Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
as if it were a sickness of the body. For as physicians think they have
found out the cure when they have discovered the cause of the
distemper, so we shall discover the method of curing melancholy when
the cause of it is found out.
XI. The whole cause, then, is in opinion; and this observation applies
not to this grief alone, but to every other disorder of the mind, which
are of four sorts, but consisting of many parts. For as every disorder
or perturbation is a motion of the mind, either devoid of reason, or in
despite of reason, or in disobedience to reason, and as that motion is
excited by an opinion of either good or evil; these four perturbations
are divided equally into two parts: for two of them proceed from an
opinion of good, one of which is an exulting pleasure, that is to say,
a joy elated beyond measure, arising from an opinion of some present
great good; the other is a desire which may fairly be called even a
lust, and is an immoderate inclination after some conceived great good
without any obedience to reason. Therefore these two kinds, the
exulting pleasure and the lust, have their rise from an opinion of
good, as the other two, fear and grief, have from an opinion of evil.
For fear is an opinion of some great evil impending over us, and grief
is an opinion of some great evil present; and, indeed, it is a freshly
conceived opinion of an evil so great that to grieve at it seems right:
it is of that kind that he who is uneasy at it thinks he has good
reason to be so. Now we should exert, our utmost efforts to oppose
these perturbations--which are, as it were, so many furies let loose
upon us and urged on by folly--if we are desirous to pass this share of
life that is allotted to us with ease and satisfaction. But of the
other feelings I shall speak elsewhere: our business at present is to
drive away grief if we can, for that shall be the object of our present
discussion, since you have said that it was your opinion that a wise
man might be subject to grief, which I can by no means allow of; for it
is a frightful, miserable, and detestable thing, which we should fly
from with our utmost efforts--with all our sails and oars, as I may
say.
XII. That descendant of Tantalus, how does he appear to you--he who
sprung from Pelops, who formerly stole Hippodamia from her
father-in-law, King Oenomaus, and married her by force?--he who was
descended from Jupiter himself, how broken-hearted and dispirited does
he not seem!
Stand off, my friends, nor come within my shade,
That no pollutions your sound hearts pervade,
So foul a stain my body doth partake.
Will you condemn yourself, Thyestes, and deprive yourself of life, on
account of the greatness of another's crime? What do you think of that
son of Phoebus? Do you not look upon him as unworthy of his own
father's light?
Hollow his eyes, his body worn away,
His furrow'd cheeks his frequent tears betray;
His beard neglected, and his hoary hairs
Rough and uncomb'd, bespeak his bitter cares.
O foolish AEetes! these are evils which you yourself have been the cause
of, and are not occasioned by any accidents with which chance has
visited you; and you behaved as you did, even after you had been inured
to your distress, and after the first swelling of the mind had
subsided!--whereas grief consists (as I shall show) in the notion of
some recent evil--but your grief, it is very plain, proceeded from the
loss of your kingdom, not of your daughter, for you hated her, and
perhaps with reason, but you could not calmly bear to part with your
kingdom. But surely it is an impudent grief which preys upon a man for
not being able to command those that are free. Dionysius, it is true,
the tyrant of Syracuse, when driven from his country, taught a school
at Corinth; so incapable was he of living without some authority. But
what could be more impudent than Tarquin, who made war upon those who
could not bear his tyranny; and, when he could not recover his kingdom
by the aid of the forces of the Veientians and the Latins, is said to
have betaken himself to Cuma, and to have died in that city of old age
and grief!
XIII. Do you, then, think that it can befall a wise man to be oppressed
with grief, that is to say, with misery? for, as all perturbation is
misery, grief is the rack itself. Lust is attended with heat, exulting
joy with levity, fear with meanness, but grief with something greater
than these; it consumes, torments, afflicts, and disgraces a man; it
tears him, preys upon his mind, and utterly destroys him: if we do not
so divest ourselves of it as to throw it completely off, we cannot be
free from misery. And it is clear that there must be grief where
anything has the appearance of a present sore and oppressing evil.
Epicurus is of opinion that grief arises naturally from the imagination
of any evil; so that whosoever is eye-witness of any great misfortune,
if he conceives that the like may possibly befall himself, becomes sad
instantly from such an idea. The Cyrenaics think that grief is not
engendered by every kind of evil, but only by unexpected, unforeseen
evil; and that circumstance is, indeed, of no small effect on the
heightening of grief; for whatsoever comes of a sudden appears more
formidable. Hence these lines are deservedly commended:
I knew my son, when first he drew his breath,
Destined by fate to an untimely death;
And when I sent him to defend the Greeks,
War was his business, not your sportive freaks.
XIV. Therefore, this ruminating beforehand upon future evils which you
see at a distance makes their approach more tolerable; and on this
account what Euripides makes Theseus say is much commended. You will
give me leave to translate them, as is usual with me:
I treasured up what some learn'd sage did tell,
And on my future misery did dwell;
I thought of bitter death, of being drove
Far from my home by exile, and I strove
With every evil to possess my mind,
That, when they came, I the less care might find.[38]
But Euripides says that of himself, which Theseus said he had heard
from some learned man, for the poet had been a pupil of Anaxagoras,
who, as they relate, on hearing of the death of his son, said, "I knew
that my son was mortal;" which speech seems to intimate that such
things afflict those men who have not thought on them before.
Therefore, there is no doubt but that all those things which are
considered evils are the heavier from not being foreseen. Though,
notwithstanding this is not the only circumstance which occasions the
greatest grief, still, as the mind, by foreseeing and preparing for it,
has great power to make all grief the less, a man should at all times
consider all the events that may befall him in this life; and certainly
the excellence and divine nature of wisdom consists in taking a near
view of, and gaining a thorough acquaintance with, all human affairs,
in not being surprised when anything happens, and in thinking, before
the event, that there is nothing but what may come to pass.
Wherefore ev'ry man,
When his affairs go on most swimmingly,
E'en then it most behooves to arm himself
Against the coming storm: loss, danger, exile,
Returning ever, let him look to meet;
His son in fault, wife dead, or daughter sick;
All common accidents, and may have happen'd
That nothing shall seem new or strange. But if
Aught has fall'n out beyond his hopes, all that
Let him account clear gain.[39]
XV. Therefore, as Terence has so well expressed what he borrowed from
philosophy, shall not we, from whose fountains he drew it, say the same
thing in a better manner, and abide by it with more steadiness? Hence
came that steady countenance, which, according to Xantippe, her husband
Socrates always had; so that she said that she never observed any
difference in his looks when he went out and when he came home. Yet the
look of that old Roman, M. Crassus, who, as Lucilius says, never smiled
but once in his lifetime, was not of this kind, but placid and serene,
for so we are told. He, indeed, might well have had the same look at
all times who never changed his mind, from which the countenance
derives its expression. So that I am ready to borrow of the Cyrenaics
those arms against the accidents and events of life by means of which,
by long premeditation, they break the force of all approaching evils;
and at the same time I think that those very evils themselves arise
more from opinion than nature, for if they were real, no forecast could
make them lighter. But I shall speak more particularly on these matters
after I have first considered Epicurus's opinion, who thinks that all
people must necessarily be uneasy who believe themselves to be in any
evils, let them be either foreseen and expected, or habitual to them;
for with him evils are not the less by reason of their continuance, nor
the lighter for having been foreseen; and it is folly to ruminate on
evils to come, or such as, perhaps, never may come: every evil is
disagreeable enough when it does come; but he who is constantly
considering that some evil may befall him is loading himself with a
perpetual evil; and even should such evil never light on him, he
voluntarily takes upon himself unnecessary misery, so that he is under
constant uneasiness, whether he actually suffers any evil, or only
thinks of it. But he makes the alleviation of grief depend on two
things--a ceasing to think on evil, and a turning to the contemplation
of pleasure. For he thinks that the mind may possibly be under the
power of reason, and follow her directions: he forbids us, therefore,
to mind trouble, and calls us off from sorrowful reflections; he throws
a mist over our eyes to hinder us from the contemplation of misery.
Having sounded a retreat from this statement, he drives our thoughts on
again, and encourages them to view and engage the whole mind in the
various pleasures with which he thinks the life of a wise man abounds,
either from reflecting on the past, or from the hope of what is to
come. I have said these things in my own way; the Epicureans have
theirs. However, let us examine what they say; how they say it is of
little consequence.
XVI. In the first place, they are wrong in forbidding men to
premeditate on futurity and blaming their wish to do so; for there is
nothing that breaks the edge of grief and lightens it more than
considering, during one's whole life, that there is nothing which it is
impossible should happen, or than, considering what human nature is, on
what conditions life was given, and how we may comply with them. The
effect of which is that we are always grieving, but that we never do
so; for whoever reflects on the nature of things, the various turns of
life, and the weakness of human nature, grieves, indeed, at that
reflection; but while so grieving he is, above all other times,
behaving as a wise man, for he gains these two things by it: one, that
while he is considering the state of human nature he is performing the
especial duties of philosophy, and is provided with a triple medicine
against adversity--in the first place, because he has long reflected
that such things might befall him, and this reflection by itself
contributes much towards lessening and weakening all misfortunes; and,
secondly, because he is persuaded that we should bear all the accidents
which can happen to man with the feelings and spirit of a man; and,
lastly, because he considers that what is blamable is the only evil.
But it is not your fault that something has happened to you which it
was impossible for man to avoid. For that withdrawing of our thoughts
which he recommends when he calls us off from contemplating our