Consolatio ad Apollonium

But Homer seems to indicate a particular praise to himself, when he brings in Achilles speaking thus to Priam, who was come forth to ransom the body of Hector:—

1. Rise then; let reason mitigate our care:
2. To mourn avails not: man is born to bear.
3. Such is, alas! the Gods’ severe decree:
4. They, only they, are blest, and only free.
5. Two urns by Jove’s high throne have ever stood,
6. The source of evil one, and one of good;
7. From thence the cup of mortal man he fills,
8. Blessings to these, to these distributes ills;
9. To most he mingles both; the wretch decreed
10. To taste the bad unmix’d is cursed indeed;
11. Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven,
12. He wanders, outcast both of earth and heaven.Il. XXIV. 522.

Hesiod, who was the next to Homer both in respect of time and reputation, and who professed to be a disciple of the Muses, fancied that all evils were shut up in a box, and that Pandora opening it scattered all sorts of mischiefs through both the earth and seas:—

1. The cover of the box she did remove,
2. And to fly out the crowding mischief strove;
3. But slender hope upon the brims did stay,
4. Ready to vanish into air away;
5. She with retrieve the haggard in did put,
6. And on the prisoner close the box did shut;
7. But plagues innumerable abroad did fly,
8. Infecting all the earth, the seas, and sky,
9. Diseases now with silent feet do creep,
10. Torment us waking, and afflict our sleep.
11. These midnight evils steal without a noise,
12. For Jupiter deprived them of their voice.[*](Hesiod, Works and Days, 94.)

After these the comedian, talking of those who bear afflictions uneasily, speaks consonantly to this purpose:—

1. If we in wet complaints could quench our grief,
2. At any rate we’d purchase our relief;
3. With proffered gold would bribe off all our fears,
4. And make our eyes distil in precious tears.
5. But the Gods mind not mortals here below,
6. Nor the least thought on our affairs bestow;
7. But with an unregarding air pass by,
8. Whether our cheeks be moist, or whether dry.
9. Unhappiness is always sorrow’s root,
10. And tears do hang from them like crystal fruit.

And Dictys comforts Danae, who was bitterly taking on, after this manner:—

1. Dost think that thy repinings move the grave,
2. Or from its jaws thy dying son can save?
3. If thou would’st lessen it, thy grief compare;—
4. Consider how unhappy others are;
5. How many bonds of slavery do hold;
6. How many of their children robbed grow old;
7. How sudden Fate throws off th’ usurped crown,
8. And in the dirt doth tread the tyrant down.
9. Let this with deep impression in thee sink,
10. And on these revolutions often think.From the Danae of Euripides.

He bids her consider the condition of those who have suffered equal or greater afflictions, and by such a parallel to comfort up her own distempered mind.

And here that opinion of Socrates comes in very pertinently, who thought that if all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart. After this manner Antimachus the poet allayed

his grief when he lost his wife Lyde, whom he tenderly loved; for he writ an elegy upon her, which he called by her own name, and in it he numbered up all the calamities which have befallen great men; and so by the remembrance of other men’s sorrows he assuaged his own. By this it may appear, that he who comforts another who is macerating himself with grief, and demonstrates to him, by reckoning up their several misfortunes, that he suffers nothing but what is common to him with other men, takes the surest way to lessen the opinion he had of his condition, and brings him to believe that it is not altogether so bad as he took it to be.