeus, No. 45.) says, to join in their grief.

Wherefore very excellently Plato [*](Adapted from the Republic, p. 604 B.) appears to advise us in such misfortunes to maintain a calm demeanour, since neither the evil nor the good in them is at all plain, and since no advance is made by the man who takes things much to heart. For grief stands in the way of sane counsel about an event and prevents one from arranging his affairs with relation to what has befallen, as a player does at a throw of the dice, in whatever way reason may convince him would be best. We ought not, therefore, when we have fallen to act like children and hold on to the injured place and scream, but we should accustom our soul speedily to concern itself with curing the injury and raising up the fallen, and we should put away lamentation by remedial art.

They say that the lawgiver of the Lyclans [*](Cf. Valerius Maximus, ii. 6. 13.) ordered his citizens, whenever they mourned, to clothe themselves first in women’s garments and then to mourn, wishing to make it clear that mourning is womanish and unbecoming to decorous men who lay claim to the education of the free-born. Yes, mourning is verily feminine, and weak, and ignoble, since

women are more given to it than men, and barbarians more than Greeks, and inferior men more than better men; and of the barbarians themselves, not the most noble, Celts and Galatians, and all who by nature are filled with a more manly spirit, but rather, if such there are, the Egyptians and Syrians and Lydians and all those who are like them. For it is recorded that some of these go down into pits and remain there for several days, not desiring even to behold the light of the sun since the deceased also is bereft of it. At any rate the tragic poet Ion,[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 743, Ion, No. 54.) who was not without knowledge of the foolishness of these peoples, has represented a woman as saying:

The nurse of lusty children I have come, To supplicate you, from the mourning pits.

And some of the barbarians even cut off parts of their bodies, their noses and ears, and mutilate other portions of their bodies also, thinking to gratify the dead by abandoning that moderation of feeling which Nature enjoins in such cases.

But I dare say that, in answer to this, some may assert their belief that there need not be mourning for every death, but only for untimely deaths, because of the failure of the dead to gain what are commonly held to be the advantages of life, such as marriage, education, manhood, citizenship, or public office (for these are the considerations, they say, which most cause grief to those who suffer misfortune through untimely deaths, since they are robbed of their hope out of due time); but they do not realize that the untimely death shows no disparity if it be considered with reference to the [*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 743, Ion, No. 54.)

common lot of man. For just as when it has been decided to migrate to a new fatherland, and the journey is compulsory for all, and none by entreaty can escape it, some go on ahead and others follow after, but all come to the same place; in the same manner, of all who are journeying toward Destiny those who come more tardily have no advantage over those who arrive earlier. If it be true that untimely death is an evil, the most untimely would be that of infants and children, and still more that of the newly born. But such deaths we bear easily and cheerfully, but the deaths of those who have already lived some time with distress and mourning because of our fanciful notion, born of vain hopes, since we have come to feel quite assured of the continued tarrying with us of persons who have lived so long. But if the years of man’s life were but twenty, we should feel that he who passed away at fifteen had not died untimely, but that he had already attained an adequate measure of age, while the man who had completed the prescribed period of twenty years, or who had come close to the count of twenty years, we should assuredly deem happy as having lived through a most blessed and perfect life. But if the length of life were two hundred years, we should certainly feel that he who came to his end at one hundred was cut off untimely, and we should betake ours elves to wailing and lamentation.

It is evident, therefore, that even the death which we call untimely readily admits of consolation, both for these reasons and for those previously given. For in fact Troïlus shed fewer tears than did Priam; [*](A saying of Callimachus; cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 93 (39); Plutarch, Moralia, 211 A.)

and if Priam had died earlier, while his kingdom and his great prosperity were at their height, he would not have used such sad words as he did in his conversation with his own son Hector, when he advised him to withdraw from the battle with Achilles; he says: [*](Homer, Il. xxii. 56.)

Come then within the walled city, my son, so to save from destruction All of the men and the women of Troy, nor afford a great triumph Unto the offspring of Peleus, and forfeit the years of your lifetime. Also for me have compassion, ill-starred, while yet I have feeling; Hapless I am; on the threshold of eld will the Father, descended from Cronus, Make me to perish in pitiful doom, after visions of evils, Sons being slain and our daughters as well being dragged to be captives, Chambers of treasure all wantonly plundered and poor little children Dashed to the earth in the terrible strife by the merciless foeman, Wives of my sons being dragged by the ravishing hands of Achaeans. Me, last of all, at the very front doors shall the dogs tear to pieces, Ravening, eager for blood, when a foeman wielding his weapon, Keen-edged of bronze, by a stroke or a throw, takes the life from my body. Yet when the dogs bring defilement on hair and on beard that is hoary, And on the body as well of an old man slain by the foeman, This is the saddest of sights ever seen by us unhappy mortals. Thus did the old man speak, and his hoary locks plucked by the handful, Tearing his hair from his head, but he moved not the spirit of Hector.

Since you have, then, so very many examples

regarding the matter, bear in mind the fact that death relieves not a few persons from great and grievous ills which, if they had lived on, they would surely have experienced. But, out of regard for the due proportions of my argument, I omit these, contenting myself with what has been said touching the wrongfulness of being carried away beyond natural and moderate bounds to futile mourning and ignoble lamentation.

Crantor [*](Mullach, Frag. Philor. Graec. iii. p. 149.) says that not being to blame for one’s unhappy state is no small alleviation for misfortunes; but I should say that it surpasses all others as a remedy for the cure of grief. But affection and love for the departed does not consist in distressing ourselves, but in benefiting the beloved one; and a benefit for those who have been taken away is the honour paid to them through keeping their memory green. For no good man, after he is dead, is deserving of lamentations, but of hymns and songs of joy; not of mourning, but of an honourable memory; not of sorrowing tears, but of offerings of sacrifice,—if the departed one is now a partaker in some life more divine, relieved of servitude to the body, and of these everlasting cares and misfortunes which those who have received a mortal life as their portion are constrained to undergo until such time as they shall complete their allotted earthly existence, which Nature has not given to us for eternity; but she has distributed to us severally the apportioned amount in accordance with the laws of fate.

Wherefore, over those who die men of good sense ought not to be carried away by sorrow beyond the natural and moderate limit of grief, which so affects the soul, into useless and barbarian

mourning, and they ought not to wait for that outcome which has already been the lot of many in the past, the result of which is that they terminate their own lives in misery before they have put off their mourning, and gain nothing but a forlorn burial in their garments of sorrow, as their woes and the ills born of their unreasonableness follow them to the grave, so that one might utter over them the verse of Homer: [*](Combined from Il. xxiii. 109, and Od. i. 423 (=Od. xviii. 306).) While they were weeping and wailing black darkness descended upon them.

We should therefore often hold converse with ourselves after this fashion and say: What ? Shall we some day cease grieving, or shall we consort with unceasing misery to the very end of our life ? For to regard our mourning as unending is the mark of the most extreme foolishness, especially when we observe how those who have been in the deepest grief and greatest mourning often become most cheerful under the influence of time, and at the very tombs where they gave violent expression to their grief by wailing and beating their breasts, they arrange most elaborate banquets with musicians and all the other forms of diversion. It is accordingly the mark of a madman thus to assume that he shall keep his mourning permanently. If, however, men should reason that mourning will come to an end after some particular event, they might go on and reason that it will come to an end when time, forsooth, has produced some effect; for not even God can undo what has been done. So, then, that which in the present instance has come to pass contrary to our expectation and contrary to our opinion has only demonstrated what is wont, through

the very course of events, to happen in the case of many men. What then ? Are we unable, through reason, to learn this fact and draw the conclusion, that

Full is the earth now of evils, and full of them too is the ocean,[*](Hesiod, Works and Days, 101; cf. 105 E supra. )

and also this:

Such woes of woes for mortal men, And round about the Fates throng close; There is no vacant pathway for the air ?[*](From an unknown lyric poet; Cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 689.)

Not merely now, but long ago, as Crantor [*](Mullach, Frag. Philos. Graec. iii. p. 149.) says, the lot of man has been bewailed by many wise men, who have felt that life is a punishment and that for man to be born at all is the greatest calamity. Aristotle [*](Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 48 (114), and Aristotle, Frag. No. 44 Rose.) says that Silenus when he was captured declared this to Midas. It is better to quote the very words of the philosopher. He says, in the work which is entitled Eudemus, or Of the Soul, the following: Wherefore, O best and blessedest of all, in addition to believing that those who have ended this life are blessed and happy, we also think that to say anything false or slanderous against them is impious, from our feeling that it is directed against those who have already become our betters and superiors. And this is such an old and ancient belief with us that no one knows at all either the beginning of the time or the name of the person who first promulgated it, but it continues to be a fixed belief for all time.[*](Cf. Sophocles, Antigone 466.)

And in addition to this you observe how the saying, which is on the lips of all men, has been passed from mouth to mouth for many years.What is this ? said he. And the other, again taking up the discourse, said: That not to be born is the best of all, and that to be dead is better than to live. And the proof that this is so has been given to many men by the deity. So, for example, they say that Silenus, after the hunt in which Midas of yore had captured him, when Midas questioned and inquired of him what is the best thing for mankind and what is the most preferable of all things, was at first unwilling to tell, but maintained a stubborn silence. But when at last, by employing every device, Midas induced him to say something to him, Silenus, forced to speak, said: Ephemeral offspring of a travailing genius and of harsh fortune, why do you force me to speak what it were better for you men not to know ? For a life spent in ignorance of one’s own woes is most free from grief. But for men it is utterly impossible that they should obtain the best thing of all, or even have any share in its nature (for the best thing for all men and women is not to be born); however, the next best thing to this, and the first of those to which man can attain, but nevertheless only the second best, is, after being born, to die as quickly as possible. [*](Cf. Theognis, 425; Bacchylidies, v. 160; Sophocles, Oed. Col. 1225; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 48 (115).) It is evident, therefore, that he made this declaration with the conviction that the existence after death is better than that in life. One might cite thousands and thousands of examples under this same head, but there is no need to be prolix.

We ought not, therefore, to lament those who die young on the ground that they have been deprived of those things which in a long life are accounted good; for this is uncertain, as we have often said—whether the things of which they have been deprived are good or evil; for the evils are much the more numerous. And whereas we acquire the good things only with difficulty and at the expense of many anxieties, the evils we acquire very easily. For they say that the latter are compact and conjoined, and are brought together by many influences, while the good things are disjoined, and hardly manage to unite towards the very end of life. We therefore resemble men who have forgotten, not merely, as Euripides [*](Adapted from the Phoenissae, 555.) says, that

Mortals are not the owners of their wealth,

but also that they do not own a single one of human possessions. Wherefore we must say in regard to all things that

We keep and care for that which is the gods’, And when they will they take it back again.[*](Ibid. 556.)

We ought not, therefore, to bear it with bad grace if the gods make demand upon us for what they have loaned us for a short time.[*](Cf. Cebes, Tabula, xxxi., and Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 39 (93).) For even the bankers, as we are in the habit of saying frequently, when demand is made upon them for the return of deposits, do not chafe at the repayment, if they be honourable men. To those who do not make repayment with good grace one might fairly say, Have you forgotten that you accepted this on condition that you should return it ? Quite parallel is the lot of all mortals. For we hold our life, as it were, on deposit from the gods, who have compelled us to accept the account, and there is no fixed time for

its return, just as with the bankers and their deposits, but it is uncertain when the depositor will demand payment. If a man, therefore, is exceedingly indignant, either when he himself is about to die, or when his children have died, must he not manifestly have forgotten that he is but human and the father of children who are mortal ? For it is not characteristic of a man of sense to be unaware of the fact that man is a mortal creature, and that he is born to die. At any rate, if Niobe of the fable had had this conception ready at hand, that even the woman who,

Laden with the happy burden Of sweet life and growing children, Looks upon the pleasant sunlight,[*](From an unknown poet; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 373, and Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 720.)

must die, she would not have been so resentful as to wish to abandon life on account of the magnitude of her misfortune, and to implore the gods that she herself might be hurried to the most awful perdition.

There are two of the inscriptions at Delphi [*](Cf. Plato, Protagoras, p. 343 B, and Charmides, p. 165 A; Aristotle, Rheoric, ii. 12, 14; Pausanias, x. 24, 1; Plutarch, Moralia, 167 B, 385 D, and 511 B, and De vita et poesi Homeri, 151.) which are most indispensable to living. These are: Know thyself and Avoid extremes, for on these two commandments hang all the rest. These two are in harmony and agreement with each other, and the one seems to be made as clear as possible through the other. For in self-knowledge is included the avoidance of extremes, and in the latter is included self-knowledge. Therefore Ion [*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 743, Ion, No. 55.) speaks of the former as follows:

Not much to say is Know thyself; to do This, Zeus alone of gods doth understand.

And, of the other, Pindar [*](Frag. 216 (Christ).) says:

The wise have landed with exceeding praise the words Avoid extremes.

If, then, one keeps these in mind as god-given injunctions, he will be able easily to adapt them to all the circumstances of life, and to bear with such circumstances intelligently, by being heedful of his own nature, and heedful, in whatever may befall him, not to go beyond the limit of propriety, either in being elated to boastfulness or in being humbled and cast down to wailings and lamentations, through weakness of the spirit and the fear of death which is implanted in us as a result of our ignorance of what is wont to happen in life in accordance with the decree of necessity or destiny. Excellent is the advice which the Pythagoreans [*](Carmina Aurea, 17.) gave, saying:

Whatsoe’er woes by the gods’ dispensation all mortals must suffer, What be the fate you must bear, you should bear it and not be indignant.

And the tragic poet Aeschylus [*](Attributed to Euripides by Stobaeus, Florilegium, cviii. 43; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 1078.) says:

It is the mark of just and knowing men In woes to feel no anger at the gods;

and Euripides[*](From an unknown play; Cf. Nauck, ibid., Euripides, No. 965.):

Of mortals he who yields to fate we think Is wise and knows the ways of Providence;

and in another place [*](From the Melanippe; cf. Nauck, ibid., Euripides, No. 505.) he says:

Of mortals he who bears his lot aright To me seems noblest and of soundest sense.

Most people grumble about everything, and have a feeling that everything which happens to them contrary to their expectations is brought about through the spite of Fortune and the divine powers. Therefore they wail at everything, and groan, and curse their luck. To them one might say in retort:

God is no bane to you; ’tis you yourself,[*](Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, 379.)

you and your foolish and distorted notions due to your lack of education. It is because of this fallacious and deluded notion that men cry out against any sort of death. If a man die while on a journey, they groan over him and say:

Wretched his fate; not for him shall his father or much revered mother Close his dear eyelids in death.[*](Homer, Il. xi. 452.)

But if he die in his own land with his parents at his bedside, they deplore his being snatched from their arms and leaving them the memory of the painful sight. If he die in silence without uttering a word about anything, they say amid their tears:

No, not a word did you say to me, which for the weight of its meaning Ever might dwell in my mind.[*](Homer, Il.xxiv. 744.)

But if he talked a little at the time of his death, they keep his words always before their mind as a sort of kindling for their grief. If he die suddenly, they deplore his death, saying, He was snatched away; [*](Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, 379. b Homer, Il. xi. 452. c Homer, Il. xxiv. 744.)

but if he lingered long, they complain that he wasted away and suffered before he died. Any pretext is sufficient to arouse grief and lamentations. This movement the poets initiated, and especially the first of them, Homer,[*](Il. xxiii. 222, and xvii. 37.) who says:

E’en as a father laments as the pyre of his dead son he kindles, Wedded not long; by his death he brought woe to his unhappy parents. Not to be told is the mourning and grief that he caused for his parents.

And yet so far it is not evident that the father is justified in bewailing thus. But note this next line:

Only and darlingest son, who is heir to his many possessions.[*](Il. ix. 482.)

For who knows but that God, having a fatherly care for the human race, and foreseeing future events, early removes some persons from life untimely? Wherefore we must believe that they undergo nothing that should be avoided. (For

In what must be, there’s naught that men need dread,[*](From the Hypsipyle of Euripides, quoted supra, 110 F.)

nor in any of those events which come to pass in accordance with the postulates or the logical deductions of reason), both because the great majority of deaths forestall other and greater troubles and because it were better for some not to be born even, for others to die at the very moment of birth, for others after they have gone on in life a little way, and for still others while they are in their full vigour. Toward all such deaths we should maintain a cheerful frame of mind, since we know that we cannot escape

destiny. It is the mark of educated men to take it for granted that those who seem to have been deprived of life untimely have but forestalled us for a brief time; for the longest life is short and momentary in comparison with eternity. And we know, too, that many who have protracted their period of mourning have, after no long time, followed their lamented friends, without having gained any advantage from their mourning, but only useless torment by their misery.

Since the time of sojourn in life is very brief, we ought not, in unkempt grief and utterly wretched mourning, to ruin our lives by racking ourselves with mental anguish and bodily torments, but to turn to the better and more human course, by striving earnestly to converse with men who will not, for flattery, grieve with us and arouse our sorrows, but will endeavour to dispel our griefs through noble and dignified consolation. We should hearken to Homer and keep in mind those lines of his [*](Il. vi. 486.) which Hector spoke to Andromache, endeavouring, in his turn, to comfort her:

Dearest, you seem much excited; be not overtroubled in spirit; No man beyond what is fated shall send me in death unto Hades. For not a man among mortals, I say, has escaped what is destined, Neither the base nor the noble, when once he has entered life’s pathway.

Of this destiny the poet elsewhere [*](Homer, Il.xx. 128.) says:

When from his mother he came, in the thread of his life Fate entwined it.

Keeping these things before our mind, we shall rid ourselves of the useless and vain extremes of mourning, since the time remaining of our life is altogether short. We must therefore be chary of it, so that we may live it in cheerfulness of spirit and without the disturbance of mournful griefs, by giving up the outward signs of sorrow and by bethinking ourselves of the care of our bodies and the welfare of those who live with us. It is a good thing also to call to mind the arguments which most likely we have sometimes employed with relatives or friends [*](Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iii. 29-30 (71-74).) who found themselves in similar calamities, when we tried to comfort them and to persuade them to bear the usual happenings of life in the usual way and a man’s lot like a man; and it is a good thing, too, not to put ourselves in the position of being able to help others to find relief from grief, but ourselves to have no profit in recalling the means through which we must cure the soul’s distress—by healing remedies of reason [*](Cf. Aeschylus, Agamemnon,, 848.)—since we should postpone anything else rather than the putting aside of grief. And yet one poet [*](Hesiod, Works and Days, 414.) says that the man who in any matter puts off till to-morrow is wrestling with destruction—a proverb which is repeated among all men. Much more, I think, is this true of the man who puts over to a future time the experiences which his soul finds so troublesome and so hard to face.

It is a good thing, too, to contemplate those men who nobly and high-mindedly and calmly have been resigned to the deaths which have befallen their sons—Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Demosthenes of Athens, Dion of Syracuse, King Antigonus, and very

many others among men both of earlier times and of our own day.

Of these, Anaxagoras,[*](Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 2; Galen, v. p. 418 (ed. Kuhn); Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iii. 14 (30) and 24 (58); Valerius Maximus, v 10. ext. 3.) according to the traditional story, was talking about natural philosophy in conversation with his friends, when he heard from one of the messengers, who were sent to bring him the news, of the end which had befallen his son. He stopped for a moment and then said to those present, I knew that I had begotten a son who was mortal.

Pericles,[*](Cf. Plutarch, Life of Pericles, chap. xxxvi. (p. 172 c); Aelian, Varia Historia, ix. 6; Valerius Maximus, v. 10, ext. 1.) who was called the Olympian because of his surpassing power of reasoning and of understanding, learned that both his sons, Paralus and Xanthippus, had passed from life. Protagoras describes his conduct in these words: His sons were comely youths, but though they died within seven days of each other, he bore their deaths without repining. For he continued to hold to that serenity from which day by day he added greatly to his credit of being blest by Fortune and untroubled by sorrow, and to his high repute with the people at large. For each and every man, as he beheld Pericles bearing his sorrows so stoutly, felt that he was high-minded and manful and his own superior, being only too well aware of what would be his own helplessness under such circumstances. For Pericles, immediately after the tidings about his two sons, none the less placed the garland upon his head, according to the time-honoured custom at Athens, and, clad in garb of white, harangued the people,

taking lead in good counsel,

[*](Adapted from Homer, Il. ii. 273.) and inspiriting the Athenians to war.

Xenophon, [*](Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 3; Diogenes Laertius, ii. 54; Valerius Maximus, v. 10, ext. 2.) the follower of Socrates, was once offering sacrifice when he learned from the messengers who had come from the field of battle that his son Gryllus had met his death while fighting. He took the garland from his head and questioned them as to how he had died. When the messengers reported that he died nobly, displaying the greatest valour and after slaying many of the enemy, Xenophon was completely silent for a few moments while mastering his emotion by the power of reason, and then, replacing the gai’land, he completed the sacrifice, remarking to the messengers, I prayed to the gods, not that my son should be immortal or even long of life (for it is not clear whether it be of advantage so), but that he should be brave and patriotic; and so it has come to pass.

Dion [*](Cf. Plutarch, Life of Dion, chap. lv. (p. 982 c): Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 4.) of Syracuse was sitting in consultation with his friends, when there arose, in the house a commotion and a great screaming, and upon inquiring the cause and hearing what had happened—that his son had fallen from the roof and been killed—he was not at all disconcerted, but commanded the corpse to be given over to the women for the usual preparation for burial, and he himself did not leave off the discussion in which he was engaged.

His example, they say, Demosthenes [*](Cf. Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes, chap. xxii. (p. 855 D), and Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iii. 26 (63).) the orator emulated when he lost his only and much-loved daughter, of whom Aeschines, [*](Or. iii. (Against Ctesiphon) 77 (p. 64).) thinking to reproach

Demosthenes, speaks as follows: On the seventh day after his daughter’s death, before he had mourned for her or performed the customary rites, putting on a garland and resuming his white apparel, he offered a sacrifice in public and violated all custom, when he had lost, poor wretch, his only daughter, who was the first child to address him as father. So then Aeschines, purposing, after the manner of the political speaker, to reproach him, rehearsed these facts, being quite unaware that thereby he was really commending Demosthenes, who put aside his grief, and displayed his patriotism in preference to his feelings for his kindred.

Antigonus [*](Antigonus Gonatas; cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 5.) the king, on learning of the death of his son Alcyoneus, which had occurred in the line of battle, gazed proudly upon the messengers who had brought news of the calamity, and, after waiting for a moment, said, bowing his head, Not so very early, Alcyoneus, have you departed this life, since you always rushed so recklessly against the enemy without a thought either of your own safety or of my counsels.

The whole world wonders at these men and admires them for their nobility of mind, but others have not the ability to imitate them in practice because of that weakness of spirit which results from lack of education. But although there are so many examples, which have been handed down to us through both Greek and Roman history, of men who have behaved nobly and honourably at the deaths of their relatives, yet what has been said will suffice to induce you to put aside mourning, which is the most distressing of all things, and also the fruit [*](Antigonus Gonatas; cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 5.)

less pain, which serves no useful purpose, involved in mourning.

The fact that those who excel in virtues pass on to their fate while young, as though beloved of the gods, I have already called to your attention in an earlier part [*](111 B supra ) of my letter, and I shall endeavour at this time to touch upon it very briefly, merely adding my testimony to that which has been so well said by Menander [*](From the Double Deceiver: Cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 36, Menander, No. 125, and Allinson’s Menander (L.C.L.), p. 345. The sentiment is found many times in other writers, Cf. Plautus, Bacch. iv. 7. 18 quem di diligunt adulescens moritur. ):

Whom the gods love dies young.

But perhaps, my dearest Apollonius, you would say in retort that your young son had been placed under the special care of Apollo and the Fates, and that it should have been you who, on departing this life, received the last offices from him, after he had come to full manhood; for this, you say, is in accordance with nature. Yes, in accordance with your nature, no doubt, and mine, and that of mankind in general, but not in accordance with the Providence which presides over all or with the universal dispensation. But for that boy, now among the blessed, it was not in accordance with nature that he should tarry beyond the time allotted to him for life on this earth, but that, after fulfilling this term with due obedience, he should set forth to meet his fate, which was already (to use his own words [*](i.e. his dying words, Fate summons me; Cf. the dying words of Alcestis, Charon summons me, Euripides, Alcestis, 254, and Plato, Phaedo, 115 A.)) summoning him to himself. But he died untimely. Yes, but for this very reason his lot is happier, and he is spared many evils; for Euripides [*](In an unknown play; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 966.) says:

Life bears the name of life, being but toil.

But he, in the most blooming period of his years, has departed early, a perfect youth, envied and admired by all who knew him. He was fond of his father and mother and his relatives and friends, or, to put it in a word, he loved his fellow men; he respected the elderly among his friends as fathers, he was affectionate towards his companions and familiar friends, he honoured his teachers, and was most kind toward strangers and citizens, gentle with all and beloved of all, both because of his charm of appearance and because of his affable kindliness.

Ah well, but he, bearing with him the fair and fitting fame of your righteousness and his own conjoined, has departed early to eternity from out this mortal life, as from an evening party, before falling into any such grossness of conduct as is wont to be the concomitant of a long old age. And if the account of the ancient poets and philosophers is true, as it most likely is, and so there is for those of the departed who have been righteous a certain honour and preferment, as is said, and a place set apart in which their souls pass their existence, then you ought to be of good hope for your dear departed son that he will be reckoned among their number and will be with them.

These are the words of the melic poet Pindar [*](Frag. 129 (ed. Christ); Cf. also the two lines quoted in Moralia, 17 C, and the amplification of these lines which Plutarch gives in Moralia, 1130 C.) regarding the righteous in the other world:

For them doth the strength of the sun shine below, While night all the earth doth overstrow.
In meadows of roses their suburbs lie, Roses all tinged with a crimson dye. They are shaded by trees that incense bear, And trees with golden fruit so fair. Some with horses and sports of might, Others in music and draughts delight. Happiness there grows ever apace, Perfumes are wafted o’er the loved place, As the incense they strew where the gods’ altars are And the fire that consumes it is seen from afar.

And a little farther on, in another lament for the dead, speaking of the soul, he says [*](Frag.131 (ed. Christ); Cf. also Plutarch, Life of Romulus, xxviii. (p. 35 D).):

In happy fate they all [*](The line is incomplete, lacking a finite verb.) Were freed by death from labour’s thrall. Man’s body follows at the beck of death O’ermastering. Alive is left The image of the stature that he gained, Since this alone is from the gods obtained. It sleeps while limbs move to and fro, But, while we sleep, in dreams doth show The choice we cannot disregard Between the pleasant and the hard.

The divine Plato has said a good deal in his treatise On the Soul about its immortality, and not a little also in the Republic and Meno and Gorgias, and here and there in his other dialogues. What is said in the dialogue On the Soul I will copy, with comments, and send you separately, as you desired. But for the present occasion these words, which were spoken

to Callicles the Athenian, the friend and disciple of Gorgias the orator, are timely and profitable. They say that Socrates, according to Plato’s account,[*](Gorgias, p. 523 A.) says: Listen to a very beautiful story, which you, I imagine, will regard as a myth, but which I regard as a story; for what I am going to say I shall relate as true. As Homer [*](Iliad, xv. 187.) tells the tale, Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto divided the kingdom when they received it from their father. Now this was the custom regarding men even in the time of Cronus, and it has persisted among the gods to this day—that the man who has passed through life justly and in holiness shall, at his death, depart to the Islands of the Blest and dwell in all happiness beyond the reach of evil, while he who has lived an unjust and godless life shall go to the prison-house of justice and punishment, which they call Tartarus. The judges of these men, in the time of Cronus and in the early days of Zeus’s dominion, were living, and judged the living, giving judgement on the day when the men were about to die. As time went on, for some reason the cases were not decided well. Accordingly Pluto and the supervisors in the Islands of the Blest went to Zeus and said to him that there kept coming to them at both places inadmissible persons. Very well, said Zeus, then I shall put a stop to this proceeding. The judgements are now rendered poorly; for, said he, those who are judged are judged with a covering on them, since they are judged while alive, and so, he continued, a good

many perhaps who have base souls are clad with beautiful bodies and ancestry and riches, and, when the judgement takes place, many come to testify for them that they have lived righteously. So not only are the judges disconcerted by these things, but at the same time they themselves sit in judgement with a covering on them, having before their own souls, like a veil, their eyes and ears and their whole body. All these things come between, both their own covering and that of those who are being judged. In the first place, then, all their foreknowledge of death must be ended; for now they have foreknowledge of it. So Prometheus has been told to put an end to this. Secondly, they must be judged divested of all these things; for they must be judged after they have died. The judge also must be naked, and dead, that he may view with his very soul the very soul of every man instantly after he has died, and isolated from all his kin, having left behind on earth all earthly adornments, so that his judgement may be just. I, therefore, realizing this situation sooner than you, have made my own sons judges, two from Asia—Minos and Rhadamanthys‚Äîand one from Europe‚ÄîAeacus. These, then, as soon as they have died, shall sit in judgement in the meadow at the parting of the ways whence the two roads lead, the one to the Islands of the Blest and the other to Tartarus. The people of Asia shall Rhadamanthys judge, while Aeacus shall judge the people of Europe; and to Minos I shall give the prerogative of pronouncing final judgement in case the other

two be in any doubt, in order that the decision in regard to the route which men must take shall be as just as possible. This, Callicles, is what I have heard, and believe to be true; and from these words I draw the following inference‚—that death is, as it seems to me, nothing else than the severing of two things, soul and body, from each other.

Having collected and put together these extracts, my dearest Apollonius, with great diligence, I have completed this letter of condolence to you, which is most needful to enable you to put aside your present grief and to put an end to mourning, which is the most distressing of all things. In it is included also for your son, Apollonius, a youth so very dear to the gods, a fitting tribute, which is much coveted by the sanctified—a tribute due to his honourable memory and to his fair fame, which will endure for time eternal. You will do well, therefore, to be persuaded by reason, and, as a favour to your dear departed son, to turn from your unprofitable distress and desolation, which affect both body and soul, and to go back to your accustomed and natural course of life. Forasmuch as your son, while he was living among us, was sorry to see either you or his mother downcast, even so, now that he is with the gods and is feasting with them, he would not be well satisfied with your present course of life. Resume, therefore, the spirit of a brave-hearted and high-minded man who loves his offspring, and set free from all this wretchedness both yourself, the mother of the youth, and your relatives and friends, as you may do by pursuing a more tranquil form of life, which will be most gratifying both to your son and to all of us who are concerned for you, as we rightly should be.