Book 3

What, Brutus, am I to think is the reason why, though we are composed of mind and body, an art has been sought for the tending and care of the body, and its usefulness consecrated to the discovery of the immortal gods, while the medicine of the mind has been neither so longed for before it was found, nor so cultivated after it became known, nor so welcome and approved by many — by more, even, suspected and hated? Is it because we judge the heaviness and pain of the body with the mind, but do not feel with the body the sickness of the mind? So it comes to pass that the mind judges of itself at the very time when that by which the judging is done is itself diseased.

But if Nature had begotten us such that we could behold and discern her very self, and accomplish the course of life under that best of guides, there would assuredly have been no reason for anyone to seek for method and instruction. As it is, she has given us tiny sparks, which we, swiftly perverted by bad habits and opinions, so quench that nowhere does the light of Nature appear. For there are in our minds the inborn seeds of the virtues, which, if they were allowed to grow up, Nature herself would lead us to a happy life. But now, as soon as we are brought forth into the light and taken up, we are at once involved in all manner of depravity and in the utmost perversity of opinions, so that we seem to have sucked in error almost with our nurse's milk. And when we are given back to our parents, then handed over to our teachers, then we are so steeped in various errors that truth gives way to vanity, and Nature herself to confirmed opinion.

The poets, too, come in addition, who, when they have made a great show of learning and wisdom, are heard, read, learned by heart, and cling deep within our minds. And when to these there has come, as it were, a kind of greatest master, the people, and the whole multitude consenting on every side to vices, then we are plainly infected with the depravity of opinions and revolt from Nature; so that those seem to us to have seen best the power of Nature who have judged nothing better for man, nothing more to be sought, nothing more excellent than honours, commands, and the glory that comes from the people. Toward this every best man is carried, and, seeking that true honour which Nature above all desires, he busies himself in the utmost emptiness, and pursues no eminent likeness of virtue, but a shadowy image of glory. For glory is a certain solid and well-defined thing, not shadowy: it is the agreeing praise of good men, the uncorrupted voice of those who judge rightly of excellent virtue; it answers back to virtue as an echo; and because it is generally the companion of right deeds, it is not to be spurned by good men.

But that other thing, which wishes to be its imitator — popular fame, rash and inconsiderate, and generally the praiser of faults and vices — corrupts the form and beauty of glory by a pretence of honour. By which blindness men, when they desired even certain glorious things and yet knew not where or of what kind they were, have, some of them, utterly overthrown their own states, others slain themselves. And these, indeed, seeking the best, are deceived not so much in their will as in the error of their course. What of those who are carried away by greed of money, by the lust of pleasures, and whose minds are so disordered that they are not far from madness — which befalls all the foolish? Is no cure to be applied to them? Is it because the sicknesses of the mind do less harm than those of the body, or because bodies can be cured, while for minds there is no medicine?

But the diseases of the mind are both more pernicious and more numerous than those of the body. For these very ones are hateful, because they belong to the mind and trouble it; and the sick mind, as Ennius says, is ever wandering, can neither bear nor endure, and never ceases to desire. By which two diseases — to pass over the rest — distress and desire, what, pray, can be heavier in the body? But how can it be proved that the mind cannot heal itself, when the mind itself discovered the very medicine of the body; when for the healing of bodies the bodies themselves and Nature avail much, and not all who have suffered themselves to be cured forthwith recover, whereas minds, which have wished to be healed and have obeyed the precepts of the wise, are without any doubt made whole?

There is assuredly a medicine of the mind: philosophy. Whose aid is not, as in diseases of the body, to be sought from without; but with all our resources and strength we must labour that we may be able to heal ourselves. Although, concerning philosophy in general — how greatly it is both to be sought and cultivated — enough, as I think, has been said in the Hortensius. And on the greatest matters I have since left off neither disputing nor writing. In these books are set forth those things which were disputed by me with my friends at Tusculum. But since in the two former books death and pain were treated, the third day of disputation will make up this third volume.

For when we had gone down into our Academy, the day being now inclined toward the afternoon, I asked one of those present for a theme to discourse upon. Then the matter went thus: It seems to me that distress can befall the wise man. — What, the other disturbances of the mind too — fears, lusts, fits of anger? For these are about the kind of thing which the Greeks call pathē. I might call them "diseases," and that word would be word for word; but it would not suit our usage. For pity, envy, exultation, joy — all these the Greeks call diseases, motions of a mind not obedient to reason; but these same motions of an agitated mind we should rightly, I think, call "disturbances," and "diseases" not very customarily — unless something else seems to you. — To me, indeed, that way.

Do you think, then, that these can befall the wise man? — I think so entirely. — Then that vaunted wisdom is not to be reckoned of great worth, if indeed it differs not much from madness. — What? Does every commotion of the mind seem to you madness? — Not to me alone; but, as I am often wont to wonder at, I find it so seemed to our ancestors too, many ages before Socrates, from whom all this philosophy that concerns life and morals has flowed. — In what way, pray? — Because the word "insanity" signifies a sickness and disease of the mind, that is, unsoundness and a sick mind, which they called insanity.

(But all disturbances of the mind the philosophers call diseases, and deny that any fool is free of these diseases. And those who are in disease are not sound; and the minds of all the foolish are in disease: therefore all the foolish are insane.) For they held that the soundness of minds lay in a certain tranquillity and steadfastness; a mind void of these things they called insanity, because in a disturbed mind, as in a body, soundness cannot exist.

And no less acutely did they name the affection of mind that lacks the light of reason amentia ("mindlessness") and dementia. From which it is to be understood that those who set these names upon things felt this same thing which the Stoics, having received it from Socrates, carefully retained — that all the foolish are unsound. For the mind that is in any disease — and these disturbed motions, as I just said, the philosophers call diseases — is no more sound than is a body that is in disease. So it comes about that wisdom is the soundness of the mind, but folly a kind of unsoundness, which is insanity and the same as dementia; and these things are much better marked by Latin words than by Greek.

Which will be found in many other places too; but that another time — now, what presses. The very force of the word, then, declares the whole of what we are inquiring after, what it is and of what kind. For since those must be understood to be sound whose mind is disturbed by no motion, as it were by a disease, those who are otherwise affected must of necessity be called insane. And so nothing is better than what is in the common usage of Latin speech, when we say that those have "gone out of their power" who are carried away unbridled either by lust or by anger — although anger itself is a part of lust; for it is thus defined: anger is the lust of avenging — those, then, who are said to have gone out of their power, are so said because they are not in the power of the mind, to which the rule of the whole soul has been assigned by Nature. But whence the Greeks call it mania I could not easily say; that very thing, however, we distinguish better than they. For this insanity, which, joined with folly, extends more widely, we separate from raving fury. The Greeks wish to, indeed, but lack the word: what we call furor they call melancholia — as though, forsooth, the mind were moved by black bile alone, and not often by anger too, when graver, or by fear or by grief; in which sense we say that Athamas, Alcmaeon, Ajax, Orestes raved. He who is so affected the Twelve Tables forbid to be master of his own affairs; and so it is written, not "if he be insane," but "if he be raving." For they held that folly, lacking steadfastness, that is, soundness, could nevertheless preserve a middling discharge of duties and the common and customary conduct of life; but fury they reckoned to be a blindness of the mind to all things. Which, though it seem greater than insanity, is yet of such a kind that fury can befall the wise man, but insanity cannot. But this is another question; let us return to our subject.

You said, I think, that distress seemed to you to befall the wise man. — And indeed so I judge. — Human that, that you so judge. For we were not born of flint, but there is naturally in our minds something tender and soft, which is shaken by distress as by a storm. And not absurdly did Crantor — who was among the very foremost noble men in our Academy — say: "I by no means assent to those who so greatly praise that I-know-not-what insensibility, which neither can nor ought to be. Let me not be sick; but if I am, let feeling be present, whether something be cut or torn from the body. For that feeling no pain comes not without a great price of inhumanity in the mind, of stupor in the body."

But let us see whether this be the language of men who flatter our weakness and indulge our softness; let us rather dare not only to lop off the branches of miseries, but to pluck out all the fibres of the roots. Yet something perhaps will be left — so deep are the roots of folly; but only that will be left which shall be necessary. This, indeed, hold for certain: unless the mind be healed — which cannot come about without philosophy — there will be no end of miseries. Wherefore, since we have begun, let us hand ourselves over to philosophy to be cured: we shall be healed, if we are willing. And I will go even further: for I shall treat not of distress alone — though that indeed first — but of every disturbance, as I have put it, of the mind, every disease, as the Greeks will have it. And first, if you please, let us proceed in the manner of the Stoics, who are wont to bind up their arguments briefly; then we shall range after our own fashion.

He who is brave is also confident (since confidens, by a bad habit of speaking, is reckoned a fault, though the word is drawn from confiding, which is a thing of praise). But he who is confident certainly does not fear; for to confide is at variance with fearing. Now, into whomsoever distress falls, into the same falls fear; for those things by whose presence we are in distress, the same, impending and coming, we fear. So it comes about that distress is at war with fortitude. It is likely, then, that into whomsoever distress falls, into the same fall both fear and a breaking, indeed, of the mind and a casting down. And into whomsoever these fall, into the same it falls to be a slave, and, if ever, to confess himself conquered. And he who admits these must needs admit also timidity and cowardice. But these do not befall the brave man: therefore neither does distress. But no one is wise unless brave: distress, then, will not befall the wise man.

Besides, it is necessary that he who is brave be also of great soul; he who is of great soul, unconquered; he who is unconquered, that he despise human things and reckon them set beneath him. But no one can despise those things on account of which he can be affected with distress; from which it follows that the brave man is never affected with distress. But all the wise are brave: therefore distress does not befall the wise man. And just as an eye that is disturbed is not rightly disposed for performing its function, and as the remaining parts, or the whole body, when it is moved from its proper state, fail of their office and function, so a disturbed mind is not fit to discharge its office. But the office of the mind is to use reason well; and the mind of the wise man is always so disposed that it uses reason most excellently; therefore it is never disturbed. But distress is a disturbance of the mind: therefore the wise man will always be free of it.

This, too, is likely: that he who is temperate — whom the Greeks call sōphrōn, and that virtue sōphrosynē, which I am wont to call now temperance, now moderation, sometimes even modesty; but I am not sure whether that virtue may rightly be called frugality, which among the Greeks has a narrower meaning, who call frugi men chrēsimous, that is, merely useful; but our word is wider; for every abstinence, all harmlessness (which among the Greeks has no customary name, but can have ablabeia; for harmlessness is such an affection of mind as harms no one) — the other virtues too frugality contains. And unless it were so great, and if it were held within those narrow bounds in which most suppose, the surname of Lucius Piso would never have been so greatly praised.

But because neither he who through fear has abandoned his post, which is cowardice, nor he who through avarice has not returned a deposit secretly given, which is injustice, nor he who through rashness has managed an affair badly, which is folly, is wont to be called frugi, therefore frugality has embraced three virtues — fortitude, justice, prudence (although this indeed is common to the virtues, for all are linked and yoked among themselves): the remaining and fourth virtue, then, would be frugality itself. For it seems to be its proper office to rule and calm the motions of a desiring mind, and, ever opposing lust, to preserve a moderate steadfastness in everything. The vice contrary to it is called worthlessness (nequitia).

Frugality, as I think, is from "fruit" (frux), than which nothing better comes from the earth; worthlessness from this (though this perhaps will be somewhat harsh — but let us try; let us be thought to have jested, if it comes to nothing) — from the fact that there is nothing-to-any-purpose (nequicquam) in such a man, whence the same man is called "good for nothing" (nihili). — He, then, who is frugi, or, if you prefer, moderate and temperate, must needs be steadfast; and he who is steadfast, calm; he who is calm, free of all disturbance, therefore of distress too. And those things belong to the wise man: distress, then, will be absent from the wise man. And so not unskillfully does Dionysius of Heraclea argue against those words which Achilles in Homer complains, in this manner, I think: "And my heart deep within swells with sorrowful angers, when I recall myself bereft of honour and of all renown." Is a hand rightly affected when it is in a swelling, or does any other limb whatever, when swollen and turgid, hold itself otherwise than viciously?

So, then, an inflated and swelling mind is in vice. But the mind of the wise man is always free of vice, never swells, never grows turgid; but the mind of an angry man is of this kind: therefore the wise man is never angry. For if he is angry, he also desires; for it is proper to an angry man to desire to brand with the greatest possible pain him by whom he seems to have been hurt. And he who has desired this must needs, if he has attained it, greatly rejoice. From which it comes about that he rejoices at another's ill; which, since it does not befall the wise man, neither does it befall him to be angry. But if distress befell the wise man, anger too would befall him; and since he is free of that, he will be free of distress also.

For indeed, if the wise man could fall into distress, he could fall also into pity, could fall into envy (I did not say invidia, which is when one is envied; but from "envying" (invidere) invidentia can rightly be formed, that we may escape the ambiguous word invidia). Which word is drawn from "gazing too much" (nimis intueri) at another's fortune, as it is in the Melanippus: "Who, then, has envied (invidit) the flower of my children?" It seems bad Latin, but Accius spoke admirably; for, as we say videre florem ("to see the flower"), so to say invidere florem is more correct than invidere flori. We are forbidden by usage;

the poet kept his own right and spoke more boldly. — Into the same man, then, falls both to pity and to envy. For he who grieves at another's adversities grieves also at another's prosperities, as Theophrastus, deploring the death of his companion Callisthenes, is vexed at the prosperous affairs of Alexander, and so says that Callisthenes fell in with a man of the highest power and the highest fortune, but ignorant of how it befitted him to use prosperity. Now, as pity is a distress arising from another's adversities, so envy is a distress arising from another's prosperities. Into whomsoever, then, pity falls, into the same falls also envy; but envy does not befall the wise man: therefore neither does pity. But if the wise man were wont to take things ill, he would be wont also to pity. Distress, then, is absent from the wise man.

These things are thus stated by the Stoics and concluded somewhat too crookedly. But they must sometimes be stated more amply and at greater length; yet one must use above all the opinions of those who employ the most courageous and, so to speak, manly reasoning and sentiment. For the Peripatetics, our friends, than whom nothing is richer, nothing more learned, nothing weightier, do not at all win my approval with their middling allowances of disturbances or diseases of the mind. For every evil, even a middling one, is an evil; but we are aiming at this — that there be none at all in the wise man. For as a body, even if it is moderately sick, is not sound, so in the mind this middling state lacks soundness. And so our countrymen, admirably, as in many other matters, named trouble, anxiety, anguish aegritudo ("sickness" of mind, distress), from the likeness of sick bodies.

By a word nearly the same the Greeks call every disturbance of the mind; for they call pathos, that is, disease, whatever turbid motion there is in the mind. We do better: for distress is most like sick bodies; but lust is not like sickness, nor is immoderate joy, which is a pleasure of the mind elated and exultant. Even fear itself is not very like disease, although it is the neighbour of distress; but properly, as "sickness" (aegrotatio) in the body, so "distress" (aegritudo) in the mind has a name not severed from pain. The origin of this pain, then, must be unfolded by us — that is, the cause that effects distress in the mind as sickness in the body. For as physicians, when the cause of a disease is found, think the cure found, so we, when the cause of distress is discovered, shall discover the means of healing.

The whole cause, then, lies in opinion — and that not of distress alone, but of all the other disturbances, which are four in kind, more in their parts. For since every disturbance is a motion of the mind either devoid of reason, or spurning reason, or not obeying reason, and this motion is roused, in two ways, by an opinion either of good or of evil, the four disturbances are equally distributed. For two arise from an opinion of good: of which the one, exultant pleasure, that is, joy elated beyond measure, from an opinion of some great good present; the other, desire, which may rightly be called lust too, which is an immoderate craving of an imagined great good, not obedient to reason —

these two kinds, then, exultant pleasure and lust, are disturbed by an opinion of goods, as the two remaining, fear and distress, by an opinion of evils. For fear too is an opinion of a great evil impending, and distress is an opinion of a great evil present — and indeed a fresh opinion of such an evil that it seems right to be anguished at it; and this is, that he who grieves thinks he ought to grieve. But against these disturbances, which folly lets loose and stirs up against the life of men like so many Furies, we must fight with all our strength and resources, if we wish to lead through tranquilly and quietly this span that is given to life. But the rest another time; now let us, if we can, drive off distress. Let that be our subject, since you said it seemed to you to befall the wise man — which I in no way think; for it is a foul thing, wretched, detestable, to be fled with all effort, with sails and oars, so to speak.

For of what sort does that man seem to you, sprung of Tantalus, born of Pelops, who once, having got Hippodamia by marriage, her snatched from her father-in-law King Oenomaus —? He, indeed, was the great-grandson of Jupiter. And yet so cast down, so broken? "Approach me not," he says, "guests; stand there, lest my contagion or my shadow harm the good. So great a force of crime cleaves to my body." Will you, Thyestes, condemn yourself and rob yourself of the light because of the force of another's crime? What? Do you not think that son of the Sun unworthy of his own father's light? "His eyes shrank back, his body wasted with leanness, tears with their moisture ate away his bloodless cheeks; amid the squalor of his face, his beard, bristling with filth and unshorn, darkens his breast, scaly with foulness." These ills, O most foolish Aeëtes, you yourself added to yourself; they were not present in those things which chance had brought upon you — and that an inveterate ill, when the swelling of the mind had subsided (but distress, as I shall show, lies in an opinion of a fresh evil); but you mourn, plainly, from longing for a kingdom, not for a daughter. For her you hated, and rightly perhaps; but you bore the loss of your kingdom with no even mind. And it is a shameless grief, that of one wearing himself out with mourning because it is not permitted him to command free men.

Dionysius, indeed, the tyrant, driven from Syracuse, taught boys at Corinth: to such a degree could he not be without command. And what was more shameless than Tarquin, who waged war with those who had not borne his pride? When he could not be restored to his kingdom by the arms of the Veientes nor of the Latins, he is said to have betaken himself to Cumae, and in that city to have been worn out by age and distress. Do you think, then, that this can happen to the wise man — that he be oppressed by distress, that is, by misery? For though every disturbance is misery, yet distress is a very torture-chamber. Lust has its ardour, exultant joy its levity, fear its abjectness, but distress has something greater — wasting, torment, affliction, foulness; it tears, it eats away the mind, and plainly destroys it. Unless we so strip this off as to cast it away, we cannot be free of misery.

And this indeed is plain: that distress arises when something has so appeared that some great evil seems to be present and pressing. Epicurus, however, holds that an opinion of evil is by nature distress; so that whoever fixes his gaze on any greater evil, if he thinks it has befallen him, is forthwith in distress. The Cyrenaics think distress is effected not by every evil, but by an unhoped-for and unexpected one. That, indeed, is no small matter toward increasing distress: for all things sudden seem heavier. And so those words too are justly praised: "I, when I begot them, knew then they would die, and for that I reared them. Moreover, when I sent them to Troy in defence of Greece, I knew I was sending them to deadly war, not to a banquet."

This forethought, then, of future evils softens their coming, when you have seen them coming long before. And so among Euripides the words spoken by Theseus are praised; for it is permitted, as we often do, to turn them into Latin: "For I, remembering what I had heard from a learned man, used to ponder with myself the miseries to come: either bitter death, or the sad flight of exile, or some weight of ill I ever pondered, that, if some calamity should chance to be brought in, no sudden care might rend me unprepared."

But that which Theseus says he heard from a learned man, Euripides speaks of himself. For he had been a hearer of Anaxagoras, who, they say, when the death of his son was announced, said: "I knew I had begotten a mortal." Which saying declares that these things are bitter to those by whom they have not been thought of beforehand. So this at least is not doubtful, that all things which are thought evils are heavier when unforeseen. And so, although this one thing does not produce the greatest distress, yet, since the foresight and preparation of the mind avails much toward lessening pain, let all human things be ever pondered by a man as human. And doubtless this is that surpassing and divine wisdom — to have human things deeply perceived and handled, to wonder at nothing when it has befallen, to think nothing, before it has happened, cannot happen. "Wherefore everyone, when his affairs are most prosperous, then most of all ought to ponder with himself how he may bear adverse hardship. Returning from abroad, let him ever think with himself of perils, of losses, or a son's fault, or a wife's death, or a daughter's sickness — that these are common, lest any of them ever be new to his mind; whatever falls out beyond hope, let him count all that as gain." Therefore, since Terence, having taken this from philosophy, said it so aptly, shall not we, from whose springs it was drawn, both say it better and feel it more steadfastly?

For this is that countenance, ever the same, which Xanthippe is said to have been wont to declare was in her husband Socrates: that she always saw him with the same look going out from home and returning. Nor indeed was that brow such as was that of the elder Marcus Crassus, who, Lucilius says, laughed but once in all his life, but a tranquil and serene one; for so we have been told. And rightly was his countenance always the same, since no change came over the mind, by which the countenance is fashioned. Wherefore I accept, for my part, from the Cyrenaics these arms against the chances and events of life, by which their oncoming assaults may be broken by long premeditation; and at the same time I judge that evil to be of opinion, not of nature; for if it were in the thing itself, why should things foreseen become lighter?

But there is on these same matters something that can be said more subtly, if first we have looked at the opinion of Epicurus. He holds that all must of necessity be in distress who think themselves to be in evils, whether those evils were foreseen and expected beforehand or have grown old. For neither, he says, are evils lessened by age nor made lighter by premeditation, and it is foolish even to meditate on a future evil, or perhaps one not even going to be: every evil is hateful enough when it has come; but he who has always thought that something adverse could happen, to him that becomes an everlasting evil; and if it is not even going to be, a voluntary misery is undertaken in vain; so a man is ever anguished, either by receiving or by thinking of an evil.

The lightening of distress he places in two things: in calling the mind away from thinking on its trouble, and in recalling it to the contemplation of pleasures. For he holds that the mind can obey reason and follow whither it leads. Reason, then, forbids it to gaze on troubles, draws it away from bitter thoughts, blunts its edge for contemplating miseries; and when it has sounded the retreat from these, it drives and urges it again to look upon and handle with the whole mind the various pleasures, with which he thinks the life of the wise man is filled, both by the memory of past ones and by the hope of those to come. These things I have said after our fashion; the Epicureans say them after theirs. But let us look at what they say; how, let us not mind.

To begin with, they wrongly reprehend the premeditation of future things. For there is nothing that so blunts and lightens distress as the perpetual thought, throughout all life, that there is nothing that cannot happen; as the meditation on the human condition, the law of life, and the practice of obeying it; which brings about not that we ever mourn, but that we never do. For he who thinks on the nature of things, on the variety of life, on the weakness of the human race, does not mourn while he thinks on these, but then most of all discharges the office of wisdom: for he attains both ends — that, in considering human things, he enjoys the proper office of philosophy, and that, in adverse chances, he is healed by a threefold consolation: first, that nothing befalls him save what he had long thought could befall, which thought alone most of all extenuates and dissolves all troubles; next, that he understands that human things are to be borne humanly; lastly, that he sees there is no evil save fault, and that there is no fault when that has happened which could not be warranted by a man.

For that recalling which he brings forward, when he calls us away from beholding our evils, is nothing. For it is not in our power, when those things which we think evils prick us, to feign indifference or to forget: they tear, they vex, they apply goads, they bring fire, they suffer us not to breathe; and you bid us forget — which is contrary to Nature — you who would wrest away the aid given by Nature, that of inveterate grief? For slow indeed is that medicine, yet great, which length of time and the days bring. "You bid me think on goods, forget my evils." You would say something, and something worthy of a great philosopher, if you held those to be goods which are most worthy of a man. If Pythagoras should say to me, or Socrates, or Plato:

"Why do you lie down, or why do you mourn, or why do you give way and yield to fortune? Which perhaps could pluck and prick you, but could surely not break your strength. There is great force in the virtues; rouse them, if perchance they sleep. Now will fortitude, the chief, be present with you, which will compel you to be of so great a soul that you despise and count as nothing all that can befall a man. Temperance will be present, which is the same as moderation, called by me a little before frugality, which will not suffer you to do anything basely and worthlessly. But what is more worthless or baser than an effeminate man? Not even justice will allow you to do these things, which seems to have least place in this case; yet it will say that you are unjust in two ways — both because you crave what is another's, who, born mortal, demand the condition of the immortals, and because you take it ill that you have returned what you had received for use.

But to prudence, teaching that virtue is content with itself, both for living well and likewise for living happily, what will you answer? Which, if it should hang bound from without and not both spring from itself and again return to itself, and, embracing all that is its own, seek nothing from elsewhere, I do not understand why it should seem either so vehemently to be adorned with words or so greatly to be sought in fact" — if to these goods you recall me, Epicurus, I obey, I follow, I use you yourself as guide, I forget even my evils, as you bid, and that the more easily, because I think those things are not to be reckoned even among evils. But you lead my thoughts over to pleasures. What pleasures? Of the body, I suppose, or such as, on account of the body, are thought of either by recollection or by hope. Is there anything else? Do I rightly interpret your opinion? For these men are wont to deny that we understand what Epicurus says.

This he says, and this that sharpish old fellow Zeno, the keenest of them, when I was hearing him at Athens, used to maintain and to declare in a loud voice: that he is happy who enjoys present pleasures and is confident that he will enjoy them either in the whole or the greater part of life, without pain intervening; or, if it intervene, if it be extreme, it will be short; if more prolonged, it will have more of the pleasant than of the bad; that one who thinks on these things will be happy, especially since he is both content with goods already perceived and dreads neither death nor the gods. You have the shape of Epicurus' happy life, expressed in the words of Zeno, so that nothing can be denied. — What then?

Will the setting forth and the thought of this kind of life be able to relieve Thyestes, or Aeëtes, of whom I spoke a little before, or Telamon, driven from his country, an exile and in want? Of whom this wonder was made: "Is this that Telamon, whom of late glory bore to the sky, on whom men gazed, toward whose face the Greeks turned their own?"

But if anyone — as the same poet says — has his mind fall together with his fortune, medicine must be sought from those grave ancient philosophers, not from these pleasure-men. For what abundance of goods do these speak of? Grant, indeed, that the highest good is not to feel pain — though that is not called pleasure, but it is not now necessary to discuss everything — is it that to which, led over, we may relieve our grief? Grant that the highest evil is to feel pain: he, then, who is not in it, if he be free of evil, does he forthwith enjoy the highest good?

Why do we shuffle, Epicurus, and not confess that by pleasure we mean that which you yourself, when you have rubbed your brow, are wont to mean? Are these your words or not? In that book, indeed, which contains your whole teaching — for I shall now play the part of an interpreter, lest anyone think I am inventing — you say this: "Nor indeed have I anything I can understand to be that good, taking away those pleasures that are perceived by taste, taking away those that are perceived in the things of love, taking away those from the hearing of songs, taking away also those sweet motions perceived through forms by the eyes, or whatever other pleasures are begotten in the whole man by any sense. Nor can it indeed be said that the joy of the mind alone is among goods. For I know a joyful mind thus: in the hope of all those things which I named above, that, attaining them, the nature shall be free of pain."

And these things, indeed, in these words, so that anyone may understand what pleasure Epicurus knew. Then a little below: "Often," he says, "I have asked of those who were called wise what they would have left among goods, if they took away those things, unless they wished to pour forth empty sounds: nothing could I learn from them. If they will bubble out virtues and wisdoms, they will say nothing else than the way by which those pleasures are produced which I named above." What follows is in the same opinion, and the whole book, which is On the Highest Good, is crammed with such words and sentiments.

To this life, then, will you recall that Telamon, to relieve his distress? And if you see any of your friends afflicted with mourning, will you give him a sturgeon rather than some little Socratic book? Will you urge him to listen to the sounds of the water-organ rather than of Plato? Will you set out flowery and varied things for him to gaze at? Will you bring a nosegay to his nostrils? Will you burn perfumes and bid him be wreathed with garlands and with roses? If indeed something more besides — then plainly you will have wiped away all his mourning.

These things Epicurus must confess, or else those which I just now quoted word for word must be struck out of the book, or rather the whole book cast away; for it is stuffed with pleasures. We must inquire, then, in what way we may rid of distress one who speaks thus: "By Pollux, fortune now fails me more than birth. For a kingdom was at my command — that you may know from how high a place, with what resources, from what things fortune slipping has befallen me." What? Is a cup of mead to be thrust on this man, that he may cease to wail, or something of that kind? Lo, here for you from the other side, from the same poet: "From the highest resources in need of your help, Hector" — this man we ought to succour; for she seeks aid: "What defence shall I seek or pursue, or by what aid shall I now rely on for exile or for flight? Of citadel and city I am bereft. Whither shall I fall? To whom apply? My fatherland's altars stand not at home; broken and scattered they lie; the temples have burned down in flame; the high walls stand scorched, deformed, with the warped firwood —" you know what follows, and that above all: "O father, O fatherland, O house of Priam, temple enclosed with high-sounding hinge! I saw you, with barbarian wealth attending, with carved and panelled roofs, set out with gold and ivory, royally."

O excellent poet! Although he is despised by these chanters of Euphorion. He feels that all things sudden and unexpected are heavier; therefore, the royal resources being exaggerated, which seemed destined to be everlasting, what does he add? "All these I saw set ablaze, Priam's life reft from him by force, Jove's altar fouled with blood."

A glorious poem! For it is mournful in matter, in words, and in measures. Let us snatch his distress from this man. How? Let us lay him on a feather cushion, let us bring in a lute-girl, let us give him sweet ointment, let us burn a little dish of perfumes, let us see to something of a sweetish drink and of food? These, then, are the goods by which the gravest distresses are taken away? For you yourself, a little before, said you did not even understand any others. That one ought, then, to be recalled from mourning to the thought of goods — I should agree with Epicurus, if there were agreement as to what is good. Someone will say: "What then? Do you think Epicurus meant those things, or that his opinions were lustful?" I, indeed, by no means; for I see many things said by him gravely, many things admirably. And so, as I have often said, the matter concerns his keenness, not his morals; however much he may spurn those pleasures which he just now praised, I shall yet remember what seems to him the highest good. For he did not set down pleasure by a word only, but explained what he meant: "taste," he says, "and the embrace of bodies, and games and songs, and those forms by which the eyes are pleasantly moved." Do I invent? Do I lie? I long to be refuted. For what do I labour at, save that truth be unfolded in every inquiry?

"But the same man says that pleasure does not increase when pain is taken away, and that the highest pleasure is to feel no pain." In a few words, three great faults: one, that he is at war with himself. For just now he did not even suspect anything to be good unless the senses were, as it were, tickled with pleasure; but now the highest pleasure is to be free of pain. Can he be more at war with himself? The second fault: that, since in nature there are three things — one to feel joy, another to feel pain, the third neither to feel joy nor pain — he thinks the first and the third the same, and does not distinguish pleasure from the absence of pain. The third fault is common with certain others: that, although virtue is most of all to be sought, and for the sake of attaining it philosophy was sought, he separated the highest good from virtue.

"But he often praises virtue." Yes, and Gaius Gracchus too, when he had made the greatest largesses and drained the treasury, yet in words defended the treasury. Why should I hear words, when I see deeds? That famous Lucius Piso the Frugal had always spoken against the corn-law. When the law was passed, he, an ex-consul, had come to receive corn. Gracchus noticed Piso standing in the assembly; he asks, in the hearing of the Roman people, how he is consistent with himself, in seeking corn under that law which he had argued against. "I should not wish, Gracchus," he says, "that it pleased you to divide my goods among men man by man; but, if you do it, I shall seek my share." Did not that grave and wise man declare clearly enough that the public patrimony was being squandered by the Sempronian law? Read the speeches of Gracchus, and you will call Piso a patron of the treasury.

Epicurus denies that life can be lived pleasantly unless one lives with virtue; he denies that fortune has any force against the wise man; he prefers a slender diet to a copious one; he denies that there is any time at which the wise man is not happy. All things worthy of a philosopher, but at war with pleasure. — He does not mean that pleasure. — Let him mean what he likes; surely he means that in which there is no part of virtue. Come, if we do not understand his pleasure, do we not understand his pain either? I say, then, that it does not belong to one who measures the highest evil by pain to make mention of virtue.

And certain Epicureans complain — most excellent men, for no class of men is less malicious — that I speak zealously against Epicurus. So, I suppose, we contend about honour or dignity. To me the highest good seems to be in the mind, to them in the body; to me in virtue, to them in pleasure. And they fight, and indeed implore the help of their neighbours — and there are many who would at once flock together; but I am one who would say that I do not trouble myself, and would hold as settled whatever they shall have done.

For what? Is it the Punic War we are dealing with? About which very thing, when Marcus Cato thought one way and Lucius Lentulus another, there was never any contention between them. These men act too angrily, especially since by them an opinion not very courageous is defended, on behalf of which they dare to speak neither in the senate, nor in the assembly, nor before the army, nor to the censors. But with these another time, and with this mind, that I shall set up no contest, but readily yield to those who speak the truth; only I shall advise that, even if it be most true that the wise man refers all things to the body, or, to put it more honourably, does nothing save what is expedient, or refers all things to his own advantage — since these things are not winning of applause — they should rejoice in their bosoms and cease to speak gloriously. The opinion of the Cyrenaics remains;

who hold that distress then arises if something has happened unexpectedly. That, indeed, is a great matter, as I said above; and I know that it seems so to Chrysippus too — that what has not been foreseen strikes the harder. But not everything lies in this. Although the sudden arrival of enemies disturbs somewhat more than one expected, and a sudden storm at sea terrifies sailors more vehemently than one foreseen beforehand, and many things are of this kind: yet when you carefully consider the nature of unexpected things, you will find nothing else than that all things sudden seem greater — and that for two reasons: first, because there is no space given for considering how great are the things that happen; next, because, when it seems that one could have guarded against it, had it been foreseen, the evil, contracted as if by one's own fault, makes the distress keener.

That this is so the days declare, which as they pass so soften it that, though the same evils remain, not only is distress lessened, but in most cases removed. Many Carthaginians have served as slaves at Rome, and Macedonians after King Perses was taken; I myself, too, when I was a young man, saw certain Corinthians in the Peloponnese. All these could deplore those same words about Andromache: "All these things I saw" — but they had perhaps now chanted them out. For they were of such a countenance, speech, and all the rest of their bearing and posture, that you would have called them Argives or Sicyonians; and the suddenly-seen ruins of Corinth had moved me more than the Corinthians themselves, over whose minds a long pondering had drawn the callus of age.

We have read the book of Clitomachus, which he sent, after Carthage was overthrown, for the sake of consoling the captives, his fellow-citizens; in it is written a disputation of Carneades, which he says he set down in a notebook. When it had been laid down thus — that the wise man would seem to be in distress when his country was taken — what Carneades said against it is written. So great, then, is the medicine applied by the philosopher to a present calamity, that it is not even needed for an inveterate one; nor, if that same book had been sent to the captives some years later, would it have healed wounds, but scars. For little by little and step by step, as it advances, pain is extenuated — not that the thing itself is wont or able to be changed, but that what reason ought to have taught, experience teaches: that those things are smaller which had seemed greater. — What need is there, then (someone will say), of any reasoning at all, or of that consolation which we are wont to use when we wish to relieve the pain of mourners?

For at such a time we have nearly this ready: that nothing ought to seem unexpected. Or how shall he bear a misfortune more tolerably who has learned that something of the kind must needs befall a man? For this discourse takes nothing from the very sum of the evil; it only brings this — that nothing has happened that ought not to have been thought of. And yet that kind of discourse is not without force in consoling — nay, I should not know but it has the most. * Therefore those unexpected things have not such force that all distress arises from them; for they strike the harder, perhaps, but do not bring it about that the things which happen seem greater: because they are fresh, they seem greater, not because they are sudden.

• Twofold, then, is the method of finding the truth, not only in those things which seem evil, but in those too which seem good. For either we inquire of what kind and how great the very nature of a thing is — as sometimes about poverty, whose burden we lighten by disputation, teaching how small and how few are the things that Nature requires — or we carry the discourse over from the subtlety of disputation to examples. Here Socrates is mentioned, here Diogenes, here that line of Caecilius: "Often, even, beneath a sordid little cloak there is wisdom." For since the force of poverty is one and the same, what can be said as to why it was tolerable to Gaius Fabricius, while others deny they can bear it?

To this latter kind, then, is like that method of consoling which teaches that what has happened is human. For that disputation does not contain this alone, that it brings knowledge of the human race, but it signifies that those things are tolerable which the rest both have borne and do bear. Poverty is in question: many patient poor men are recalled. Of the despising of office: many are brought forward who were unhonoured — and indeed, on that very account, happier; and the life of those who preferred private leisure to public business is praised by name; nor is that anapaest of the most powerful king passed over in silence, who praises the old man and says he is fortunate, because, inglorious and ignoble, he will reach his last day;

likewise, by mentioning examples, bereavements of children too are proclaimed, and the mourning of those who bear them too heavily is softened by the examples of others. So the endurance of others brings it about that the things which have happened seem much smaller than they had been thought. So it comes about, for those who think on it little by little, that it appears how much opinion had lied. And this same thing both that Telamon declares: "I, when I begot them"; and Theseus: "I used to ponder with myself the miseries to come"; and Anaxagoras: "I knew I had begotten a mortal." For all these, thinking long on human things, understood that they were by no means to be dreaded according to the opinion of the crowd. And to me, indeed, it seems that nearly the same thing befalls those who meditate beforehand as those whom the days heal — save that a certain reasoning heals the one, while Nature herself heals the other, when that has been understood which contains the matter: that the evil which had been thought greatest is by no means so great that it can overturn a happy life.

This, then, is brought about: that from that unexpectedness the blow is greater — not, as they think, that, when like chances have befallen two men, he alone is affected with distress to whom the chance came unexpectedly. And so some men, it is said, in mourning, when they had heard of this common condition of men — that we are born on this law, that no one can be perpetually free of evil — have borne it even more heavily. Wherefore Carneades, as I see our Antiochus write, used to reprehend Chrysippus for praising that song of Euripides: "There is no mortal whom pain and disease touch not; many must bury their children, and again beget them, and death is appointed for all. Which things bring anguish to the human race in vain. Earth must be rendered to earth; then life must be reaped by all, like the harvest. So Necessity bids."

He denied that this kind of discourse pertained at all to lightening distress. For this very thing was to be grieved at, he said, that we had fallen into so cruel a necessity; for that discourse, drawn from the mention of others' evils, is suited to consoling the malevolent. But to me it seems far otherwise. For both the necessity of bearing the human condition forbids us, as it were, to fight with a god, and admonishes us that we are men — which thought greatly lightens grief; and the enumeration of examples is brought forward, not that it may delight the mind of the malevolent, but that he who mourns may judge that he must bear what he sees many have borne with moderation and tranquillity.

For in all ways must they be propped up who fall and cannot hold together, on account of the greatness of their distress. From which Chrysippus thinks that distress itself, lypē, was so named as being, as it were, a "loosening" (solutio) of the whole man. The whole of which can be plucked out, the cause of distress being unfolded, as I said at the outset; for it is no other than an opinion and judgement of a great present and pressing evil. And so even bodily pain, whose bite is most keen, will be endured, with the hope of a good set before one; and a life passed honourably and splendidly brings so great a consolation that those who have so lived either are not touched by distress at all, or the pain of mind pricks them very lightly. But when to this opinion of a great evil there has been added that other opinion too — that it is fitting, that it is right, that it pertains to duty to bear ill what has happened — then at last is brought about that grave disturbance of distress.

From this opinion come those various and detestable kinds of mourning: filth, womanish tearings of cheeks, beatings of breast, thigh, and head; hence that Homeric Agamemnon, and the same in Accius, again and again rending his unshorn hair for grief; on which is that witty saying of Bion, that the most foolish king tore his hair in mourning just as though baldness lightened grief.

But all these things they do, thinking it ought thus to be done. And so Aeschines inveighs against Demosthenes because he sacrificed victims on the seventh day after his daughter's death. But how rhetorically, how copiously! What sentiments he gathers, what words he hurls! So that you may understand that anything is permitted to a rhetorician. Which things no one would approve, did we not have implanted in our minds that all good men ought to mourn the death of their own as grievously as possible. From this it comes about that, in pains of mind, some seek out solitudes, as Homer says of Bellerophon: "Who, wretched, wandered mourning on the Aleian plains, eating his own heart, shunning the footprints of men"; and Niobe is feigned to be of stone on account of her eternal silence, I suppose, in mourning; and Hecuba they think to be feigned turned into a dog on account of a certain bitterness and rage of mind. But there are others whom, in mourning, it often delights to speak with solitude itself, as that nurse in Ennius: "Desire has now seized wretched me to declare to heaven and earth the miseries of Medea."

All these things, thinking them right, true, and due, they do in grief; and it is most of all declared that this is done as by a judgement of duty, because, if any chance, when they wished to be in mourning, have done something more humanely, or have spoken more cheerfully, they recall themselves again to sadness and accuse themselves of a fault, that they intermitted their grieving. Indeed, mothers and teachers are even wont to chastise boys — and not with words only, but even with blows — if anything more cheerful has been done or said by them in a domestic mourning, and force them to weep. What? When the slackening of mourning has followed, and it has been understood that nothing is gained by mourning, does not the thing declare that all that was voluntary?

What of that man in Terence, self-tormenting — that is, heautontimōroumenos? "I have resolved, Chremes, to do my son the less wrong, while I become wretched." He resolves to be wretched. Does anyone, then, resolve anything unwillingly? "I should reckon myself deserving of any ill" — he reckons himself deserving of ill, unless he be wretched. You see, then, that the evil is of opinion, not of nature. What of those whom the thing itself forbids to mourn? As in Homer the daily slayings and deaths of many bring an allaying of grief, in whom it is thus said: "For we behold too many falling on every day, so that no one can be free of mourning. The more is it just to commit the slain to their tombs with firm mind, and to end mourning with a single day's tears."

Therefore it is in our power to cast off pain when we will, serving the occasion. Or is there any occasion — since the matter is in our power — which we shall not serve, for the sake of laying aside care and distress? It was agreed that those who had seen Gnaeus Pompey falling under his wounds, although in that very most bitter and most wretched spectacle they feared for themselves, because they saw themselves surrounded by the enemy's fleet, then did nothing else but exhort the rowers and seek safety in flight; and after they had come to Tyre, then they began to be afflicted and to lament. Fear, then, could drive distress away from these; shall reason not be able from a wise man? But what is there that avails more for laying aside pain than when it has been understood that nothing is gained and that it was undertaken in vain? If, then, it can be laid down, it can also not be taken up; it must be confessed, then, that distress is taken up by will and judgement.

And this is shown by the endurance of those who, having often borne much, bear more easily whatever happens, and think themselves now hardened against fortune, as that man in Euripides: "If now for the first time a sad day had dawned on me, and I had not sailed on so toilsome a sea, there would be cause for grieving, as colts, the bit being suddenly thrown on, are stirred by the new touch; but now, subdued by miseries, I have grown numb." Since, then, the weariness of miseries makes distresses milder, it must of necessity be understood that the thing itself is not the cause and source of mourning.

The greatest philosophers, who have not yet, however, attained wisdom — do they not understand that they are in the greatest evil? For they are foolish, and there is no greater evil than folly. And yet they do not mourn. Why so? Because to this kind of evils that opinion is not added, that it is right and just and pertains to duty to take it ill that you are not wise — which same opinion we add to this distress, in which there is mourning, which is the greatest of all.

And so Aristotle, accusing the old philosophers who had thought philosophy perfected by their own talents, says that they were either most foolish or most boastful; but that he saw that, since in a few years a great advance had been made, in a short time philosophy would be quite completed. And Theophrastus, dying, is said to have accused Nature, because she had given to stags and crows a long life — to whom it was of no concern — but to men, to whom it was of the greatest concern, so scanty a life; whereas, if the age of men could have been longer, it would have come about that, all the arts being perfected, the life of men would be instructed with all learning. He complained, then, that he was being extinguished at the very time when he had begun to see those things. What? Of the other philosophers, does not each best and gravest one confess that he is ignorant of much, and that much must be learned by him again and again?

And yet, though they understand that they stick fast in the midst of folly, than which nothing is worse, they are not pressed by distress; for no opinion of a dutiful pain is mingled in. What of those who think that men ought not to mourn? Such as was Quintus Maximus, carrying out his son, an ex-consul; such as Lucius Paulus, who lost two sons within a few days; such as Marcus Cato, whose son died when he was praetor-elect; such as the rest, whom I have gathered together in my Consolation.

What else appeased these men, save that they did not think mourning and grief to be a man's part? Therefore that which others, thinking it right, are wont to give themselves up to in distress, this these men, thinking it base, repelled — distress. From which it is understood that distress is not in nature, but in opinion. Against this it is said: who is so mad as to mourn of his own will? Nature brings the pain, to which indeed your Crantor, they say, thinks one must yield; for it presses and bears down, nor can it be resisted. And so that Oïleus in Sophocles, who had before consoled Telamon over the death of Ajax, when he had heard of his own son, was broken. Of whose changed mind it is thus said: "Nor indeed is anyone endowed with such great wisdom that, while lightening with words another's hardship, he is not himself, when fortune changed turns its onset, broken by his own sudden calamity, so that those things said and counselled to others fall away." When they argue thus, they are eager to bring this about — that Nature can in no way be withstood; yet the same men confess that graver distresses are taken up than Nature compels. What madness is it, then —? that we too may demand the same of them.

But there are several causes for taking up grief. First that opinion of an evil, which, when seen and believed, distress follows of necessity. Then men also think they do a favour to the dead if they mourn them grievously. There is added a certain womanish superstition: for they suppose they will more easily satisfy the immortal gods if, stricken by their blow, they confess themselves afflicted and laid low. But how these things are at war among themselves, most do not see. For they praise those who die with an even mind; those who bear another's death with an even mind they think worthy of blame. As though it could in any way come about — what is wont to be said in lovers' talk — that anyone should love another more than himself.

That is glorious, and, if you inquire, right too and true — that we love those who ought to be dearest to us as much as our own selves; but that we love them more is by no means possible. Nor is it even to be wished in friendship that he love me more than himself, I him more than myself; a disturbance of life and of all duties would follow, if it were so. But of this another time; now this is enough — not to attribute to the loss of friends our own misery, lest we love them, if they could feel it, more than they themselves would wish, more, surely, than we love our own selves. For as to their saying that most are not at all lightened by consolations, and adding that the consolers themselves confess they are wretched when fortune has turned its onset against them — both are dissolved. For these are faults not of nature but of blame. And folly may be accused as copiously as you please. For both those who are not lightened invite themselves to misery, and those who bear their own chances otherwise than as they were authors to others, are not more faulty than nearly most men, who, being avaricious, reprehend the avaricious, being eager for glory, the glory-seekers. For it is proper to folly to discern the faults of others, to forget one's own.

But doubtless this is most of all to be brought out: since it is agreed that distress is taken away by age, that this force lies not in the day, but in the long thinking. For if both the thing is the same and the man is the same, how can anything of the pain be changed, if neither about that on account of which one grieves is anything changed, nor about him who grieves? It is the long thinking, then, that there is no evil in the thing, that heals the pain, not the length of time itself. Here they bring me middling states. Which, if they are natural, what need is there of consolation? For Nature herself will set the measure; but if they are matters of opinion, let the whole opinion be taken away. Enough has been said, I think, that distress is an opinion of a present evil, in which opinion there is this — that one ought to take up the distress.

To this definition it is rightly added by Zeno that that opinion of a present evil be fresh. And this word they so interpret that they would have "fresh" be not only what has happened a little before, but so long as there is in that imagined evil a certain force, that it is vigorous and has a certain greenness, so long let it be called fresh. As that Artemisia, wife of Mausolus king of Caria, who made that famous tomb at Halicarnassus, as long as she lived, lived in mourning, and, worn out by it too, wasted away. To her that opinion was daily fresh; which is then at last not called fresh, when by age it has dried up. These, then, are the offices of consolers: to take away distress utterly, or to calm it, or to draw off as much as possible, or to suppress it and not suffer it to spread further, or to lead it over to other things.

There are those who think the one office of the consoler is to show that the evil is not an evil at all, as it pleases Cleanthes; there are those who say it is no great evil, as the Peripatetics; there are those who lead one away from evils to goods, as Epicurus; there are those who think it enough to show that nothing unexpected has happened, as the Cyrenaics — nothing of evil. But Chrysippus holds that the chief thing in consoling is to take away from the mourner that opinion by which he thinks he is discharging a just and due office. There are also those who gather together all these kinds of consoling — for one man is moved in one way, another in another — as I, in my Consolation, threw nearly all into one consolation; for my mind was in a swelling, and in it every cure was tried. But a time must be taken, no less in the diseases of minds than of bodies; as that Prometheus of Aeschylus, to whom, when it had been said: "And yet, Prometheus, I think you hold this — that reason can heal anger," answered: "Yes, if one applies the medicine in season, and does not strike the wound with an aggravating hand."

The first medicine in consolations, then, will be to teach that the evil is either no evil or a very small one; the second, both about the common condition of life and properly, if there be anything to be argued about him who mourns; the third, that it is the greatest folly to be worn out by mourning in vain, when you understand that nothing can be gained. For Cleanthes, indeed, consoles the wise man, who has no need of consolation. For if you have persuaded a mourner that nothing is an evil which is not base, you will have taken from him not his grief but his folly; and that is an unfit time for teaching. And yet Cleanthes does not seem to me to have sufficiently seen this — that distress can sometimes be taken up from that very thing which Cleanthes himself confesses to be the highest evil. For what shall we say, when Socrates had persuaded Alcibiades, as we have heard, that he was no real man, and that there was no difference between Alcibiades, born in the highest station, and any porter, and when Alcibiades, afflicting himself and weeping, was a suppliant to Socrates, that he would impart virtue to him and drive off baseness — what shall we say, Cleanthes? Was there then no evil in that thing which was affecting Alcibiades with distress?

What? Of what sort are those words of Lyco? Who, extenuating distress, says that it is moved by small things, by the discomforts of fortune and of the body, not by the evils of the mind. What then? Did that which Alcibiades grieved at not consist of evils and vices of the mind? Against Epicurus' consolation enough has been said before.

Nor is that the firmest consolation, although it is both customary and often profits: "This has not happened to you alone." It profits, indeed, as I said, but neither always nor with all; for there are those who reject it; but it matters how it is applied. For we must proclaim how each of those who bore wisely bore it, not by what discomfort each was affected. That of Chrysippus is, for truth, the firmest; for the time of distress, difficult. It is a great task to prove to a mourner that he mourns by his own judgement, and because he thinks he ought to do so. Doubtless, then, as in pleadings we do not always use the same "status" — for so we call the kinds of controversies — but accommodate it to the occasion, to the nature of the controversy, to the person, so, in lightening distress, we must see what cure each man can receive.

But somehow or other my discourse has wandered from what was proposed by you. For you had inquired about the wise man, to whom either no evil can seem one, that is free of baseness, or so small an evil that it is overwhelmed by wisdom and scarcely appears; who adds and assumes nothing by opinion to his distress, and does not think it right that he be tortured to the utmost and worn out with mourning, than which nothing can be more depraved. Yet reason has taught — as it seems to me, at least — though this very thing was not properly inquired into at this time, whether there were any evil except what could also be called base, nevertheless, that we might see that whatever of evil there is in distress is not natural, but contracted by a voluntary judgement and an error of opinion.

And there has been treated by us that kind of distress which alone is the greatest of all, so that, it being removed, we should think the remedies of the rest need not be greatly sought. For there are certain things wont to be said about poverty, certain things about a life unhonoured and inglorious; separately there are fixed schools on exile, on the destruction of one's country, on slavery, on weakness, on blindness, on every chance to which the name of calamity is wont to be given. These the Greeks distribute into single schools and single books; for they seek work — although the disputations, when full, are full of delight;

and yet, as physicians, in tending the whole body, heal even the smallest part if it has come to pain, so philosophy, when it has taken away distress in general, has taken it away too if any error has arisen from somewhere, if poverty has bitten, if disgrace has pricked, if exile has poured over any darkness, or if anything of those things I just named has arisen. Although there are proper consolations for single things, of which you indeed shall hear, when you will. But we must return to the same fountain: that all distress is far from the wise man, because it is empty, because it is taken up in vain, because it arises not from nature but from judgement, from opinion, from a certain invitation to grieve, when we have decreed that it ought so to be done.

This being taken away, which is wholly voluntary, that mourning distress will be removed; yet a certain bite and a slight contraction of the mind will be left. Let them call this natural, by all means, so long as the name of distress be absent — grave, foul, baleful, which with wisdom can in no way exist or, so to speak, dwell. But what roots distress has, how many, how bitter! Which, the trunk itself being overturned, must all be plucked out, and, if it be necessary, by single disputations. For there is left to us this leisure, of whatever kind it is. But there is one principle of all distresses, many names. For both to envy is a part of distress, and to be jealous, and to disparage, and to pity, and to be anguished, to mourn, to grieve, to be afflicted with hardship, to lament, to be troubled, to feel pain, to be in trouble, to be afflicted, to despair.

All these the Stoics define, and those words which I have named are of single things, and do not, as they seem, signify the same things, but differ somewhat; which we shall perhaps treat in another place. These are those fibres of the roots which I spoke of at the outset, to be pursued and all plucked out, that none may ever be able to arise. A great work and difficult, who denies it? But what glorious thing is not likewise arduous? Yet philosophy professes that she will accomplish it, if only we receive her cure. But these things, indeed, thus far; the rest, as often as you will, shall be ready for you, both in this place and in others.