Letter 99

I am sending you a copy of the letter I wrote to Marullus when he had lost his little son and was said to be bearing it weakly. In it I did not follow the usual custom, nor did I think he ought to be handled gently, since he deserved a rebuke more than consolation. For a man who is stricken and bearing a great wound badly must be given way to for a little while; let him satisfy himself, or at least pour out the first onset of grief. But those who have taken it upon themselves to mourn should be reproved at once, and should learn that there are certain follies even in tears. "Do you expect consolation? Take a scolding instead. Are you bearing your son's death so weakly? What would you do if you had lost a friend? A son has died, a little child of uncertain promise; a tiny scrap of time has been lost. We hunt up reasons for grief, and we are even willing to complain unjustly against Fortune, as though she were not going to furnish just causes for complaint. But, by heaven, you seemed to me already to have spirit enough even against solid evils, let alone against those shadows of evils over which men groan for custom's sake. The greatest loss of all is the loss of a friend; yet, had you lost a friend, you should have taken pains to rejoice that you had possessed him rather than to grieve that you had lost him. But most people do not reckon up how much they have gained, how much they have enjoyed. Among its other evils, grief of this kind has this: it is not only superfluous but ungrateful. Was it, then, all for nothing that you had such a friend? In so many years, in so close a union of life, in so intimate a partnership of pursuits, was nothing accomplished? Do you bury friendship along with your friend? And why do you grieve at having lost him, if it does you no good to have had him? Believe me, a great part of those whom we have loved, though chance has carried off their persons, remains with us. The time that is past is ours, and there is nothing in a safer place than what has already been. We are ungrateful for what we have received because we hope for what is to come, as if what is to come, should it only fall to us, will not soon pass over into the things that are past. The man who is glad only in present things sets a narrow limit to his enjoyment of life: both the future and the past delight us, the one by expectation, the other by memory, but the one hangs in suspense and may fail to come, while the other cannot fail to have been. What madness, then, is it to let slip the most certain thing of all? Let us rest content with what we have already drunk in, if only we did not drink with a soul full of holes, one that let through whatever it received. "There are countless examples of men who have buried their young children without tears, who have returned from the funeral pyre to the senate or to some public office and at once busied themselves with other matters. And not without reason; for, first, it is superfluous to grieve if you gain nothing by grieving; next, it is unjust to complain about what has befallen one man when it remains in store for all; and again, complaint of one's loss is foolish where there is so little difference between the one who is lost and the one who longs for him. We ought therefore to be more even-tempered, since we are following close behind those whom we have lost. Look at the speed of swiftest time; think of the brevity of this span through which we run at top speed; observe this whole company of the human race straining toward the same goal, separated by the smallest intervals even where they seem greatest. The man you think has perished has merely been sent on ahead. What is more insane than, when the same journey must be traveled by you, to weep for the one who has gone before? Does a man weep at something he was not ignorant would happen? Or, if he did not consider death's place in man, he has deceived himself. Does a man weep at something he used to say could not fail to happen? Whoever complains that someone has died is complaining that he was a man. The same condition has bound us all: he who has had the lot of being born is left with the task of dying. We are distinguished by our intervals; we are made equal by our end. What lies between the first day and the last is varied and uncertain: if you reckon it by its troubles, it is long even for a boy; if by its speed, it is too short even for an old man. Everything is slippery and deceptive and more changeable than any storm; all things are tossed about and shift into their opposites at Fortune's command, and in so great a whirling of human affairs nothing is certain for anyone except death; yet about the one thing in which no one is deceived, everyone complains. "'But the boy died.' I am not yet saying that things go better for the one who finishes life quickly; let us pass to the man who has grown old: by how little does he surpass the infant! Set before your eyes the vastness of the depth of time and take in the whole, then compare this thing which we call human life with that immensity: you will see how slight is the thing we long for, the thing we try to prolong. And out of this, how much do tears occupy, how much do anxieties? How much does death, longed for before it comes; how much does illness; how much does fear? How much is held by years that are either raw or useless? Half of it is slept away. Add toils, griefs, dangers, and you will understand that even in the longest life what is truly lived is the least part. But who will grant you that the man is not better off who is permitted to return quickly, for whom the journey was finished before weariness came? Life is neither a good nor an evil: it is the arena of good and of evil. And so that boy lost nothing except a throw of the dice weighted more surely toward loss. He might have turned out modest and prudent; he might, under your care, have been formed for better things; but, what is more justly to be feared, he might have become like the many. Look at those young men whom luxury has flung from the noblest houses into the arena; look at those who exercise their own lust and another's, mutually shameless, no one of whom passes a day without drunkenness, none without some notable disgrace: it will be clear that there was more to be feared than to be hoped for. You ought not, then, to summon up reasons for grief or to pile up slight troubles by your indignation. I am not urging you to strain and rise up; I do not judge you so meanly as to think that against this you must call up the whole of your virtue. This is not grief but a sting: you are the one making it grief. No doubt philosophy has profited you much, if with a brave spirit you long for a boy still better known to his nurse than to his father. "What, then? Am I now advising hardness, and do I want your face to stiffen at the very funeral, and not even allow your spirit to contract? By no means. That is inhumanity, not virtue: to look upon the funerals of one's own with the same eyes with which one looked upon the living, and not to be moved at the first tearing-away of those dear to us. But suppose I do forbid you: certain things are a law unto themselves; tears slip out even from those who hold them back, and by being poured out they relieve the soul. What, then, is to be done? Let us permit them to fall, but not command it; let there flow as much as emotion has cast out, not as much as imitation demands. Let us add nothing to our grief, nor increase it to match another's example. The display of grief demands more than grief itself: how few are sorrowful for their own sake! They groan more loudly when they are heard, and, quiet and silent while they are in private, when they catch sight of others they are stirred to fresh weeping; then they beat their heads with their hands (which they could have done more freely with no one to stop them), then they pray for death upon themselves, then they roll about on the couch: without a spectator, grief subsides. We are followed, in this matter as in others, by this fault: of arranging ourselves to the example of the majority and looking not at what is proper but at what is customary. We depart from nature, we give ourselves over to the crowd, who is a good authority for nothing and in this matter, as in all others, utterly inconsistent. It sees someone brave in his grief, and calls him impious and savage; it sees someone collapsing and flung upon the corpse, and calls him effeminate and weak. Everything, therefore, must be recalled to reason. Nothing is more foolish than to court a reputation for sadness and to approve of tears, which I judge fall, in the wise man, sometimes by permission, sometimes carried out by their own force. I will say what the difference is. When the first news of a bitter death has struck us, when we are holding the body that is about to pass from our embrace into the fire, natural necessity wrings out tears, and the breath, driven by the blow of grief, just as it shakes the whole body, so too it presses upon the eyes and drives out the moisture lying near them. These tears fall by being squeezed out, against our will. There are others to which we give passage when the memory of those whom we have lost is recalled, and there is something sweet in the sadness when their pleasant conversations come to mind, their cheerful company, their dutiful affection; then the eyes are loosened as if in joy. To these we yield; by the former we are overcome. There is no reason, then, why you should either hold back or force out your tears on account of someone standing or sitting beside you: they never cease, nor do they ever flow, so shamefully as when they are feigned. Let them go of their own accord. But they can go from men who are calm and composed; often, with the wise man's authority preserved, they have flowed with such moderation that they lacked neither humanity nor dignity. We may, I say, obey nature while keeping our gravity. I myself have seen, at the funerals of their own, men worthy of reverence, on whose faces love stood out, with the whole stage-show of mourners removed; there was nothing except what was given to true emotion. There is a certain seemliness even in grieving; this the wise man must preserve, and just as in other matters, so too in tears there is a point of 'enough'; it is the unwise whose joys, like their sorrows, overflow. "Receive what is necessary with an even spirit. What incredible thing, what new thing, has happened? At this very moment a funeral is being arranged for many, for many burial-clothes are being bought, many are mourning when your own mourning is over. As often as you reflect that he was a boy, reflect also that he was a man, to whom nothing certain is promised, whom Fortune does not in any case escort to old age: she releases him from wherever it seems good to her. For the rest, speak of him often and celebrate his memory as much as you can; it will return to you the more often if it comes to you without bitterness; for no one willingly keeps company with a sorrowful person, much less with sorrow itself. If there were any sayings of his, any jokes, however childish, which you had heard with pleasure, repeat them often; affirm boldly that he could have fulfilled the hopes which you, with a father's mind, had conceived. But to forget one's own, to bury their memory along with their bodies, to weep most lavishly and to remember most sparingly, is the mark of an inhuman soul. So birds, so beasts love their young, whose love is roused and almost frenzied, but is utterly extinguished once they are lost. This does not befit a prudent man: let him persist in remembering, but let him cease to mourn. "What Metrodorus says, I in no way approve: that there is a certain pleasure akin to sadness, and that this is to be hunted for at such a time. I have written Metrodorus's own words below. [The line is given in Greek:] 'From the letter of Metrodorus to his sister: For there is a certain pleasure akin to grief, which one ought to hunt after at this season.' About these matters I have no doubt what you will think; for what is baser than to hunt for pleasure in the very midst of mourning, indeed through mourning, and even among one's tears to seek out something that gives delight? These are the men who reproach us with too great rigidity and slander our precepts as harsh, because we say that grief should either not be admitted into the soul at all or should be quickly expelled. Which, after all, is either more incredible or more inhuman: to feel no grief at the loss of a friend, or to go bird-catching for pleasure in the midst of grief itself? What we prescribe is honorable: that when emotion has poured out some tears and, so to speak, foamed them off, the soul should not be surrendered to grief. What, do you say that pleasure should be mixed in with grief itself? That is how we comfort children with a little cake, how we quiet the weeping of infants by pouring in milk. Not even at the moment when your son is burning or your friend is breathing his last do you let pleasure rest, but you want to tickle grief itself? Which is more honorable: that grief be removed from the soul, or that pleasure be admitted even into grief? 'Admitted,' did I say? It is hunted for, and indeed out of grief itself. 'There is a certain pleasure,' he says, 'akin to sadness.' That is something we are allowed to say, but you are certainly not. You recognize one good, pleasure, and one evil, pain: what kinship can there be between a good and an evil? But suppose there is one: is now, of all times, when it is to be dug out? Are we even to scrutinize grief, to see whether it has something pleasant and gratifying about it? Certain remedies, beneficial for some parts of the body, cannot be applied to others as being foul and unseemly, and what would be helpful elsewhere without any loss of modesty becomes dishonorable in the place of a wound: are you not ashamed to cure mourning with pleasure? That wound must be treated more severely. Advise this instead: that no sensation of evil reaches the one who has perished; for if it reaches him, he has not perished. Nothing, I say, harms one who is nothing: he is alive, if he is harmed. Do you think he is badly off because he is nothing, or because he still is someone? And yet no torment can come to him from the fact that he is not (for who can have any sensation if he is nothing?), nor from the fact that he is; for he has escaped the greatest disadvantage of death, namely, not to be. Let us say this too to the one who weeps and longs for someone snatched away in earliest youth: all of us, as regards the brevity of our span, if you compare it with the universe, both young and old, are on an equal footing. For there comes to us out of all of time less than what anyone would call the least, since the least is at any rate some portion: this thing we call living is next to nothing; and yet, oh our madness, it is spread out broadly. "I have written these things to you, not as though you were going to wait for a remedy from me so late (for it is clear to me that you have said to yourself whatever you are going to read), but in order to chide that brief lapse in which you withdrew from yourself, and to exhort you for the future to raise your spirit against Fortune and to foresee all her weapons, not as though they might come, but as though they were certainly going to come. Farewell."

I enclose a copy of the letter which I wrote to Marullus at the time when he had lost his little son and was reported to be rather womanish in his grief—a letter in which I have not observed the usual form of condolence: for I did not believe that he should be handled gently, since in my opinion he deserved criticism rather than consolation. When a man is stricken and is finding it most difficult to endure a grievous wound, one must humour him for a while; let him satisfy his grief or at any rate work off the first shock; but those who have assumed an indulgence in grief should be rebuked forthwith, and should learn that there are certain follies even in tears. “Is it solace that you look for? Let me give you a scolding instead! You are like a woman in the way you take your son’s death; what would you do if you had lost an intimate friend? A son, a little child of unknown promise, is dead; a fragment of time has been lost. We hunt out excuses for grief; we would even utter unfair complaints about Fortune, as if Fortune would never give us just reason for complaining! But I had really thought that you possessed spirit enough to deal with concrete troubles, to say nothing of the shadowy troubles over which men make moan through force of habit. Had you lost a friend (which is the greatest blow of all), you would have had to endeavour rather to rejoice because you had possessed him than to mourn because you had lost him. “But many men fail to count up how manifold their gains have been, how great their rejoicings. Grief like yours has this among other evils: it is not only useless, but thankless. Has it then all been for nothing that you have had such a friend? During so many years, amid such close associations, after such intimate communion of personal interests, has nothing been accomplished? Do you bury friendship along with a friend? And why lament having lost him, if it be of no avail to have possessed him? Believe me, a great part of those we have loved, though chance has removed their persons, still abides with us. The past is ours, and there is nothing more secure for us than that which has been. We are ungrateful for past gains, because we hope for the future, as if the future—if so be that any future is ours—will not be quickly blended with the past. People set a narrow limit to their enjoyments if they take pleasure only in the present; both the future and the past serve for our delight—the one with anticipation, and the other with memories but the one is contingent and may not come to pass, while the other must have been. “What madness it is, therefore, to lose our grip on that which is the surest thing of all? Let us rest content with the pleasures we have quaffed in past days, if only, while we quaffed them, the soul was not pierced like a sieve, only to lose again whatever it had received. There are countless cases of men who have without tears buried sons in the prime of manhood—men who have returned from the funeral pyre to the Senate chamber, or to any other official duties, and have straightway busied themselves with something else. And rightly; for in the first place it is idle to grieve if you get no help from grief. In the second place, it is unfair to complain about what has happened to one man but is in store for all. Again, it is foolish to lament one’s loss, when there is such a slight interval between the lost and the loser. Hence we should be more resigned in spirit, because we follow closely those whom we have lost. “Note the rapidity of Time—that swiftest of things; consider the shortness of the course along which we hasten at top speed; mark this throng of humanity, all straining toward the same point with briefest intervals between them—even when they seem longest; he whom you count as passed away has simply posted on ahead. And what is more irrational than to bewail your predecessor, when you yourself must travel on the same journey? Does a man bewail an event which he knew would take place? Or, if he did not think of death as man’s lot, he has but cheated himself. Does a man bewail an event which he has been admitting to be unavoidable? Whoever complains about the death of anyone, is complaining that he was a man. Everyone is bound by the same terms: he who is privileged to be born, is destined to die. Periods of time separate us, but death levels us. The period which lies between our first day and our last is shifting and uncertain: if you reckon it by its troubles, it is long even to a lad, if by its speed, it is scanty even to a greybeard. Everything is slippery, treacherous, and more shifting than any weather. All things are tossed about and shift into their opposites at the bidding of Fortune; amid such a turmoil of mortal affairs nothing but death is surely in store for anyone. And yet all men complain about the one thing wherein none of them is deceived. ‘But he died in boyhood.’ I am not yet prepared to say that he who quickly comes to the end of his life has the better of the bargain; let us turn to consider the case of him who has grown to old age. How very little is he superior to the child! Place before your mind’s eye the vast spread of time’s abyss, and consider the universe; and then contrast our so-called human life with infinity: you will then see how scant is that for which we pray, and which we seek to lengthen. How much of this time is taken up with weeping, how much with worry! How much with prayers for death before death arrives, how much with our health, how much with our fears! How much is occupied by our years of inexperience or of useless endeavour! And half of all this time is wasted in sleeping. Add, besides, our toils, our griefs, our dangers—and you will comprehend that even in the longest life real living is the least portion thereof. Nevertheless, who will make such an admission as: ‘A man is not better off who is allowed to return home quickly, whose journey is accomplished before he is wearied out’? Life is neither a Good nor an Evil; it is simply the place where good and evil exist. Hence this little boy has lost nothing except a hazard where loss was more assured than gain. He might have turned out temperate and prudent; he might, with your fostering care, have been moulded to a better standard; but (and this fear is more reasonable) he might have become just like the many. Note the youths of the noblest lineage whose extravagance has flung them into the arena; note those men who cater to the passions of themselves and others in mutual lust, whose days never pass without drunkenness or some signal act of shame; it will thus be clear to you that there was more to fear than to hope for. “For this reason you ought not to invite excuses for grief or aggravate slight burdens by getting indignant. I am not exhorting you to make an effort and rise to great heights; for my opinion of you is not so low as to make me think that it is necessary for you to summon every bit of your virtue to face this trouble. Yours is not pain; it is a mere sting—and it is you yourself who are turning it into pain. “Of a surety philosophy has done you much service if you can bear courageously the loss of a boy who was as yet better known to his nurse than to his father! And what, then? Now, at this time, am I advising you to be hard-hearted, desiring you to keep your countenance unmoved at the very funeral ceremony, and not allowing your soul even to feel the pinch of pain? By no means. That would mean lack of feeling rather than virtue—to behold the burial ceremonies of those near and dear to you with the same expression as you beheld their living forms, and to show no emotion over the first bereavement in your family. But suppose that I forbade you to show emotion; there are certain feelings which claim their own rights. Tears fall, no matter how we try to check them, and by being shed they ease the soul. What, then, shall we do? Let us allow them to fall, but let us not command them do so; let us weep according as emotion floods our eyes, but not as much as mere imitation shall demand. Let us, indeed, add nothing to natural grief, nor augment it by following the example of others. The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself: how few men are sad in their own company! They lament the louder for being heard; persons who are reserved and silent when alone are stirred to new paroxysms of tears when they behold others near them! At such times they lay violent hands upon their own persons,—though they might have done this more easily if no one were present to check them; at such times they pray for death; at such times they toss themselves from their couches. But their grief slackens with the departure of onlookers. In this matter, as in others also, we are obsessed by this fault—conforming to the pattern of the many, and regarding convention rather than duty. We abandon nature and surrender to the mob—who are never good advisers in anything, and in this respect as in all others are most inconsistent. People see a man who bears his grief bravely: they call him undutiful and savage-hearted; they see a man who collapses and clings to his dead: they call him womanish and weak. Everything, therefore, should be referred to reason. But nothing is more foolish than to court a reputation for sadness and to sanction tears; for I hold that with a wise man some tears fall by consent, others by their own force. "I shall explain the difference as follows: When the first news of some bitter loss has shocked us, when we embrace the form that will soon pass from our arms to the funeral flames—then tears are wrung from us by the necessity of Nature, and the life-force, smitten by the stroke of grief, shakes both the whole body, and the eyes also, from which it presses out and causes to flow the moisture that lies within. Tears like these fall by a forcing-out process, against our will; but different are the tears which we allow to escape when we muse in memory upon those whom we have lost. And there is in them a certain sweet sadness when we remember the sound of a pleasant voice, a genial conversation, and the busy duties of yore; at such a time the eyes are loosened, as it were, with joy. This sort of weeping we indulge; the former sort overcomes us. “There is, then, no reason why, just because a group of persons is standing in your presence or sitting at your side, you should either check or pour forth your tears; whether restrained or outpoured, they are never so disgraceful as when feigned. Let them flow naturally. But it is possible for tears to flow from the eyes of those who are quiet and at peace. They often flow without impairing the influence of the wise man—with such restraint that they show no want either of feeling or of self-respect. We may, I assure you, obey Nature and yet maintain our dignity. I have seen men worthy of reverence, during the burial of those near and dear, with countenances upon which love was written clear even after the whole apparatus of mourning was removed, and who showed no other conduct than that which was allowed to genuine emotion. There is a comeliness even in grief. This should be cultivated by the wise man; even in tears, just as in other matters also, there is a certain sufficiency; it is with the unwise that sorrows, like joys, gush over. “Accept in an unruffled spirit that which is inevitable. What can happen that is beyond belief? Or what that is new? How many men at this very moment are making arrangements for funerals! How many are purchasing grave-clothes! How many are mourning, when you yourself have finished mourning! As often as you reflect that your boy has ceased to be, reflect also upon man, who has no sure promise of anything, whom Fortune does not inevitably escort to the confines of old age, but lets him go at whatever point she sees fit. You may, however, speak often concerning the departed, and cherish his memory to the extent of your power. This memory will return to you all the more often if you welcome its coming without bitterness; for no man enjoys converse with one who is sorrowful, much less with sorrow itself. And whatever words, whatever jests of his, no matter how much of a child he was, may have given you pleasure to hear—these I would have you recall again and again; assure yourself confidently that he might have fulfilled the hopes which you, his father, had entertained. Indeed, to forget the beloved dead, to bury their memory along with their bodies, to bewail them bounteously and afterwards think of them but scantily—this is the mark of a soul below that of man. For that is the way in which birds and beasts love their young; their affection is quickly roused and almost reaches madness, but it cools away entirely when its object dies. This quality does not befit a man of sense; he should continue to remember, but should cease to mourn. And in no wise do I approve of the remark of Metrodorus—that there is a certain pleasure akin to sadness, and that one should give chase thereto at such times as these. I am quoting the actual words of Metrodorus I have no doubt what your feelings will be in these matters; for what is baser than to ‘chase after’ pleasure in the very midst of mourning—nay rather by means of mourning—and even amid one’s tears to hunt out that which will give pleasure? These are the men who accuse us of too great strictness, slandering our precepts because of supposed harshness—because (say they) we declare that grief should either not be given place in the soul at all, or else should be driven out forthwith. But which is the more incredible or inhuman—to feel no grief at the loss of one’s friend, or to go a-hawking after pleasure in the midst of grief? That which we Stoics advise, is honourable; when emotion has prompted a moderate flow of tears, and has, so to speak, ceased to effervesce, the soul should not be surrendered to grief. But what do you mean, Metrodorus, by saying that with our very grief there should be a blending of pleasure? That is the sweetmeat method of pacifying children; that is the way we still the cries of infants, by pouring milk down their throats! “Even at the moment when your son’s body is on the pyre, or your friend breathing his last, will you not suffer your pleasure to cease, rather than tickle your very grief with pleasure? Which is the more honourable—to remove grief from your soul, or to admit pleasure even into the company of grief? Did I say ‘admit’? Nay, I mean ‘chase after,’ and from the hands, too, of grief itself. Metrodorus says: ‘There is a certain pleasure which is related to sadness.’ We Stoics may say that, but you may not. The only Good which you recognize, is pleasure, and the only Evil, pain; and what relationship can there be between a Good and an Evil? But suppose that such a relationship does exist; now, of all times, is it to be rooted out? Shall we examine grief also, and see with what elements of delight and pleasure it is surrounded? Certain remedies, which are beneficial for some parts of the body, cannot be applied to other parts because these are, in a way, revolting and unfit; and that which in certain cases would work to a good purpose without any loss to one’s self-respect, may become unseemly because of the situation of the wound. Are you not, similarly, ashamed to cure sorrow by pleasure? No, this sore spot must be treated in a more drastic way. This is what you should preferably advise: that no sensation of evil can reach one who is dead; for if it can reach him, he is not dead. And I say that nothing can hurt him who is as naught; for if a man can be hurt, he is alive. Do you think him to be badly off because he is no more, or because he still exists as somebody? And yet no torment can come to him from the fact that he is no more—for what feeling can belong to one who does not exist?—nor from the fact that he exists; for he has escaped the greatest disadvantage that death has in it—namely, non-existence. “Let us say this also to him who mourns and misses the untimely dead: that all of us, whether young or old, live, in comparison with eternity, on the same level as regards our shortness of life. For out of all time there comes to us less than what any one could call least, since ‘least’ is at any rate some part; but this life of ours is next to nothing, and yet (fools that we are!), we marshal it in broad array! “These words I have written to you, not with the idea that you should expect a cure from me at such a late date—for it is clear to me that you have told yourself everything that you will read in my letter—but with the idea that I should rebuke you even for the slight delay during which you lapsed from your true self, and should encourage you for the future, to rouse your spirit against Fortune and to be on the watch for all her missiles, not as if they might possibly come, but as if they were bound to come.” Farewell.

[1] Epistulam quam scripsi Marullo cum filium parvulum amisisset et diceretur molliter ferre misi tibi, in qua non sum solitum morem secutus nec putavi leniter illum debere tractari, cum obiurgatione esset quam solacio dignior. Adflicto enim et magnum vulnus male ferenti paulisper cedendum est; exsatiet se aut certe primum impetum effundat: [2] hi qui sibi lugere sumpserunt protinus castigentur et discant quasdam etiam lacrimarum ineptias esse. 'Solacia expectas? convicia accipe. Tam molliter tu fers mortem filii? quid faceres si amicum perdidisses? Decessit filius incertae spei, parvulus; pusillum temporis perit. [3] Causas doloris conquirimus et de fortuna etiam inique queri volumus, quasi non sit iustas querendi causas praebitura: at mehercules satis mihi iam videbaris animi habere etiam adversus solida mala, nedum ad istas umbras malorum quibus ingemescunt homines moris causa. Quod damnorum omnium maximum est, si amicum perdidisses, danda opera erat ut magis gauderes quod habueras quam maereres quod amiseras. [4] Sed plerique non conputant quanta perceperint, quantum gavisi sint. Hoc habet inter reliqua mali dolor iste: non supervacuus tantum sed ingratus est. Ergo quod habuisti talem amicum, perit opera? Tot annis, tanta coniunctione vitae, tam familiari studiorum societate nil actum est? Cum amico effers amicitiam? Et quid doles amisisse, si habuisse non prodest? Mihi crede, magna pars ex iis quos amavimus, licet ipsos casus abstulerit, apud nos manet; nostrum est quod praeterit tempus nec quicquam est loco tutiore quam quod fuit. [5] Ingrati adversus percepta spe futuri sumus, quasi non quod futurum est, si modo successerit nobis, cito in praeterita transiturum sit. Anguste fructus rerum determinat qui tantum praesentibus laetus est: et futura et praeterita delectant, haec expectatione, illa memoria, sed alterum pendet et non fieri potest, alterum non potest non fuisse. Quis ergo furor est certissimo excidere? Adquiescamus iis quae iam hausimus, si modo non perforato animo hauriebamus et transmittente quidquid acceperat. [6] 'Innumerabilia sunt exempla eorum qui liberos iuvenes sine lacrimis extulerint, qui in senatum aut in aliquod publicum officium a rogo redierint et statim aliud egerint. Nec inmerito; nam primum supervacuum est dolere si nihil dolendo proficias; deinde iniquum est queri de eo quod uni accidit, omnibus restat; deinde desiderii stulta conquestio est, ubi minimum interest inter amissum et desiderantem. Eo itaque aequiore animo esse debemus quod quos amisimus sequimur. [7] Respice celeritatem rapidissimi temporis, cogita brevitatem huius spatii per quod citatissimi currimus, observa hunc comitatum generis humani eodem tendentis, minimis intervallis distinctum etiam ubi maxima videntur: quem putas perisse praemissus est. Quid autem dementius quam, cum idem tibi iter emetiendum sit, flere eum qui antecessit? [8] Flet aliquis factum quod non ignoravit futurum? Aut si mortem in homine non cogitavit, sibi inposuit. Flet aliquis factum quod aiebat non posse non fieri? quisquis aliquem queritur mortuum esse, queritur hominem fuisse. Omnis eadem condicio devinxit: cui nasci contigit mori restat. [9] Intervallis distinguimur, exitu aequamur. Hoc quod inter primum diem et ultimum iacet varium incertumque est: si molestias aestimes, etiam puero longum, si velocitatem, etiam seni angustum. Nihil non lubricum et fallax et omni tempestate mobilius; iactantur cuncta et in contrarium transeunt iubente fortuna, et in tanta volutatione rerum humanarum nihil cuiquam nisi mors certum est; tamen de eo queruntur omnes in quo uno nemo decipitur. [10] '"Sed puer decessit." Nondum dico melius agi cum eo qui <cito> vita defungitur: ad eum transeamus qui consenuit: quantulo vincit infantem! Propone temporis profundi vastitatem et universum conplectere, deinde hoc quod aetatem vocamus humanam compara immenso: videbis quam exiguum sit quod optamus, quod extendimus. [11] Ex hoc quantum lacrimae, quantum sollicitudines occupant? quantum mors antequam veniat optata, quantum valetudo, quantum timor? quantum tenent aut rudes aut inutiles anni? dimidium ex hoc edormitur. Adice labores, luctus, pericula, et intelleges etiam in longissima vita minimum esse quod vivitur. [12] Sed quis tibi concedit non melius se habere eum cui cito reverti licet, cui ante lassitudinem peractum est iter? Vita nec bonum nec malum est: boni ac mali locus est. Ita nihil ille perdidit nisi aleam in damnum certiorem. Potuit evadere modestus et prudens, potuit sub cura tua in meliora formari, sed, quod iustius timetur, potuit fieri pluribus similis. [13] Aspice illos iuvenes quos ex nobilissimis domibus in harenam luxuria proiecit; aspice illos qui suam alienamque libidinem exercent mutuo inpudici, quorum nullus sine ebrietate, nullus sine aliquo insigni flagitio dies exit: plus timeri quam sperari potuisse manifestum erit. Non debes itaque causas doloris accersere nec levia incommoda indignando cumulare. [14] Non hortor ut nitaris et surgas; non tam male de te iudico ut tibi adversus hoc totam putem virtutem advocandam. Non est dolor iste sed morsus: tu illum dolorem facis. Sine dubio multum philosophia profecit, si puerum nutrici adhuc quam patri notiorem animo forti desideras. [15] 'Quid? nunc ego duritiam suadeo et in funere ipso rigere vultum volo et animum ne contrahi quidem patior? Minime. Inhumanitas est ista, non virtus, funera suorum isdem oculis quibus ipsos videre nec commoveri ad primam familiarium divulsionem. Puta autem me vetare: quaedam sunt sui iuris; excidunt etiam retinentibus lacrimae et animum profusae levant. [16] Quid ergo est? permittamus illis cadere, non imperemus; fluat quantum adfectus eiecerit, non quantum poscet imitatio. Nihil vero maerori adiciamus nec illum ad alienum augeamus exemplum. Plus ostentatio doloris exigit quam dolor: quotus quisque sibi tristis est? Clarius cum audiuntur gemunt, et taciti quietique dum secretum est, cum aliquos videre, in fletus novos excitantur; tunc capiti suo manus ingerunt (quod potuerant facere nullo prohibente liberius), tunc mortem comprecantur sibi, tunc lectulo devolvuntur: sine spectatore cessat dolor. [17] Sequitur nos, ut in aliis rebus, ita in hac quoque hoc vitium, ad plurium exempla componi nec quid oporteat sed quid soleat aspicere. A natura discedimus, populo nos damus nullius rei bono auctori et in hac re sicut in his omnibus inconstantissimo. Videt aliquem fortem in luctu suo, impium vocat et efferatum; videt aliquem conlabentem et corpori adfusum, effeminatum ait et enervem. [18] Omnia itaque ad rationem revocanda sunt. Stultius vero nihil est quam famam captare tristitiae et lacrimas adprobare, quas iudico sapienti viro alias permissas cadere, alias vi sua latas. Dicam quid intersit. Cum primus nos nuntius acerbi funeris perculit, cum tenemus corpus e complexu nostro in ignem transiturum, lacrimas naturalis necessitas exprimit et spiritus ictu doloris inpulsus quemadmodum totum corpus quatit, ita oculos, quibus adiacentem umorem perpremit et expellit. [19] Hae lacrimae per elisionem cadunt nolentibus nobis: aliae sunt quibus exitum damus cum memoria eorum quos amisimus retractatur, et inest quiddam dulce tristitiae cum occurrunt sermones eorum iucundi, conversatio hilaris, officiosa pietas; tunc oculi velut in gaudio relaxantur. His indulgemus, illis vincimur. [20] Non est itaque quod lacrimas propter circumstantem adsidentemque aut contineas aut exprimas: nec cessant nec fluunt umquam tam turpiter quam finguntur: eant sua sponte. Ire autem possunt placidis atque compositis; saepe salva sapientis auctoritate fluxerunt tanto temperamento ut illis nec humanitas nec dignitas deesset. [21] Licet, inquam, naturae obsequi gravitate servata. Vidi ego in funere suorum verendos, in quorum ore amor eminebat remota omni lugentium scaena; nihil erat nisi quod veris dabatur adfectibus. Est aliquis et dolendi decor; hic sapienti servandus est et quemadmodum in ceteris rebus, ita etiam in lacrimis aliquid sat est: inprudentium ut gaudia sic dolores exundavere. [22] 'Aequo animo excipe necessaria. Quid incredibile, quid novum evenit? quam multis cum maxime funus locatur, quam multis vitalia emuntur, quam multi post luctum tuum lugent! Quotiens cogitaveris puerum fuisse, cogita et hominem, cui nihil certi promittitur, quem fortuna non utique perducit ad senectutem: unde visum est dimittit. [23] Ceterum frequenter de illo loquere et memoriam eius quantum potes celebra; quae ad te saepius revertetur si erit sine acerbitate ventura; nemo enim libenter tristi conversatur, nedum tristitiae. Si quos sermones eius, si quos quamvis parvoli iocos cum voluptate audieras, saepius repete; potuisse illum implere spes tuas, quas paterna mente conceperas, audacter adfirma. [24] Oblivisci quidem suorum ac memoriam cum corporibus efferre et effusissime flere, meminisse parcissime, inhumani animi est. Sic aves, sic ferae suos diligunt, quarum [contria] concitatus [actus] est amor et paene rabidus, sed cum amissis totus extinguitur. Hoc prudentem virum non decet: meminisse perseveret, lugere desinat. [25] 'Illud nullo modo probo quod ait Metrodorus, esse aliquam cognatam tristitiae voluptatem, hanc esse captandam in eiusmodi tempore. Ipsa Metrodori verba subscripsi. Metrodoron epistolon pros ten adelphen. estin gar tis hedone lupe suggenes, hen chre thereuein kata touton ton kairon. [26] De quibus non dubito quid sis sensurus; quid enim est turpius quam captare in ipso luctu voluptatem, immo per luctum, et inter lacrimas quoque quod iuvet quaerere? Hi sunt qui nobis obiciunt nimium rigorem et infamant praecepta nostra duritiae, quod dicamus dolorem aut admittendum in animum non esse aut cito expellendum. Utrum tandem est aut incredibilius aut inhumanius, non sentire amisso amico dolorem an voluptatem in ipso dolore aucupari? [27] Nos quod praecipimus honestum est: cum aliquid lacrimarum adfectus effuderit et, ut ita dicam, despumaverit, non esse tradendum animum dolori. Quid, tu dicis miscendam ipsi dolori voluptatem? sic consolamur crustulo pueros, sic infantium fletum infuso lacte conpescimus. Ne illo quidem tempore quo filius ardet aut amicus expirat cessare pateris voluptatem, sed ipsum vis titillare maerorem? Utrum honestius dolor ab animo summovetur an voluptas ad dolorem quoque admittitur? "Admittitur" dico? Captatur, et quidem ex ipso. [28] "Est aliqua" inquit "voluptas cognata tristitiae." Istuc nobis licet dicere, vobis quidem non licet. Unum bonum nostis, voluptatem, unum malum, dolorem: quae potest inter bonum et malum esse cognatio? Sed puta esse: nunc potissimum eruitur? Et ipsum dolorem scrutamur, an aliquid habeat iucundum circa se et voluptarium? [29] Quaedam remedia aliis partibus corporis salutaria velut foeda et indecora adhiberi aliis nequeunt, et quod aliubi prodesset sine damno verecundiae, id fit inhonestum loco vulneris: non te pudet luctum voluptate sanare? Severius ista plaga curanda est. Illud potius admone, nullum mali sensum ad eum qui perit pervenire; nam si pervenit, non perit. [30] Nulla, inquam, res eum laedit qui nullus est: vivit si laeditur. Utrum putas illi male esse quod nullus est an quod est adhuc aliquis? Atqui nec ex eo potest ei tormentum esse quod non est (quis enim nullius sensus est?) nec ex eo quod est; effugit enim maximum mortis incommodum, non esse. [31] Illud quoque dicamus ei qui deflet ac desiderat in aetate prima raptum: omnes, quantum ad brevitatem aevi, si universo compares, et iuvenes et senes, in aequo sumus. Minus enim ad nos ex aetate omni venit quam quod minimum esse quis dixerit, quoniam quidem minimum aliqua pars est: hoc quod vivimus proximum nihilo est; et tamen, o dementiam nostram, late disponitur. [32] 'Haec tibi scripsi, non tamquam expectaturus esses remedium a me tam serum (liquet enim mihi te locutum tecum quidquid lecturus es) sed ut castigarem exiguam illam moram qua a te recessisti, et in reliquum adhortarer contra fortunam tolleres animos et omnia eius tela non tamquam possent venire sed tamquam utique essent ventura prospiceres. Vale.'