Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
V. _A._ Should this be the case, is it not to be feared that you are
dressing up philosophy in false colors? For what stronger argument can
there be that it is of little use than that some very profound
philosophers live in a discreditable manner?
_M._ That, indeed, is no argument at all, for as all the fields which
are cultivated are not fruitful (and this sentiment of Accius is false,
and asserted without any foundation,
The ground you sow on is of small avail;
To yield a crop good seed can never fail),
it is not every mind which has been properly cultivated that produces
fruit; and, to go on with the comparison, as a field, although it may
be naturally fruitful, cannot produce a crop without dressing, so
neither can the mind without education; such is the weakness of either
without the other. Whereas philosophy is the culture of the mind: this
it is which plucks up vices by the roots; prepares the mind for the
receiving of seeds; commits them to it, or, as I may say, sows them, in
the hope that, when come to maturity, they may produce a plentiful
harvest. Let us proceed, then, as we began. Say, if you please, what
shall be the subject of our disputation.
_A._ I look on pain to be the greatest of all evils.
_M._ What, even greater than infamy?
_A._ I dare not indeed assert that; and I blush to think I am so soon
driven from my ground.
_M._ You would have had greater reason for blushing had you persevered
in it; for what is so unbecoming--what can appear worse to you, than
disgrace, wickedness, immorality? To avoid which, what pain is there
which we ought not (I will not say to avoid shirking, but even) of our
own accord to encounter, and undergo, and even to court?
_A._ I am entirely of that opinion; but, notwithstanding that pain is
not the greatest evil, yet surely it is an evil.
_M._ Do you perceive, then, how much of the terror of pain you have
given up on a small hint?
_A._ I see that plainly; but I should be glad to give up more of it.
_M._ I will endeavor to make you do so; but it is a great undertaking,
and I must have a disposition on your part which is not inclined to
offer any obstacles.
_A._ You shall have such: for as I behaved yesterday, so now I will
follow reason wherever she leads.
VI. _M._ First, then, I will speak of the weakness of many
philosophers, and those, too, of various sects; the head of whom, both
in authority and antiquity, was Aristippus, the pupil of Socrates, who
hesitated not to say that pain was the greatest of all evils. And after
him Epicurus easily gave in to this effeminate and enervated doctrine.
After him Hieronymus the Rhodian said, that to be without pain was the
chief good, so great an evil did pain appear to him to be. The rest,
with the exceptions of Zeno, Aristo, Pyrrho, were pretty much of the
same opinion that you were of just now--that it was indeed an evil, but
that there were many worse. When, then, nature herself, and a certain
generous feeling of virtue, at once prevents you from persisting in the
assertion that pain is the chief evil, and when you were driven from
such an opinion when disgrace was contrasted with pain, shall
philosophy, the preceptress of life, cling to this idea for so many
ages? What duty of life, what praise, what reputation, would be of such
consequence that a man should be desirous of gaining it at the expense
of submitting to bodily pain, when he has persuaded himself that pain
is the greatest evil? On the other side, what disgrace, what ignominy,
would he not submit to that he might avoid pain, when persuaded that it
was the greatest of evils? Besides, what person, if it be only true
that pain is the greatest of evils, is not miserable, not only when he
actually feels pain, but also whenever he is aware that it may befall
him. And who is there whom pain may not befall? So that it is clear
that there is absolutely no one who can possibly be happy. Metrodorus,
indeed, thinks that man perfectly happy whose body is free from all
disorders, and who has an assurance that it will always continue so;
but who is there who can be assured of that?
VII. But Epicurus, indeed, says such things that it should seem that
his design was only to make people laugh; for he affirms somewhere that
if a wise man were to be burned or put to the torture--you expect,
perhaps, that he is going to say he would bear it, he would support
himself under it with resolution, he would not yield to it (and that by
Hercules! would be very commendable, and worthy of that very Hercules
whom I have just invoked): but even this will not satisfy Epicurus,
that robust and hardy man! No; his wise man, even if he were in
Phalaris's bull, would say, How sweet it is! how little do I regard it!
What, sweet? Is it not sufficient, if it is not disagreeable? But those
very men who deny pain to be an evil are not in the habit of saying
that it is agreeable to any one to be tormented; they rather say that
it is cruel, or hard to bear, afflicting, unnatural, but still not an
evil: while this man who says that it is the only evil, and the very
worst of all evils, yet thinks that a wise man would pronounce it
sweet. I do not require of you to speak of pain in the same words which
Epicurus uses--a man, as you know, devoted to pleasure: he may make no
difference, if he pleases, between Phalaris's bull and his own bed; but
I cannot allow the wise man to be so indifferent about pain. If he
bears it with courage, it is sufficient: that he should rejoice in it,
I do not expect; for pain is, beyond all question, sharp, bitter,
against nature, hard to submit to and to bear. Observe Philoctetes: We
may allow him to lament, for he saw Hercules himself groaning loudly
through extremity of pain on Mount Oeta. The arrows with which Hercules
presented him were then no consolation to him, when
The viper's bite, impregnating his veins
With poison, rack'd him with its bitter pains.
And therefore he cries out, desiring help, and wishing to die,
Oh that some friendly hand its aid would lend,
My body from this rock's vast height to send
Into the briny deep! I'm all on fire,
And by this fatal wound must soon expire.
It is hard to say that the man who was obliged to cry out in this
manner was not oppressed with evil, and great evil too.
VIII. But let us observe Hercules himself, who was subdued by pain at
the very time when he was on the point of attaining immortality by
death. What words does Sophocles here put in his mouth, in his
Trachiniae? who, when Deianira had put upon him a tunic dyed in the
centaur's blood, and it stuck to his entrails, says,
What tortures I endure no words can tell,
Far greater these, than those which erst befell
From the dire terror of thy consort, Jove--
E'en stern Eurystheus' dire command above;
This of thy daughter, Oeneus, is the fruit,
Beguiling me with her envenom'd suit,
Whose close embrace doth on my entrails prey,
Consuming life; my lungs forbid to play;
The blood forsakes my veins; my manly heart
Forgets to beat; enervated, each part
Neglects its office, while my fatal doom
Proceeds ignobly from the weaver's loom.
The hand of foe ne'er hurt me, nor the fierce
Giant issuing from his parent earth.
Ne'er could the Centaur such a blow enforce,
No barbarous foe, nor all the Grecian force;
This arm no savage people could withstand,
Whose realms I traversed to reform the land.
Thus, though I ever bore a manly heart,
I fall a victim to a woman's art.
IX. Assist, my son, if thou that name dost hear,
My groans preferring to thy mother's tear:
Convey her here, if, in thy pious heart,
Thy mother shares not an unequal part:
Proceed, be bold, thy father's fate bemoan,
Nations will join, you will not weep alone.
Oh, what a sight is this same briny source,
Unknown before, through all my labors' course!
That virtue, which could brave each toil but late,
With woman's weakness now bewails its fate.
Approach, my son; behold thy father laid,
A wither'd carcass that implores thy aid;
Let all behold: and thou, imperious Jove,
On me direct thy lightning from above:
Now all its force the poison doth assume,
And my burnt entrails with its flame consume.
Crestfallen, unembraced, I now let fall
Listless, those hands that lately conquer'd all;
When the Nemaean lion own'd their force,
And he indignant fell a breathless corse;
The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake,
As did the Hydra of its force partake:
By this, too, fell the Erymanthian boar:
E'en Cerberus did his weak strength deplore.
This sinewy arm did overcome with ease
That dragon, guardian of the Golden Fleece.
My many conquests let some others trace;
It's mine to say, I never knew disgrace.[31]
Can we then, despise pain, when we see Hercules himself giving vent to
his expressions of agony with such impatience?
X. Let us see what AEschylus says, who was not only a poet but a
Pythagorean philosopher also, for that is the account which you have
received of him; how doth he make Prometheus bear the pain he suffered
for the Lemnian theft, when he clandestinely stole away the celestial
fire, and bestowed it on men, and was severely punished by Jupiter for
the theft. Fastened to Mount Caucasus, he speaks thus:
Thou heav'n-born race of Titans here fast bound,
Behold thy brother! As the sailors sound
With care the bottom, and their ships confine
To some safe shore, with anchor and with line;
So, by Jove's dread decree, the God of fire
Confines me here the victim of Jove's ire.
With baneful art his dire machine he shapes;
From such a God what mortal e'er escapes?
When each third day shall triumph o'er the night,
Then doth the vulture, with his talons light,
Seize on my entrails; which, in rav'nous guise,
He preys on! then with wing extended flies
Aloft, and brushes with his plumes the gore:
But when dire Jove my liver doth restore,
Back he returns impetuous to his prey,
Clapping his wings, he cuts th' ethereal way.
Thus do I nourish with my blood this pest,
Confined my arms, unable to contest;
Entreating only that in pity Jove
Would take my life, and this cursed plague remove.
But endless ages past unheard my moan,
Sooner shall drops dissolve this very stone.[32]
And therefore it scarcely seems possible to avoid calling a man who is
suffering, miserable; and if he is miserable, then pain is an evil.
XI. _A._ Hitherto you are on my side; I will see to that by-and-by;
and, in the mean while, whence are those verses? I do not remember
them.
_M._ I will inform you, for you are in the right to ask. Do you see
that I have much leisure?
_A._ What, then?
_M._ I imagine, when you were at Athens, you attended frequently at the
schools of the philosophers.
_A._ Yes, and with great pleasure.
_M._ You observed, then, that though none of them at that time were
very eloquent, yet they used to mix verses with their harangues.
_A._ Yes, and particularly Dionysius the Stoic used to employ a great
many.
_M._ You say right; but they were quoted without any appropriateness or
elegance. But our friend Philo used to give a few select lines and well
adapted; and in imitation of him, ever since I took a fancy to this
kind of elderly declamation, I have been very fond of quoting our
poets; and where I cannot be supplied from them, I translate from the
Greek, that the Latin language may not want any kind of ornament in
this kind of disputation.
But, do you not see how much harm is done by poets? They introduce the