Consolatio ad Apollonium

We are not therefore to lament those who die in the bloom of their years, as if they were spoiled of things which we call enjoyments in a longer life; for it is uncertain, as we have often said, whether they are deprived of good or evil, for the evil in the world far exceeds the good. The good we obtain hardly and with anxious endeavor, but the evil easily befalls us; for they say evils are linked together, and by a mutual dependence of causes follow one another, but the good lie scattered and disjoined, and with great difficulty are brought within the compass of our life. Therefore we seem to have forgot our condition; for not only is it true, as Euripides hath it, that

1. The things we do possess are not our own;
[*](Eurip. Phoeniss. 555.)

but in general no man can claim a strict propriety in any thing he hath:—

1. When Gods do riches lend, it is but just
2. That when they please we should resign our trust.

We ought not therefore to take it amiss if they demand those things which they lent us only for a small time; for even your common brokers, unless they are unjust, will not be displeased if they are called upon to refund their pawns, and if one of them is not altogether so ready to deliver them, thou mayst say to him without any injury, Hast thou forgot that thou receivedst them upon the condition to restore them? The same parity of reason holds amongst all men. The Gods have put life into our hands by a fatal necessity, and there is no prefixed time when what is so deposited will be required of us, as the brokers know not when their pawns will be demanded. If therefore any one is angry when he is dying himself, or resents the death of his children, is it not very plain, that he hath forgot that he himself is a man and that he hath begotten children as frail as himself? For a man that is in his wits cannot be ignorant that he is a mortal creature, and born to this very end that he must die. If Niobe, as it is in the fable, had had this sentence always at hand, that she must at length die, and could not

1. In the ever-flowering bloom of youth remain,
2. Nor loaded with children, like a fruitful tree,
3. Behold the sun’s sweet light,—

she would never have sunk to such a degree of desperation as to desire to throw off her life to ease the burthen of her sorrow, and call upon the Gods to hurry her into the utmost destruction. There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man’s life, KNOW THYSELF, and NOTHING TOO MUCH; and upon these all other precepts depend. And they themselves accord and harmonize with each other, and each seems to illustrate the energy of the other; for in Know thyself is included Nothing too much; and so again in the latter is comprised Know thyself. And Ion hath spoken of it thus:—

1. This sentence, Know thyself, is but a word;
2. But only Jove himself could do the thing.

And thus Pindar:—

1. This sentence briet, Do nothing to excess,
2. Wise men have always praised exceedingly.

He therefore that hath these impressed upon his mind as the precepts of the Pythian oracle, can easily conform himself to all the affairs of life, and bear them handsomely; considering his nature, so that he is neither lifted up to arrogance upon a prosperous event, nor when

an adverse happens, is dejected into complaint through pusillanimity and that fear of death which is so congenial to us; both which proceed from the ignorance of those things which fall out in human life by necessity and fatal decree. The Pythagoreans speak handsomely to this purpose—

1. Against those evils thou shouldest not repine,
2. Which are inflicted by the powers divine.

Thus the tragedian Aeschylus:—

1. He store of wisdom and of virtue hath,
2. Whom nothing from the Gods provokes to wrath.

Euripides thus:—

1. He that is passive when the Fates command
2. Is wise, and all the Gods doth understand.

In another place so:—

1. He that can bear those things which men befall,
2. Him wise and modest we may justly call.

But many there are who blame all things; and whatsoever unexpectedly happens to them, they think is procured them by the malignity of Fortune and the spite of some evil genius. Wherefore they are querulous and cry out upon every occasion, inveighing against the bitterness of their mishaps. Their complaints we may not unfitly obviate with this expression,—

1. The Gods do hurt thee not, but thou thyself,—

even thou thyself through perverseness and want of good instruction. And by reason of this false and deceiving opinion they accuse any kind of death; for if one die upon his travel, they exclaim after this manner:—

1. The wretch, his father being absent, dies;
2. Nor did his aged mother close his eyes.
[*](Il. XI. 452.)

If he die in his own country, with his parents about him, they lament that he is ravished out of their hands, and hath left them nothing but regret for his loss. If he die silent, giving them no instructions at parting, they complain thus:— His tender dying words I (lid not hear, Which I in my remembrance still should bear.[*](Il. XXIV. 744.) If he spoke any thing before he breathed out his soul, they keep those last accents as fuel to maintain their sorrow still kindled. If he die a sudden death, they cry out that he is snatched away; if chronical pains waste him, they will tell you that the slow distemper hath emaciated him to death. Thus every appearance, take it which way you will, is sufficient to stir up your complaints. These thingsthe poets have introduced, and the chiefest among them, Homer, who sung after this manner:—

1. As a poor father, helpless and undone,
2. Mourns o’er the ashes of an only son,
3. Takes a sad pleasure the last bones to burn,
4. And pours in tears ere yet they close the urn.
[*](Il. XXIII. 222; XVII. 37.)

And whether these things are justly lamented doth not yet appear. But see what he elsewhere sings:—

1. Born in his elder years, his only boy,
2. Who was designed his riches to enjoy.
[*](Il. IX. 482.)