Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 · Plutarch
CONSOLATION TO APOLLONIUS.
1. As soon, Apollonius, as I heard the news of the untimely death of your son, who was very dear to us all, I fell sick of the same grief with you, and shared your misfortune with all the tenderness of sympathy. For he was a sweet and modest young man, devout towards the Gods, obedient to his parents, and obliging to his friends; indeed doing all things that were just. But when the tears of his funeral were scarcely dry, I thought it a time very improper to call upon you and put you in mind that you should bear this accident like a man; for when this unexpected affliction made you languish both in body and mind, I considered then that compassion was more seasonable than advice. For the most skilful physicians do not put a sudden stop to a flux of humors, but give them time to settle, and then foment the swelling by softening and bringing it to a head with medicines outwardly applied. 2. So now that a competent time is past—time which brings all things to maturity—since the first surprise of your calamity, I believed I should do an acceptable piece of friendship, if I should now comfort you with those reasons which may lessen your grief and silence your complaints. Soft words alleviate a wounded heart, If you in time will mitigate the smart.[136]
Euripides hath said wisely to this purpose:— Our applications should suited be Unto the nature of the malady; Of sorrow we should wipe the tender eyes, But the immoderate weeper should chastise. For of all the passions which move and afflict the mind of man, sorrow in its nature is the most grievous; in some they say it hath produced madness, others have contracted incurable diseases, and some out of the vehemence of it have laid violent hands upon themselves. 3. Therefore to be sad, even to an indisposition, for the death of a son proceeds from a principle of nature, and it is out of our power to prevent it. I dislike those who boast so much of hard and inflexible temper which they call apathy, it being a disposition which never happens and never could be of use to us; for it would extinguish that sociable love we ought to have for one another, and which it is so necessary above all things to preserve. But to mourn excessively and to accumulate grief I do affirm to be altogether unnatural, and to result from a depraved opinion we have of things; therefore we ought to shun it as destructive in itself, and unworthy of a virtuous man; but to be moderately affected by grief we cannot condemn. It were to be wished, saith Crantor the Academic, that we could not be sick at all; but when a distemper seizeth us, it is requisite we should have sense and feeling in case any of our members be plucked or cut off. For that talked-of apathy can never happen to a man without great detriment; for as now the body, so soon the very mind would be wild and savage.
4. Therefore in such accidents, it is but reasonable that they who are in their right senses should avoid both extremes, of being without any passion at all and of having too much; for as the one argues a mind that is obstinate and fierce, so the other doth one that is soft and effeminate. He therefore hath cast up his accounts the best, who, confining himself within due bounds, hath such ascendant over his temper, as to bear prosperous and adverse fortune with the same equality, whichsoever it is that happens to him in this life. He puts on those resolutions as if he were in a popular government where magistracy is decided by lot; if it luckily falls to his share, he obeys his fortune, but if it passeth him, he doth not repine at it. So we must submit to the dispensation of human affairs, without being uneasy and querulous. Those who cannot do this want prudence and steadiness of mind to bear more happy circumstances; for amongst other things which are prettily said, this is one remarkable precept of Euripides:— If Fortune prove extravagantly kind, Above its temper do not raise thy mind; If she disclaims thee like a jilting dame, Be not dejected, but be still the same, Like gold unchanged amidst the hottest flame.
Think not thyself, O Atreus’ son, forlorn; Thou always to be happy wast not born. Even Agamemnon’s self must be a shade, For thou of frail materials art made. Sorrow and joy alternately succeed; ’Spite of thy teeth, the Gods have so decreed.[139] These verses are Menander’s. If thou, O Trophimus, of all mankind, Uninterrupted happiness couldst find; If when thy mother brought thee forth with pain, Didst this condition of thy life obtain, That only prosperous gales thy sails should fill, And all things happen ’cording to thy will; If any of the Gods did so engage, Such usage justly might provoke thy rage, Matter for smart resentment might afford, For the false Deity did break his word. But if thou unexcepted saw’st the light, Without a promise of the least delight, I say to thee (gravely in tragic style) Thou ought to be more patient all the while. In short,—and to say more there’s no one can,— Which is a name of frailty, thou’rt a man; A creature more rejoicing is not found, None more dejected creeps upon the ground. Though weak, yet he in politics refines, Involves himself in intricate designs; With nauseous business he himself doth cloy, And so the pleasure of his life destroy. In great pursuits thou never hast been cross’d No disappointments have thy projects lost; Nay, such hath been the mildness of thy fate, Hast no misfortune had of any rate; If Fortune is at any time severe, Serene and undisturbed thou must appear.
Of all that breathes or grovelling creeps on earth, Most man is vain! calamitous by birth: To-day, with power elate, in strength he blooms; The haughty creature on that power presumes: Anon from Heaven a sad reverse he feels; Untaught to bear, ’gainst Heaven the wretch rebels. For man is changeful, as his bliss or woe; Too high when prosperous, when distress’d too low.[145] And in another place:— What or from whence I am, or who my sire (Replied the chief), can Tydeus’ son enquire? Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; Another race the following spring supplies; They fall successive, and successive rise. So generations in their course decay; So flourish these, when those are past away.[146] How prettily he managed this image of human life appears from what he hath said in another place:— For what is man? Calamitous by birth, They owe their life and nourishment to earth; Like yearly leaves, that now with beauty crown’d, Smile on the sun, now wither on the ground.[147]
Rise then; let reason mitigate our care: To mourn avails not: man is born to bear. Such is, alas! the Gods’ severe decree: They, only they, are blest, and only free. Two urns by Jove’s high throne have ever stood, The source of evil one, and one of good; From thence the cup of mortal man he fills, Blessings to these, to these distributes ills; To most he mingles both; the wretch decreed To taste the bad unmix’d is cursed indeed; Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven, He wanders, outcast both of earth and heaven.[148] 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:— The cover of the box she did remove, And to fly out the crowding mischief strove; But slender hope upon the brims did stay, Ready to vanish into air away; She with retrieve the haggard in did put, And on the prisoner close the box did shut; But plagues innumerable abroad did fly, Infecting all the earth, the seas, and sky. Diseases now with silent feet do creep, Torment us waking, and afflict our sleep. These midnight evils steal without a noise, For Jupiter deprived them of their voice.[149]
8. After these the comedian, talking of those who bear afflictions uneasily, speaks consonantly to this purpose:— If we in wet complaints could quench our grief, At any rate we’d purchase our relief; With proffered gold would bribe off all our fears, And make our eyes distil in precious tears. But the Gods mind not mortals here below, Nor the least thought on our affairs bestow; But with an unregarding air pass by, Whether our cheeks be moist, or whether dry. Unhappiness is always sorrow’s root, And tears do hang from them like crystal fruit. And Dictys comforts Danae, who was bitterly taking on, after this manner:— Dost think that thy repinings move the grave, Or from its jaws thy dying son can save? If thou would’st lessen it, thy grief compare;— Consider how unhappy others are; How many bonds of slavery do hold; How many of their children robbed grow old; How sudden Fate throws off th’ usurped crown, And in the dirt doth tread the tyrant down. Let this with deep impression in thee sink, And on these revolutions often think.[150] 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.
9. 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. 10. Aeschylus also doth justly reprimand those who think death to be an evil, declaring after this manner:— Some as a thing injurious death do fly; But of all mischiefs ’tis the remedy. And he who spoke thus very nicely imitated him:— Come, with impatience I expect thee, Death; And stop with thy obliging hand my breath: To thee as a physician all resort, And we through tempests sail into thy port.
And it is great to speak this sentence with courage:— Where is the slave who never fears to die?[151] Or this:— And shadows never scare me, thanks to hell. But what is it at length in death, that is so grievous and troublesome? For I know not how it comes to pass that, when it is so familiar and as it were related to us, it should seem so terrible. How can it be rational to wonder, if that cleaves asunder which is divisible, if that melts whose nature is liquefaction, if that burns which is combustible, and so, by a parity of reason, if that perisheth which by nature is perishable? For when is it that death is not in us? For, as Heraclitus saith, it is the same thing to be dead and alive, asleep and awake, a young man and decrepit; for these alternately are changed one into another. For as a potter can form the shape of an animal out of his clay and then as easily deface it, and can repeat this backwards and forwards as often as he pleaseth, so Nature too out of the same materials fashioned first our grandfathers, next our fathers, then us, and in process of time will engender others, and again others upon these. For as the flood of our generation glides on without any intermission and will never stop, so in the other direction the stream of our corruption flows eternally on, whether it be called Acheron or Cocytus by the poets. So that the same cause which first showed us the light of the sun carries us down to infernal darkness. And in my mind, the air which encompasseth us seems to be a lively image of the thing; for it brings on the vicissitudes of night and day, life and death, sleeping and waking. For this cause it is that life is called a fatal debt, which our fathers contracted and we are bound to pay; which is to be done calmly and without any complaint, when the creditor demands it; and by this means we shall show ourselves men of sedate passions.
11. And I believe Nature, knowing the confusion and shortness of our life, hath industriously concealed the end of it from us, this making for our advantage. For if we were sensible of it beforehand, some would pine away with untimely sorrow, and would die before their death came. For she saw the woes of this life, and with what a torrent of cares it is overflowed,—which if thou didst undertake to number, thou wouldst grow angry with it, and confirm that opinion which hath a vogue amongst some, that death is more desirable than life. Simonides hath glossed upon it after this manner:— Our time is of a short and tender length, Cares we have many, and but little strength; Labors in crowds push one another on, And cruel destiny we cannot shun. The casting of these lots is very just, For good and bad lie in one common dust. Pindar hath it so:— The Gods unequal have us mortals vexed, For to one good, two evils are annexed: They pay a single joy with double care, And fools such dispensations cannot bear.[152] Sophocles so:— Why at a mortal’s death dost thou complain? Thou know’st not what may be his future gain. And Euripides so:— Dost thou not know the state of human things? A faithful monitor thy instruction brings. Inevitable death hangs o’er our head, And threatens falling by a doubtful thread. There’s no man can be certain over night, If he shall live to see to-morrow’s light. Life without any interruption flows, And the results of fate there’s no man knows.[153]
If then the condition of human life is such as they speak of, why do we not rather applaud their good fortunes who are freed from the drudgery of it, than pity and deplore them, as some men’s folly prompts them to do? 12. Socrates said that death was like either to a very deep sleep, or to a journey taken a great way and for a long time, or else to the utter extinction of soul and body; and if we examine each of these comparisons, he said, we shall find that death is not an evil upon any account. For if death is sleep, and no hurt happens to those who are in that innocent condition, it is manifest that neither are the dead ill dealt with. To what purpose should I talk of that which is so tritely known amongst all, that the most profound sleep is always the sweetest? Homer[154] particularly attests it:— His senses all becalmed, he drew his breath, His sleep was sound, and quiet like to death. And in many places he saith thus,— She met Death’s brother, Sleep.— And again,— Twin brothers, Sleep and Death,— thereby representing the similitude (as it were) to the sight, for twins especially indicate similarity. And in another place he saith, Death is brazen sleep, thereby intimating to us that it is insensible. Neither hath he spoken much amiss who calls sleep the lesser mysteries of death; for sleep is really the first initiation into the mysteries of death.
Diogenes the Cynic, when a little before his death he fell into a slumber, and his physician rousing him out of it asked him whether any thing ailed him, wisely answered, Nothing, sir, only one brother anticipates another,—Sleep before Death. 13. If death be like a journey, neither upon this account is it an evil, but rather the contrary; for certainly it is the emphasis of happiness to be freed from the incumbrances of the flesh and all those troublesome passions which attend it, which serve only to darken the understanding, and over-spread it with all the folly that is incident to human nature. “The very body,” saith Plato, “procures us infinite disquiet only to supply its daily necessities with food; but if any diseases are coincident, they hinder our contemplations, and stop us in our researches after truth. Besides, it distracts us with irregular desires, fears, and vain amours, setting before us so many fantastic images of things, that the common saying is here most true, that on account of the body we can never become wise. For wars, popular seditions, and shedding of blood by the sword are owing to no other original than this care of the body and gratifying its licentious appetites; for we fight only to get riches, and these we acquire only to please the body; so that those who are thus employed have not leisure to be philosophers. And after all, when we have retrieved an interval of time to seek after truth, the body officiously interrupts us, is so troublesome and importune, that we can by no means discern its nature.
Therefore it is evident that, if we will clearly know any thing, we must divest ourselves of the body, and behold things as they are in themselves with the mind itself, that at last we may attain what we so much desire, and what we do profess ourselves the most partial admirers of, which is wisdom. And this we cannot consummately enjoy till after death, as reason teacheth us. For if so be that we can understand nothing clearly as long as we are clogged with flesh, one of these things must needs be, either that we shall never arrive at that knowledge at all, or only when we die; for then the soul will exist by itself, separate from the body; and whilst we are in this life, we shall make the nearest advances towards it, if we have no more to do with the body than what decency and necessity require, if we break off all commerce with it, and keep ourselves pure from its contagion, till God shall give us a final release, and then being pure and freed from all its follies, we shall converse (it is likely) with intelligences as pure as ourselves, with our unaided vision beholding perfect purity,—and this is truth itself. For it is not fit that what is pure should be apprehended by what is impure.”[155]
Therefore, if death only transports us to another place, it is not to be looked upon as an evil, but rather as an exceeding good, as Plato hath demonstrated. The words of Socrates to his judges seem to me to be spoken even with inspiration: “To fear death, gentlemen, is nothing else than to counterfeit the being wise, when we are not so. For he that fears death pretends to know what he is ignorant of; for no man is certain whether death be not the greatest good that can befall a man, but they positively dread it as if they were sure it was the greatest of evils.” Agreeably to this said one after this manner:— Let no man fear what doth his labors end;— and death sets us free even from the greatest evils.
14. The Gods themselves bear witness to the truth of this, for many have obtained death as a gratuity from them. The less famous instances I will pass by, that I may not be prolix, and only mention those who are the most celebrated and in all men’s mouths. And in the first place, I will relate what befell Biton and Cleobis, two young men of Argos. They report that their mother being the priestess of Juno, and the time being come that she was to go up to the temple to perform the rites of the Goddess, and those whose office it was to draw her chariot tarrying longer than usual, these two young men harnessed themselves and took it up, and so carried their mother to the temple. She, being extremely taken with the piety of her sons, petitioned the Goddess that she would bestow upon them the best present that could be given to men; accordingly she cast them into that deep sleep out of which they never awoke, taking this way to recompense their filial zeal with death. Pindar writes of Agamedes and Trophonius, that after they had built a temple at Delphi, they requested of Apollo a reward for their work.
It was answered them that they should have it within seven days, but in the mean while they were commanded to live freely and indulge their genius; accordingly they obeyed the dictate, and the seventh night they died in their beds. It is said also of Pindar, that when the deputies of the Boeotians were sent to consult the oracle, he desired them to enquire of it which was the best thing amongst men, and that the Priestess of the tripod gave them this answer,—that he could not be ignorant of it, if he was the author of those writings concerning Agamedes and Trophonius; but if he desired personally to know, it should in a little time be made manifest to him; and that Pindar hearing this prepared himself for the stroke of Fate, and died in a short time after. Of Euthynous the Italian there is this memorable story, that he died suddenly, without anybody’s knowing the cause of his death.
I would have changed into these words,— For if he dwells below, beneath the earth, With those whose life is gone, his woes are o’er. This Laconic too is very noble:— Others before and after us will be, Whose age we’re not permitted e’er to see. And again:— These neither did live handsomely nor die, Though both should have been done with decency. But Euripides hath spoken incomparably well of those who labor under daily indispositions:— I hate the man who studies to defeat The power of death with artificial meat, To baffle and prevent his fate does think, And lengthens out his life with magic drink. Whereas, when he a burden doth become, Then he should die, because he’s troublesome. Old age in modesty should then give place, And so make way unto a brisker race.[157] But Merope moved the passion of the theatre with these masculine expressions:— My sons by death are ravished from my side, And I’m a widow, who was once a bride. I am not thus selected to be crossed, Others their sons and husbands too have lost.[158] And we may not incongruously add these:— What is become of that magnificence? Where is King Croesus with his opulence? Or where is Xerxes with his mighty pride, Who with a bridge did curb the raging tide? Inhabitants of darkness they became, And now are living only in their fame.
Their riches have perished with their bodies. 16. Yes, we may say, but an untimely death from many doth extort groans and passionate complaints. But the way to dry up these sorrows is so expedite and easy, that every vulgar poet hath prescribed it. Consider what consolation a comedian puts in the mouth of one who comforts another upon so sad an occasion:— If this with certainty thou could’st have known, That Fortune always would have kindness shown, That nothing but what’s good would him befall, His death thou justly might’st untimely call. But if calamities were imminent, And Death the fatal mischief did prevent, To give to things the character that’s due, Death was the most obliging of the two. It therefore being uncertain whether it was for his advantage that he departed this life and was freed from all the miseries that attend it, we had thereby lost all that we fancied we could enjoy in him whilst he was living. And Amphiaraus in the poet doth not do amiss when he consoles the mother of Archemorus, who was even sick with grief for the untimely death of her infant son. He speaks:— There is no man whom sorrow doth not seize; Our children die while others we beget. At last we die ourselves, and mortals grieve As they give dust to dust; but human life Must needs be reaped like a full crop of corn. One man must live, another die: why weep For this, which by necessity must be? There is no hardship in necessity.[159]
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.