Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
bodily pain, let it be ever so grievous, may be endurable where any
hopes are proposed of some considerable good; and we receive such
consolation from a virtuous and illustrious life that they who lead
such lives are seldom attacked by grief, or but slightly affected by
it.
XXVI. But as besides this opinion of great evil there is this other
added also--that we ought to lament what has happened, that it is right
so to do, and part of our duty, then is brought about that terrible
disorder of mind, grief. And it is to this opinion that we owe all
those various and horrid kinds of lamentation, that neglect of our
persons, that womanish tearing of our cheeks, that striking on our
thighs, breasts, and heads. Thus Agamemnon, in Homer and in Accius,
Tears in his grief his uncomb'd locks;[42]
from whence comes that pleasant saying of Bion, that the foolish king
in his sorrow tore away the hairs of his head, imagining that his grief
would be alleviated by baldness. But men do all these things from being
persuaded that they ought to do so. And thus AEschines inveighs against
Demosthenes for sacrificing within seven days after the death of his
daughter. But with what eloquence, with what fluency, does he attack
him! what sentiments does he collect! what words does he hurl against
him! You may see by this that an orator may do anything; but nobody
would approve of such license if it were not that we have an idea
innate in our minds that every good man ought to lament the loss of a
relation as bitterly as possible. And it is owing to this that some
men, when in sorrow, betake themselves to deserts, as Homer says of
Bellerophon:
Distracted in his mind,
Forsook by heaven, forsaking human kind,
Wide o'er the Aleian field he chose to stray,
A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way![43]
And thus Niobe is feigned to have been turned into stone, from her
never speaking, I suppose, in her grief. But they imagine Hecuba to
have been converted into a bitch, from her rage and bitterness of mind.
There are others who love to converse with solitude itself when in
grief, as the nurse in Ennius,
Fain would I to the heavens find earth relate
Medea's ceaseless woes and cruel fate.[44]
XXVII. Now all these things are done in grief, from a persuasion of
their truth and propriety and necessity; and it is plain that those who
behave thus do so from a conviction of its being their duty; for should
these mourners by chance drop their grief, and either act or speak for
a moment in a more calm or cheerful manner, they presently check
themselves and return to their lamentations again, and blame themselves
for having been guilty of any intermissions from their grief; and
parents and masters generally correct children not by words only, but
by blows, if they show any levity by either word or deed when the
family is under affliction, and, as it were, oblige them to be
sorrowful. What! does it not appear, when you have ceased to mourn, and
have discovered that your grief has been ineffectual, that the whole of
that mourning was voluntary on your part? What does that man say in
Terence who punishes himself, the Self-tormentor?
I think I do my son less harm, O Chremes,
As long as I myself am miserable.
He determines to be miserable: and can any one determine on anything
against his will?
I well might think that I deserved all evil.
He would think he deserved any misfortune were he otherwise than
miserable! Therefore, you see, the evil is in opinion, not in nature.
How is it when some things do of themselves prevent your grieving at
them? as in Homer, so many died and were buried daily that they had not
leisure to grieve: where you find these lines--
The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall,
And endless were the grief to weep for all.
Eternal sorrows what avails to shed?
Greece honors not with solemn fasts the dead:
Enough when death demands the brave to pay
The tribute of a melancholy day.
One chief with patience to the grave resign'd,
Our care devolves on others left behind.[45]
Therefore it is in our own power to lay aside grief upon occasion; and
is there any opportunity (seeing the thing is in our own power) that we
should let slip of getting rid of care and grief? It was plain that the
friends of Cnaeus Pompeius, when they saw him fainting under his wounds,
at the very moment of that most miserable and bitter sight were under
great uneasiness how they themselves, surrounded by the enemy as they
were, should escape, and were employed in nothing but encouraging the
rowers and aiding their escape; but when they reached Tyre, they began
to grieve and lament over him. Therefore, as fear with them, prevailed
over grief, cannot reason and true philosophy have the same effect with
a wise man?
XXVIII. But what is there more effectual to dispel grief than the
discovery that it answers no purpose, and has been undergone to no
account? Therefore, if we can get rid of it, we need never have been
subject to it. It must be acknowledged, then, that men take up grief
wilfully and knowingly; and this appears from the patience of those
who, after they have been exercised in afflictions and are better able
to bear whatever befalls them, suppose themselves hardened against
fortune; as that person in Euripides,
Had this the first essay of fortune been,
And I no storms thro' all my life had seen,
Wild as a colt I'd broke from reason's sway;
But frequent griefs have taught me to obey.[46]
As, then, the frequent bearing of misery makes grief the lighter, we
must necessarily perceive that the cause and original of it does not
lie in the calamity itself. Your principal philosophers, or lovers of
wisdom, though they have not yet arrived at perfect wisdom, are not
they sensible that they are in the greatest evil? For they are foolish,
and foolishness is the greatest of all evils, and yet they lament not.
How shall we account for this? Because opinion is not fixed upon that
kind of evil, it is not our opinion that it is right, meet, and our
duty to be uneasy because we are not all wise men. Whereas this opinion
is strongly affixed to that uneasiness where mourning is concerned,
which is the greatest of all grief. Therefore Aristotle, when he blames
some ancient philosophers for imagining that by their genius they had
brought philosophy to the highest perfection, says, they must be either
extremely foolish or extremely vain; but that he himself could see that
great improvements had been made therein in a few years, and that
philosophy would in a little time arrive at perfection. And
Theophrastus is reported to have reproached nature at his death for
giving to stags and crows so long a life, which was of no use to them,
but allowing only so short a span to men, to whom length of days would
have been of the greatest use; for if the life of man could have been
lengthened, it would have been able to provide itself with all kinds of
learning, and with arts in the greatest perfection. He lamented,
therefore, that he was dying just when he had begun to discover these.
What! does not every grave and distinguished philosopher acknowledge
himself ignorant of many things, and confess that there are many things
which he must learn over and over again? And yet, though these men are
sensible that they are standing still in the very midway of folly, than
which nothing can be worse, they are under no great affliction, because
no opinion that it is their duty to lament is ever mingled with this
knowledge. What shall we say of those who think it unbecoming in a man
to grieve? among whom we may reckon Q. Maximus, when he buried his son
that had been consul, and L. Paulus, who lost two sons within a few
days of one another. Of the same opinion was M. Cato, who lost his son
just after he had been elected praetor, and many others, whose names I
have collected in my book on Consolation. Now what made these men so
easy, but their persuasion that grief and lamentation was not becoming
in a man? Therefore, as some give themselves up to grief from an
opinion that it is right so to do, they refrained themselves, from an
opinion that it was discreditable; from which we may infer that grief
is owing more to opinion than nature.
XXIX. It may be said, on the other side, Who is so mad as to grieve of
his own accord? Pain proceeds from nature, which you must submit to,
say they, agreeably to what even your own Crantor teaches, for it
presses and gains upon you unavoidably, and cannot possibly be
resisted. So that the very same Oileus, in Sophocles, who had before
comforted Telamon on the death of Ajax, on hearing of the death of his
own son, is broken-hearted. On this alteration of his mind we have
these lines:
Show me the man so well by wisdom taught
That what he charges to another's fault,
When like affliction doth himself betide,
True to his own wise counsel will abide.[47]
Now, when they urge these things, their endeavor is to prove that
nature is absolutely and wholly irresistible; and yet the same people
allow that we take greater grief on ourselves than nature requires.
What madness is it, then, in us to require the same from others? But
there are many reasons for our taking grief on us. The first is from
the opinion of some evil, on the discovery and certainty of which grief
comes of course. Besides, many people are persuaded that they are doing
something very acceptable to the dead when they lament bitterly over
them. To these may be added a kind of womanish superstition, in
imagining that when they have been stricken by the afflictions sent by
the Gods, to acknowledge themselves afflicted and humbled by them is
the readiest way of appeasing them. But most men appear to be unaware
what contradictions these things are full of. They commend those who
die calmly, but they blame those who can bear the loss of another with
the same calmness, as if it were possible that it should be true, as is
occasionally said in love speeches, that any one can love another more
than himself. There is, indeed, something excellent in this, and, if
you examine it, something no less just than true, that we love those
who ought to be most dear to us as well as we love ourselves; but to
love them more than ourselves is absolutely impossible; nor is it
desirable in friendship that I should love my friend more than myself,
or that he should love me so; for this would occasion much confusion in
life, and break in upon all the duties of it.
XXX. But we will speak of this another time: at present it is
sufficient not to attribute our misery to the loss of our friends, nor
to love them more than, if they themselves could be sensible of our
conduct, they would approve of, or at least not more than we do
ourselves. Now as to what they say, that some are not at all appeased
by our consolations; and, moreover, as to what they add, that the
comforters themselves acknowledge they are miserable when fortune
varies the attack and falls on them--in both these cases the solution
is easy: for the fault here is not in nature, but in our own folly; and
much may be said against folly. But men who do not admit of consolation
seem to bespeak misery for themselves; and they who cannot bear their
misfortunes with that temper which they recommend to others are not
more faulty in this particular than most other persons; for we see that
covetous men find fault with others who are covetous, as do the
vainglorious with those who appear too wholly devoted to the pursuit of
glory. For it is the peculiar characteristic of folly to perceive the
vices of others, but to forget its own. But since we find that grief is
removed by length of time, we have the greatest proof that the strength