A letter Plutarch wrote to his wife Timoxena consoling her over the death of their young daughter, also named Timoxena.
The Consolatio ad Uxorem ("Letter of Consolation to His Wife") is a short, personal letter Plutarch sent home while traveling, after learning that their two-year-old daughter had died and had already been buried in his absence. Unlike Plutarch's more formal philosophical treatises, this piece is addressed directly to his wife by name and responds to a real, immediate grief rather than a hypothetical case, which gives it an unusually intimate tone within the Moralia.
Plutarch praises his wife for having kept the funeral simple and dignified, without theatrical displays of mourning, and holds this up as proof of her natural good sense and self-control. He argues that grief is not wrong in itself, but that excessive, performative lamentation is a form of intemperance akin to excess in pleasure, and that people who indulge visitors' wailing and mourning rituals only feed the fire of their own sorrow. He recalls the couple's earlier loss of another child and of their son Chaeron to show that his wife has already demonstrated this steadiness under grief.
The letter closes with a set of consoling arguments drawn from philosophy and inherited religious tradition: that the two years of the daughter's life were a real good not to be erased by her death, that the girl has been spared future troubles by dying so young, and that ancestral customs which forbid mourning rites for dead infants reflect a belief that young souls pass directly to "a better and more divine portion." Plutarch invokes the Dionysiac mystery teachings he and his wife share, and a doctrine resembling reincarnation, to argue the soul is indestructible. The work matters as a rare surviving personal letter of ancient consolation literature, showing how a Middle Platonist philosopher applied his own doctrines to his family's private loss.
“Only, wife, watch over me and yourself in the face of this suffering, and hold us both to our settled state.”
— Consolatio Ad Uxorem · read this chapter →
“for nature flees everything that causes distress.”
— Consolatio Ad Uxorem · read this chapter →
“For what is more unreasonable than to curb excesses of laughter and exuberant joy, and yet to let loose without restraint the streams of weeping and lamentation, which flow from the very same source?”
— Consolatio Ad Uxorem · read this chapter →
“Think, then, of the soul as indestructible, and that it undergoes something like what happens to captured birds”
— Consolatio Ad Uxorem · read this chapter →
“For these are great goods to those who lack them, but small to those who possess them.”
— Consolatio Ad Uxorem · read this chapter →
It is a letter Plutarch wrote to his wife Timoxena after their young daughter (also named Timoxena) died while he was away traveling. He consoles her by praising her restrained handling of the funeral and offering philosophical and religious arguments against excessive mourning.
Timoxena was both Plutarch's wife and the name of their young daughter who died at about age two. The letter is addressed to the wife and reflects on the daughter's short, sweet life and death.
He argues grief itself is natural and not shameful, but that unrestrained, performative lamentation is a form of intemperance similar to excess in pleasure. He urges his wife to keep dwelling on happy memories of their daughter rather than suppress them out of fear of pain.
Yes. He appeals to the Dionysiac mystery rites he and his wife shared and to a doctrine resembling reincarnation, describing the soul as indestructible and comparing it to a captured bird that eventually 'springs back' toward its true nature.
He notes that traditional practice withholds funeral libations and prolonged mourning rites for infants, reasoning that the custom reflects a belief that infants who die pass directly into 'a better and more divine portion' rather than needing mourning.
Moralia: Ad Principem Ineruditum · Moralia: Adversus Colotem · Moralia: Amatoriae Narrationes · Moralia: Amatorius · Moralia: An Recte Dictum Sit Latenter Esse Vivendum · Moralia: An Seni Respublica Gerenda Sit · Moralia: An Virtus Doceri Possit · Moralia: An Vitiositas Ad Infelicitatem Sufficia · Moralia: Animine An Corporis Affectiones Sint Piores · Moralia: Apophthegmata Laconica · Moralia: Aquane An Ignis Sit Utilior · Moralia: Bruta Animalia Ratione Uti