Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
I grieved with you long ago, Apollonius, and shared your distress when I heard of the untimely passing of your son, who was dear to all of us, a young man of great decency and self-control, and one who scrupulously kept what was right and holy both toward the gods and toward his parents and friends. At the time, right at the moment of his death, it would not have been fitting for me to approach you and urge you to bear the event in a merely human way,
since your body and soul were both overcome by that irrational calamity, and it was necessary for me to share your suffering; for even the best physicians do not immediately apply remedies through drugs to sudden onsets of inflammation, but let the oppressive swelling settle by itself, apart from the application of external salves, until it has undergone its own process.
But now that time — which is accustomed to bring all things to ripeness — has come upon your grief, and your condition seems to call for the help of your friends, I thought it well to share with you some words of consolation, toward the relief of your pain and the cessation of your mournful and useless lamentations. For words are the physicians of a sick soul, when someone
softens the heart at the right moment. For as wise Euripides says: "one remedy lies against one affliction, another against another: for one who grieves, the kindly speech of friends; but for one who is excessively foolish, admonitions." For among the many afflictions of the soul, grief is by nature the harshest of all: "for through grief," they say, "madness comes upon many," and incurable illnesses, and some have even destroyed themselves through
grief. Now to feel pain and to be stung at the death of a son has its origin in nature, and is not within our control. For I myself do not agree with those who praise that savage and hard insensibility, which lies beyond both what is possible and what is beneficial; for it would strip us of the goodwill that comes from loving and being loved, which above all else must be preserved.
But to be carried beyond due measure and to increase one's mourning I say is contrary to nature, and arises from a base opinion within us. For this reason it must be avoided as harmful, base, and most unbecoming to serious men, while moderation of feeling is not to be rejected. "May we not fall ill," says the Academic Crantor, "but if we do fall ill, may some sensation remain to us, whether something of what is ours
is being cut away or torn from us. For this absence of pain does not come to a person without great cost: for it is likely that in the one case the body has become brutish, in the other the soul." Reason, then, does not require that sensible men become either unfeeling in the face of such misfortunes or excessively afflicted by them: the one is unyielding and beastlike, the other is dissolute and womanish.
The reasonable man is one who keeps to his own proper measure and is able to bear gracefully both the pleasant and the painful things that happen in life, and who has grasped beforehand that, just as in a democracy the offices are allotted by lot, and one who is chosen must rule while one who is not chosen must bear his fortune without resentment, so too one must follow the distribution of affairs blamelessly and obediently. For this is
something those who cannot do even in good fortune could not bear wisely and with moderation. For among the things well said there is this too, in the manner of a precept: "Let no piece of good fortune, however great, so exalt you that you think more highly of yourself than you ought, nor, if some hardship befalls you, be brought low again; but always remain yourself, safeguarding your own nature securely — as gold is tested
in fire. It belongs to educated and self-controlled men to remain the same both toward what seem to be good fortunes and, toward misfortunes, to guard nobly what is fitting." For it is the work of good sense either to guard against evil that is approaching, or to correct it once it has occurred, or to reduce it to the smallest extent, or to prepare for oneself a manly and noble endurance. For indeed, concerning the good, practical
wisdom operates in four ways: either acquiring good things, or guarding them, or increasing them, or using them skillfully. These are the standards of prudence and of the other virtues, and they must be applied to both kinds of fortune. For there is no man who is happy in all things — yes, by Zeus: what is fated cannot be made unfated. For just as among plants there is at one time abundance of fruit and at another barrenness,
and among animals at one time abundant offspring and at another sterility, and at sea calm weather and storms, so too in life many and varied circumstances arise that turn men's fortunes to their opposites. Looking upon these, one might not unreasonably say: "Not on all good things did Atreus beget you, Agamemnon. You must both rejoice and grieve,
for you were born mortal. Even if you do not wish it, the will of the gods will nevertheless prevail." And there is also the saying of Menander: "If you alone, dear child, of all men had been born on the condition that, when your mother bore you, you would go through life doing whatever you wished and always faring well, and some god
had made this agreement with you, then you would be right to be indignant, for he has deceived you and done something monstrous. But if you drew the common air on the same terms as the rest of us — to speak to you rather in tragic style — you must bear these things better and reckon with them. The sum of the matter is: you are a human being, and no living creature undergoes a swifter reversal from
the heights to lowliness once more. And rightly so: for being by nature the weakest of creatures, man is set in charge of the greatest affairs, and when he falls, he shatters a great many good things. But you have not lost overwhelming and extraordinary blessings, dear child; what now afflicts you is a moderate evil. So bear what remains as something falling between the two extremes." But even though matters stand thus, some people are so senseless because of their folly, and so vainly boastful, that
lifted up a little by an abundant excess of money, or by the greatness of some office, or by certain positions of political precedence, or by honors and reputation, they threaten those weaker than themselves and grow insolent, not considering the instability and insecurity of fortune, nor that lofty things easily become lowly and lowly things again are raised on high, shifting with the swift-turning changes of fortune. To seek
something stable among unstable things is to reason wrongly about affairs; for as the wheel turns, now one part of the rim is uppermost, now another. The best remedy against grief, then, is reason, and the preparation gained through it against all the changes of life. For one must know not only that one is by nature mortal oneself, but also that one shares by lot in a mortal life
and in circumstances that easily shift to their opposite. For truly, the bodies of men are mortal and short-lived, and mortal too are their fortunes and passions, and, simply put, everything in life, which a mortal cannot escape or evade at all, but "the depth of unseen Tartarus presses him down with hammered bonds of necessity," as Pindar says. Hence it was rightly that Demetrius of Phalerum, when Euripides had said,
"prosperity is not secure but short-lived," and that "small are the things that overthrow it, and in a single day it casts some things down from on high and lifts others up," said that in other respects he spoke well, "but it would have been better still if he had said not a single day, but a single moment of time. For the cycle is the same for the fruitful plants of the earth and for the race of mortals." For
the life of some grows, while that of others withers and is cut down again. Pindar, in another place, says: "What is anyone? What is he not? Man is a dream of a shadow" — using a most vivid and artful exaggeration, he revealed the life of men. For what is weaker than a shadow? And its dream no one else could describe so clearly. Following the same line, Crantor too,
consoling Hippocles on the death of his children, says: "For all this is what ancient philosophy as a whole says and urges. Even if we accept nothing else of it, this at least is true — that life is in many ways toilsome and hard. For even if it is not so by nature, it has come to this state of corruption because of us.
This obscure fortune has followed us from far off, indeed from the very beginning, and is attached to none of us in a healthy way; but as we grow, a certain portion of evil is mingled in with all of us: for the seeds of our being, being mortal from the start, share in this same cause, from which comes both the soul's natural deficiency and the diseases and sorrows and fate of mortals that creep upon us from that source." Now why have we turned to this subject? So that we might know that
it is nothing new for a man to suffer misfortune, but that all of us have undergone the same thing. "For fortune is unpredictable," says Theophrastus, "and terrible at snatching away what has been laboriously achieved, and at overturning what seemed to be prosperity, having no fixed season." These things, and others like them, are easy for each person to work out for himself, and also to hear from other ancient and wise men, of whom the first is the divine Homer, who said: "Nothing
more feeble does the earth nurture than man." For he says that a man never expects to suffer evil in the future, so long as the gods grant him strength and his knees move freely; but when the blessed gods bring grievous things upon him too, he bears even these unwillingly, with an enduring heart. "For such is the mind of men upon the earth, as is the day that the father of gods and men brings upon them." And elsewhere: "Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why
do you ask about my lineage? As is the generation of leaves, so too is that of men. Some leaves the wind scatters on the ground, but the flourishing forest brings forth others when the season of spring arrives; so too with the generations of men — one grows while another ceases." That he made good use of this image of human life is clear from what he says elsewhere in another passage: "On behalf of mortals
I do battle — cowardly men, who are like leaves, who at one time flourish vigorously, eating the fruit of the field, and at another time waste away lifeless, and there is no strength in them." Simonides, the lyric poet, when King Pausanias of the Lacedaemonians was continually boasting loudly of his own achievements and, with mockery, bade him say something wise, understanding the man's arrogance, advised him to remember that he was a man.
Philip, king of the Macedonians, when three pieces of good fortune were reported to him at the same time — first, that he had won at Olympia with the four-horse chariot; second, that his general Parmenio had defeated the Dardanians in battle; and third, that Olympias had borne him a male child — raised his hands to heaven and said, "O deity, set some moderate reversal against these blessings," knowing that fortune is
naturally inclined to envy great successes. And Theramenes, who became one of the Thirty Tyrants at Athens, when the house in which he was dining with a large company collapsed, was the only one saved, and while everyone was congratulating him on his good fortune, he cried out in a loud voice, "O Fortune, for what occasion, then, are you keeping me?" And not long after, he was tortured to death by his fellow tyrants. The poet appears remarkably successful in the art of consolation,
when he makes Achilles say to Priam, who had come to ransom the body of Hector, these words: "Come now, sit upon this chair, and let us allow our griefs to lie quiet in our hearts, sorrowful though we are; for there is no profit in chill lamentation. For thus have the gods spun the thread for wretched mortals, that they should live in sorrow; but they themselves are free of care. For two jars stand
on the floor of Zeus's palace, containing his gifts, one of evils, the other of blessings. To whomever Zeus who delights in thunder gives a mixture of both, that man meets now with evil, now with good; but to whomever he gives only from the jar of sorrows, he makes that man an object of scorn, and cruel hunger drives him over the bright earth, and he wanders honored neither by gods nor by mortals." And after him,
in reputation and in time, though he too proclaimed himself a pupil of the Muses, Hesiod, having likewise shut up evils in a jar, represents Pandora as opening it and scattering its abundance over every land and sea, saying as follows: "But the woman, removing with her hands the great lid of the jar, scattered its contents, and devised grievous cares for mankind. Only Hope remained there within its unbreakable house, inside,
at the rim of the jar, and did not fly out the door; for before that could happen, the lid of the jar closed it in. But countless other griefs wander among men: the earth is full of evils, and the sea is full. Diseases come upon men by day, and others by night, uninvited, bringing evils to mortals in silence, since wise Zeus took away their voice." In perfect accord with this, the comic poet, concerning those who suffer
grievously in such misfortunes, says this: "If tears were a remedy for our troubles, and the one who wept always ceased from his suffering, we would exchange tears for gold by giving it up. But as it is, circumstances pay no heed to this and take no notice of it, master, but proceed along the same path whether you weep or not. What good, then, does it do? None at all. Grief
has this fruit, as trees have theirs: tears." And Dictys, consoling Danae in her suffering, says: "Do you think that Hades cares at all for your laments, and will send back your child, if you wish to lament? Stop. But looking at the misfortunes of your neighbors you would become more at ease, if you were willing to consider how many mortals are held fast in chains, how many grow old
bereft of their children, and how many have fallen from the height of a most prosperous tyranny to nothing — these are the things you ought to consider." For he bids her take to heart the sufferings of those in equal or greater misfortune, since this will make her own lighter to bear. Here one might also invoke the saying of Socrates, who thought that if we were to pool our misfortunes together into a common store, so that each person took an equal share,
most people would gladly go away again with their own. Antimachus the poet made use of just such a method. For when his wife Lyde died, to whom he was tenderly devoted, he composed for himself, as a consolation for his grief, the elegy called "Lyde," enumerating the misfortunes of the heroes, and so making his own grief lighter by means of the sufferings of others. So it is clear that the one who consoles a grieving person must, in turn,
...showing that his misfortune is common and shared by many, and less than what has befallen others, changes the sufferer's opinion and produces in him a certain conviction that what has happened is less than he supposed it to be. Aeschylus seems rightly to rebuke those who think death an evil, speaking as follows: that mortals do not justly hate death, which is the greatest bulwark against many evils. For the one who said, "O Death the Healer, come," imitated this same thought; for truly Hades is a "harbor." It is a great thing to say with confident assurance, "Who is a slave, being unconcerned about dying?" and "Having Hades as my ally, I do not tremble at shadows." For what is harsh, what is grievous, in being dead?
The circumstances of death, however familiar and connatural they may be to us, still seem somehow, I know not how, painful. For what is strange if what is cuttable has been cut, if what is meltable has melted, if what is burnable has burned, if what is perishable has perished? For when is death present in us, or not present? And, says Heraclitus, "the same thing is in us living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old; for these things, having changed, are those, and those again, having changed, are these." For just as one can mold figures from the same clay, dissolve them, and mold them again, doing this one after another without ceasing, so too nature, from the same matter, long ago raised up our forefathers, then in succession begot our fathers, then us, and will in turn bring round others upon others. And the river of generation, flowing thus continuously, will never stop; and likewise the opposite river, that of destruction, whether called Acheron or Cocytus by the poets. The same first cause that showed us the light of the sun also leads us to gloomy Hades. And perhaps the air around us is an image of this, making day and night follow one another in turn, ushering in life and death, sleep and waking.
For this reason living is said to be a debt owed to fate, something to be repaid, which our forefathers borrowed. And this debt ought to be paid back easily and without groaning whenever the lender demands it; for so we would appear most grateful. I think, too, that nature, seeing the disorder and brevity of life, made the appointed day of death uncertain, for this was better. For if we knew it in advance, some would waste away beforehand with grief and would have died before dying. Consider also the painfulness of life, and how it is drenched with many cares, which, if we wished to enumerate, we would condemn life far too much, and we would confirm the opinion held by some that it is better to be dead than to live.
Simonides, at any rate, says of men: "small is the strength of men, their cares unavailing, in a brief span toil upon toil; and death, inescapable, hangs equally over all, for of it an equal portion is allotted both to the good and to the bad." And Pindar: "for every one blessing the immortals apportion mortals two afflictions, which fools cannot bear with grace." And Sophocles: "do you grieve for a mortal man who has perished, not knowing whether death brings any gain?" And Euripides: "do you know the nature of mortal affairs? I think not — how could you? But listen to me: death is owed by all mortals, and there is no one among them who knows for certain whether he will be alive tomorrow; for where the outcome of fortune will lead is unseen."
Since, then, the life of men is of the sort these poets describe, how is it not more fitting to congratulate those released from its servitude than to pity and lament them, as most people do out of ignorance?
Socrates used to say that death resembles either the deepest sleep, or a long and lasting journey abroad, or, thirdly, a kind of destruction and disappearance of both body and soul — and that in none of these is it an evil. And he went through each point in turn, taking the first one first: "if death is a kind of sleep, and nothing evil happens to those who sleep, then clearly nothing evil could happen to those who have died either. And that the deepest sleep is the sweetest, what need is there even to say? The fact itself is plain to all men, and Homer too bears witness to it, saying of such sleep, 'unwakable, sweetest, most like to death'; and elsewhere he says this too: 'there he encountered Sleep, brother of Death,' and 'Sleep and Death, twin brothers' — showing by that image their likeness, for twins above all display likeness. Again, somewhere he calls death 'sleep of bronze,' hinting at our lack of sensation. Nor did the one who called sleep 'the lesser mysteries of death' seem to speak without art; for sleep is truly an initiation, a preliminary rite, for death."
And very wisely too the Cynic Diogenes, when overtaken by sleep and about to depart from life, said, when the physician woke him and asked whether anything troubled him: "Nothing," he said, "for the brother is only getting ahead of the brother" — meaning that Sleep was merely anticipating Death.
If, again, death resembles a journey abroad, not even so is it an evil; perhaps it is even the opposite — a good. For to live unenslaved to the flesh and its passions, by which the mind, dragged down, is filled with mortal folly, is something happy and blessed. "For the body," says Plato, "affords us countless distractions because of the necessary provision of food, and further, if any diseases befall it, they hinder our pursuit of reality; and it fills us with desires and fears and phantoms of every kind and with so much nonsense that, as the saying truly goes, because of it we are never able, in any real sense, to think clearly about anything at all. For wars and factions and battles are produced by nothing other than the body and its desires; for all wars come about on account of the acquisition of wealth, and we are compelled to acquire wealth because of the body, being enslaved to its service; and because of all this we have no leisure for philosophy. And the last point of all is that, even if we do get some leisure from it and turn to consider something, it keeps intruding everywhere into our inquiries, producing confusion and disturbance and astonishment, so that we are unable, because of it, to discern the truth. In fact it has truly been shown to us that if we are ever to know anything purely, we must be freed from the body and view the things themselves with the soul alone. And then, it seems, we shall have what we desire and what we claim to love — namely wisdom — once we have died, as the argument indicates, but not while we are alive. For if it is not possible to know anything purely together with the body, then one of two things holds: either knowledge cannot be attained at all, or only after death; for only then will the soul be by itself, apart from the body — not before. And while we live, it seems we shall come closest to knowing if we have as little as possible to do with the body and do not associate with it, except so far as is entirely necessary, and are not infected by its nature, but keep ourselves pure from it, until god himself releases us. And in this way, freed from the folly of the body, we shall, in all likelihood, be among beings of the same kind, seeing through ourselves everything that is unmixed — and this is the truth; for it is perhaps not permitted for the impure to lay hold of the pure." So that even if death does seem to be a transfer to another place, it is not an evil; indeed it may even turn out to be among the good things, as Plato showed.
For this reason Socrates also spoke most wondrously to his judges: "To fear death, gentlemen, is nothing other than to seem wise without being so; for it is to seem to know what one does not know. For no one knows whether death does not happen to be the greatest of all goods for a man, and yet men fear it as though they knew for certain that it is the greatest of evils." Nor does the one who said, "let no one fear death, a release from toils, but rather fear the greatest of evils," seem out of harmony with this. And it is said that the divine bears witness to these things too, for we have received an account of many who, because of their piety, obtained this gift from the gods. Of these I will pass over the rest, sparing the proportions of my composition, but I will recall those that are best known and on everyone's lips.
First, then, I will relate to you the story of Cleobis and Biton, the young men of Argos. For they say that their mother, who was priestess of Hera, when the time came for the procession up to the temple, and the mules that drew the wagon were late while the hour pressed on, these young men put themselves under the yoke of the wagon and drew their mother to the temple. And she, overjoyed at the piety of her sons, prayed that the best thing possible among men be given to them by the goddess; and they, having lain down to sleep, never rose again, the goddess having granted them death as the reward of their piety.
And concerning Agamedes and Trophonius, Pindar says that, having built the temple at Delphi, they asked Apollo for their wage, and he promised to pay them on the seventh day, bidding them feast in the meantime; and they, having done as instructed, lay down to sleep on the seventh night and died. It is also said that when men sent by the Boeotians, at Pindar's own urging, inquired of the god what was best for men, the prophetess answered that he himself was not ignorant of it, if indeed what was written concerning Trophonius and Agamedes applied to him; but that if he wished to test it, it would soon become clear to him. And so, upon hearing this, Pindar is said to have reckoned that it concerned his own death, and after a little time had passed, he died.
Concerning Euthynous the Italian, they say the following took place. He was the son of Elysius of Terina, a man first among the people there in virtue, wealth, and reputation, and Euthynous died suddenly from some unclear cause. Elysius then entertained the thought — as perhaps anyone else might have — that his son had perhaps perished by poison, since Euthynous was his sole heir to his great estate and fortune. Being at a loss as to how he might obtain proof of this, he went to an oracle of the dead, and having made the preliminary sacrifice as custom prescribes, lay down to sleep and saw a vision of the following kind. He seemed to see his own father come to him, and, having seen him, discourse with him at length about the fate of his son, and beg and entreat him to help discover the cause of the death. And his father said, "It is for this that I have come; but receive from this one here what he brings you, for from it you will learn everything about which you grieve." The young man he indicated was following him, resembling his son both in age and in bearing, and he asked who this was. And the father said, "I am the guardian spirit of your son," and thereupon handed him a small written tablet. Unrolling it, he saw inscribed these three lines: "Truly the minds of men wander foolishly in their ignorance. Euthynous lies dead by a fated death; for it was not good for him to live, nor for his parents either."
Such, then, are these tales as recorded among the ancients as well. But if indeed death is a complete destruction and dissolution of both body and soul — for this was the third of Socrates' comparisons — not even so is it an evil; for according to this view a kind of insensibility occurs, and a release from all pain and care. For just as no good attaches to us in that state, so neither does any evil; for just as the good is naturally present with regard to what exists and has substance, in the same way is the evil as well; but with regard to what does not exist, but has been removed from among existing things, neither of these applies. Those who have died, therefore, are placed in the same condition as before birth. Just as, then, nothing was good or evil for us before birth, so too nothing is after death. And just as the things before us were nothing to us, so too the things after us will be nothing to us; for truly no pain touches a corpse.
For I call not being born equal to dying; the same condition holds after death as before birth. But do you suppose there is a difference between not being born at all, and having been born, then ceasing to be? Unless you also suppose there is some difference between our house or our clothing, after their destruction, and the time before they were made. But if in those cases there is no difference, clearly there is none in the case of death either, compared with the condition before birth. Graceful indeed is the saying of Arcesilaus: "This thing called an evil, death, alone among the other things reckoned as evils, has never yet grieved anyone while present, but grieves only when absent and anticipated." For indeed many die because of the worthlessness of, and the slander cast upon, death, in order that they may not die well. Rightly, then, Epicharmus says: "It was compounded, and it was dissolved, and it departed again to whence it came — earth to earth, and spirit above. What is harsh in this? Nothing at all." And Cresphontes, somewhere in Euripides, speaking of Heracles, says: "For if he dwells beneath the nether earth, among those no longer existing, he would have no power" — one could rephrase this and say just as truly: "if he dwells beneath the nether earth, among those no longer existing, he would suffer nothing."
Noble too is the Laconian saying: "Now it is we who flourish, before us it was others, and presently it will be others still, whose generation we shall no longer see"; and again: "those who died, having accounted neither living nor dying as the noble thing, but rather the doing of both of these nobly." And very nobly too does Euripides speak, concerning those who endure long illnesses: "I hate those who wish to prolong life, by means of foods and...
food and drink and magic spells, diverting the channel so as to avoid death. Such people, once they can be of no further use to the earth, ought to die, be gone, and get out of the way of the young." And Merope, uttering manly words, stirs the theaters when she says such things as: "My children are dead, and not to me alone of mortals, nor have I alone been deprived of a husband; countless others have drained to the dregs the same life as I have." To these lines one might fittingly attach: "Where now are those solemn things? Where is Croesus, the great lord of Lydia, or Xerxes who yoked the heavy neck of the Hellespontine sea? All have gone to Hades and to the House of Forgetfulness, their wealth destroyed along with their bodies."
But indeed, someone may say, it is untimely death above all that moves the many to grief and lamentation. Yet even this is so easily consoled that it has been observed even by ordinary poets, and has found its consolation. Consider what one of the comic poets says on this subject to a man grieving over an untimely death: "Then, if you knew that this life, which he did not live out, would have brought him good fortune had he lived, his death was untimely; but if this life would in turn have brought him some irreparable harm, then perhaps his death has proved kinder to you than life would have been." Since, then, it is unclear whether it was to his advantage that he ceased from life and was released from greater evils, or not, we ought not to bear it so heavily, as though we had lost all we thought to gain from him.
Indeed the Amphiaraus of the poet does not seem to console the mother of Archemorus badly, when she was distressed that her child, being an infant, had died all too untimely a death. For he speaks thus: "No mortal has ever been born who does not suffer. He buries children and in turn begets new ones, and he himself dies; and at this mortals grieve, carrying earth to earth. But it is a necessity that life be reaped like a fruitful ear of corn, and that one man live while another does not. Why must we lament these things, which we must pass through according to nature? Nothing that is necessary is dreadful to mortals."
For, in general, one ought to consider — reasoning earnestly both with oneself and with another — that it is not the longest life that is best, but the most earnest one. For it is not the man who has played the lyre the most, or spoken in public the most, or piloted a ship the longest who is praised, but the one who has done it well. For the good must be reckoned not by length of time, but by virtue and by fitting proportion; this is held to be happy and dear to the gods. It is for this reason, at any rate, that the poets have handed down to us that the most eminent of the heroes, even those born of gods, departed from life before old age — like that one whom "Zeus who bears the aegis and Apollo loved with every kind of affection in his heart, yet he did not reach the threshold of old age." For it is timeliness rather than longevity that we everywhere observe to hold the first place. And indeed, among plants too, the best are
those that produce the most fruit in a short span, and among animals, those from which in no great time we derive much benefit for our life. And, of course, whether a span is long or short seems to make no difference at all when set against unending eternity. For a thousand years, or ten thousand, according to Simonides, are but an indeterminate point, or rather the smallest fraction of a point. Since indeed, if those animals which they say occur around the Black Sea have but a single day's life — born at dawn, in their prime at midday, and growing old and completing their life by evening — would not this same experience of ours have been theirs as well, if some human soul and power of reasoning had been present in each of them, and the same things would surely have befallen them: those that failed before midday causing lamentation and tears,
while those that lived through the whole day would be accounted altogether fortunate? For the measure of life is what is good and honorable, not length of time; and we must regard as foolish and full of great naivety such exclamations as "But he ought not to have been snatched away while young." For who could say what ought to have happened? There are many other cases too concerning which one might say "this ought not to have been done," and yet it has been done, and is being done, and will often be done again. For we have not come into life to legislate, but to submit to what has been ordained by the gods who govern the whole, and to the statutes of fate and providence. What then? Do those who mourn for such people who have died in this way mourn for their own sake, or for the sake of the departed? If for their own sake, because they have been deprived
of the pleasure, or usefulness, or care in old age that came from the dead, then the pretext for their grief is self-regarding; for they will be shown to be longing not for those persons themselves, but for the benefits derived from them. But if they mourn for the sake of the dead, then, once they understand that the dead are in no evil condition, they will be freed from their grief, persuaded by the ancient and wise saying which advises us to make good things as great as possible, and to diminish and
belittle evil things. If, then, grief is a good thing, we must make it as extensive and as great as possible; but if, as truth in fact holds, we agree that it is an evil, we must contract it and make it as small as possible, and erase it as far as we can. That this is easy is made clear by the following consolation. They say that one of the ancient philosophers, coming in to Queen Arsinoe
as she mourned her son, made use of such an argument, saying that at the time when Zeus was distributing honors among the divinities, Grief happened not to be present, and came later, after the honors had already been distributed. So then Zeus, since Grief demanded that an honor be given to her too, being at a loss because all the honors had already been used up on the others, gave her this one: the honor that occurs in connection with those who have died — that is, tears and
sorrows. "Just as, then, the other divinities are loved by those whom they honor, so also is Grief." "If, then, you dishonor her, woman, she will not come near you; but if she is carefully honored by you with the honors given to her — grief and lamentation — she will love you and will always be present with you in some such way, so as to be continually honored by
you." This man seems to have persuaded the woman most remarkably by his argument, and to have taken away her grief and her laments. And in general one might say to the mourner: "Will you ever cease from your distress, or do you think you must grieve forever, throughout your whole life? For if you remain forever in this state of suffering, you will bring upon yourself complete wretchedness and
the bitterest misery, through weakness and cowardice of soul. But if you will at some point change, why do you not change now, and draw yourself up out of your misfortune at once? For whatever arguments you will use, as time goes on, to free yourself from grief, attend to these very arguments now, and free yourself from your affliction. For even in the case of bodily ailments, the quickest path to recovery is the better one. So whatever you intend to grant to time,
grant it now to reason and to education, and free yourself from your troubles." "But," he says, "I did not expect this to happen to me, nor did I anticipate it." But you ought to have anticipated it, and to have judged beforehand the uncertainty and nothingness of human affairs, and then you would not now have been caught unprepared, as though suddenly attacked by enemies. For Theseus, in Euripides, appears to have been well prepared for such things; for he says: "I, having learned this from a certain wise man, cast my mind toward troubles and misfortunes, imposing upon myself exile from my own country, untimely deaths, and other paths of evil, so that if I should suffer anything of what I imagined in my mind, it might not bite me the more, coming upon me as something fresh." But those of meaner and untrained disposition sometimes take no time at all to deliberate about
what is fitting and advantageous, but turn instead to the extremes of wretched behavior, punishing a body that is guilty of nothing, and forcing parts that are not sick to suffer along with it, as the Achaean poet says. This is why Plato seems to give very good advice, when he urges that in such misfortunes one should "keep quiet, since neither the evil nor the good is clear, and nothing is gained for the future by
one who bears it badly; for grieving becomes an obstacle to deliberating about what has happened, and, just as in the fall of dice, one should arrange one's own affairs according to what has fallen, in whatever way reason judges best. One ought not, then, having stumbled, to cry out like children clutching the part that was struck, but to accustom the soul to turn as quickly as possible to healing and setting right what
has fallen and become sick, banishing lamentation by means of the healing art." They say that the lawgiver of the Lycians ordered his citizens, whenever they mourned, to mourn dressed in women's clothing, wishing to show that grief is a womanish affection and not fitting for well-ordered men who have laid claim to a liberal education. For mourning is in truth something feminine, weak, and ignoble; for women are more given to grief than men, and barbarians more than Greeks,
and inferior men more than better ones; and among the barbarians themselves, it is not the noblest — the Celts and the Galatians, and all who are by nature full of a more manly spirit — but rather, if anyone, the Egyptians and Syrians and Lydians, and all who are similar to these. Of these it is recorded that some go down into certain pits and remain there for many days, unwilling even to see
the light of the sun, since the deceased too has been deprived of it. Ion the tragic poet, at any rate, not unaware of the folly of these people, has made a certain woman say: "I have come out, a suppliant to you, the nurse of your grown children, leaving the pits of mourning." Some of the barbarians even cut off parts of the body, mutilating noses and ears and the rest of the body, thinking they are thereby doing some favor to the dead,
as they cling to what is contrary to the natural moderation of feeling that ought to prevail in such matters. But indeed, some, interposing an objection, think that mourning ought not to occur for every death, but only for untimely ones, on the ground that the dead has not obtained any of the goods reckoned as such in life — for instance, marriage, education, maturity, a public career, offices of state. These, they say, are what most grieve those who suffer misfortune in the case of untimely deaths, because they have been deprived
of their hope before it was due — not knowing that untimely death, as regards human nature, makes no difference at all. For just as, when a journey to a common homeland lies before all, necessary and inescapable, some go ahead and others follow after, but all arrive at the same place, in the same way, of those journeying toward what is fated, those who arrive later gain nothing more than
those who arrive sooner. And indeed, if untimely death is an evil, then the deaths of infants and children would be the most untimely of all, and even more so those of the newly born. But we bear the deaths of these easily and cheerfully, while we bear those of people already advanced in years with difficulty and with mourning, because of the false hopes we have built up, since we already suppose that the continuance of such people
is secure. But if the span of human life were twenty years, we would consider one who died at fifteen to have died not untimely but already having reached a sufficient measure of age; while one who completed the full term of twenty years, or came close to the number of twenty years, we would altogether have counted blessed, as having lived through the happiest and most complete of lives. And if it were two hundred years, then
one who died at a hundred years we would in every case have regarded as untimely, and turned to lamentations and dirges. It is clear, then, that so-called untimely death too is easily consoled, both for these reasons and for those stated earlier. Indeed, Troilus truly wept less than Priam, and Priam himself would have wept less had he died before his time, while his kingship and the great fortune which he later lamented were still flourishing. Consider, at any rate, what he said to
his own son Hector, urging him to withdraw from battle with Achilles, where he says: "But come within the wall, my child, that you may save the Trojan men and women, and not grant great glory to the son of Peleus, while you yourself are deprived of dear life. Pity me too, still in my senses, wretched as I am, doomed, whom the son of Cronus, my father, will destroy at the threshold of old age by a grievous fate,
after I have witnessed many evils: my sons destroyed, my daughters dragged away, my chambers plundered, and infant children dashed to the ground in dreadful slaughter, and my daughters-in-law dragged off by the cruel hands of the Achaeans. And I myself, last of all, when someone has struck me with the sharp bronze or has struck me down with a spear and taken the life from my limbs, shall be torn apart at my own front doors by ravenous dogs — the very dogs I reared
in my halls at my own table as watchdogs of my doors, who then, having drunk my blood, and their minds gone wild, will lie there at my gates. For a young man, it is altogether fitting when he is slain and torn by the sharp bronze, to lie there dead; and though he be dead, everything that shows is honorable, whatever may be seen. But when the dogs defile the grey head and the grey
beard and the private parts of an old man who has been killed, this is the most pitiable thing that befalls wretched mortals." So spoke the old man, and with his hands he tore the grey hair from his head, but he did not persuade the heart of Hector. Since, then, you have so very many examples concerning these matters, consider that death frees not a few people from great and grievous evils, which, had they lived on, they would certainly have experienced.
These things, out of regard for the proper proportion of my discourse, I have passed over, being content with what has been said, so as not to need to go beyond what is natural and moderate into fruitless mourning and ignoble lamentation. For Crantor says that not to be suffering evil through one's own fault is no small alleviation of misfortune; but I would say it is the greatest remedy for freedom from grief. And loving
and cherishing the one who has passed away does not consist in grieving for ourselves, but in benefiting the one we love; and the benefit for those who have been taken from us is the honor paid through good remembrance. For no good man deserves lamentations, but hymns and songs of praise; not mourning, but honored remembrance; not painful tears, but the yearly offerings of first fruits — if indeed the one who has passed on has come to share in some more divine life,
released from the servitude of the body and from these unwearying cares and misfortunes which those allotted a mortal life must necessarily endure, until they complete the span of life allotted to them by fate, which nature gave to us not for all time, but apportioned to each according to the measure assigned by the laws of fate. For this reason those who think rightly
ought not, in the case of those who die, to turn aside beyond what is natural and moderate in grief over fortune, into fruitless and barbarous mourning, and to wait for the very thing that has already befallen many — namely, to die worn down by their grief before they have cast it off, and to have their share in the ill-fated burial amid the very rites of mourning, suffering at once both the pains of grief and the evils that come from irrationality
...being buried along with them, so that one might quote the Homeric line: "and upon them, wailing, dark evening came." And often we ought to say to ourselves: "Well then? Shall we ever stop grieving, or shall we go on being joined to unrelenting misfortune for the whole of our life?" For to think that mourning has no end is the height of folly, even though we can see that even the most heavily grieved and most sorrowful people often become the gentlest with time; and at the very tombs over which they once agonized so bitterly, wailing and beating their breasts, they now hold splendid feasts with musicians and every other kind of diversion. It is madness, then, to suppose that grief will remain permanent in this way. But if people reasoned that it will cease once a certain thing has happened, they would also have to reckon that time evidently brings that thing about; for what has already happened cannot, even by a god, be made not to have happened. What has now occurred contrary to our hope and contrary to our expectation shows, by the very facts, what is accustomed to happen to many people.
What then? Are we truly unable to learn this through reason, or to reckon it out for ourselves — that "the earth is full of evils, and the sea is full," and that such evils beset mortals, and the spirits of death hover about them, and there is no empty entrance even into the upper air? For by many wise men, as Crantor says, human affairs have been lamented not only now but long ago, men who held that life is a punishment and that to be born a human being at all is the greatest misfortune. Aristotle says that Silenus, when captured by Midas, declared the very same thing. It is better to set down the philosopher's own words. In the dialogue entitled Eudemus, or On the Soul, he says the following:
"Therefore, O best and most blessed of all, besides holding the dead to be blessed and happy, we consider it impious to say anything false of them or to speak ill of them, on the ground that they have already become better and stronger beings. And this belief is so ancient and so old among us that no one at all knows either the beginning of the time or the one who first established it, but it has remained held as true throughout the whole of unending time. Besides this, you see that it is on everyone's lips, and has been repeated for many years." "What is that?" he asked. And the other, taking it up, said: "That not to be born at all is best of all, but that to have died is better than to live. And this has been testified by the divine power to many. This, they say, was told to Midas after the hunt, when he had caught Silenus and kept questioning and asking him what is best for human beings and what of all things is most to be chosen.
At first Silenus was unwilling to say anything, but kept an unbreakable silence; but when, with great difficulty, by every device, Midas at last induced him to utter something, forced to speak, he said: "O short-lived seed of a toilsome spirit and hard fortune, why do you compel me to tell you what it would be better for you not to know? For life is least painful when one is ignorant of one's own troubles. For human beings it is altogether impossible to attain the best thing of all, or to have any share in the nature of what is best — the best thing for all men and women alike is not to be born at all. But the next best thing, and the first among things attainable by man,
is this: having been born, to die as quickly as possible." It is clear, then, that since he declared existence in death to be better than existence in life, he made this pronouncement. One could set down countless further examples on this same topic, but there is no need to speak at length. We ought not, then, to lament for those who die young, on the ground that they have been deprived of the things generally reckoned goods in a long life;
for this, as we have said many times, is unclear — whether they happen to have been deprived of goods or of evils; for evils are by far the more numerous. We acquire goods only with difficulty and through much anxious care, while we acquire evils quite easily — for they say that evils are round and continuous, and drawn toward one another for many reasons, while goods are discrete and come together only with difficulty, and even then only near the very end of life.
We seem, then, to have forgotten that not only, as Euripides says, do "mortals possess no wealth as their own," but strictly speaking nothing of human affairs is truly ours. Therefore in every case we must say that we hold and care for what belongs to the gods; and whenever they wish, they take it back again. We ought not, then, to be aggrieved if what they lent us for a little while, they demand back again — just as
bankers, as we are accustomed to say often, when the deposits they hold are called in, do not become vexed at the repayment, if they are reasonable men. To those who do not repay easily, one might fairly say: "Have you forgotten that you received this on condition of repaying it?" This is exactly the situation of all mortal beings. We hold our life as though deposited with us by the gods out of necessity, and there is no fixed time set for its repayment,
just as there is none for bankers regarding the repayment of deposits, but it is unclear when the one who gave it will demand it back. How, then, is a man who is himself about to die, or who is excessively grieved over the death of his children, not plainly forgetting that he himself is a human being, and that he has begotten mortal children? For it is not the mark of a sane person to be ignorant that man is a mortal creature, or that he has been born
in order to die. If, then, Niobe, according to the myths, had readily entertained the thought that even one flourishing in life and laden with the growth of children would one day see the sweet light no more, she would not have been so distressed as even to wish to abandon life itself because of the magnitude of her misfortune, and to call upon the gods to be snatched away herself to the most grievous destruction. There are two
of the Delphic maxims most necessary for life: "Know thyself" and "Nothing in excess"; for upon these all the others depend. These sayings are in harmony and accord with one another, and each seems, so far as it can, to be revealed through the other. For within "know thyself" is contained "nothing in excess," and within the latter is contained
"know thyself." Hence Ion speaks of the first of these thus: "Know thyself — this saying is not a great one in words, but its accomplishment is as great as Zeus alone among the gods can know." And Pindar says that the wise men also praised the saying "nothing in excess" exceedingly. Whoever, then, keeps these things in mind as sound precepts from the Pythia, applicable to all
the affairs of life, will be able to apply them easily and to bear those affairs with grace, looking both to his own nature and to the need not to be carried, beyond what is fitting, either into arrogance amid good fortune, or into abasement and collapse into wailing and lamentation, on account of the soul's weakness and the fear of death implanted in us through ignorance of what is accustomed to happen in
life according to the portion allotted by necessity or fate. Well did the Pythagoreans exhort us, saying: "Whatever pains mortals have by divine fortunes, whatever portion you have, bear that portion and do not be aggrieved." And the tragedian Aeschylus says: "It belongs to just and wise men not to rage against the gods even amid terrible things." And Euripides says: "Whoever among mortals submits to necessity
is wise in our judgment, and understands the divine." And elsewhere: "Whoever among mortals bears well what befalls him seems to me to be the best man and truly to have self-control." But the majority find fault with everything, and believe that everything that happens to them contrary to their hopes comes about through the malice of fortune and of the spirits. Hence they lament over everything, groaning and blaming their own misfortune.
To such people one might justly reply, taking up the words: "God gives you no trouble at all — you yourself are the cause," and it is folly and derangement, born of a lack of education, that is truly responsible. Because of this deceived and false opinion, then, people find fault with every death. For if someone dies while away from home, they lament, saying: "Ill-fated one — his father and revered mother will not even close his eyes." But if
someone dies in his own homeland with his parents present, they lament that he was snatched from their very hands and left the pain forever in their eyes. And if he died without a word, having said nothing to anyone, they cry out, saying: "You spoke to me no wise word that I might always remember," whereas if he had said something, they always keep that ready at hand as fuel for their grief. If death comes swiftly, they lament,
saying: "He was snatched away." If it comes slowly, they blame it, saying that he wasted away and died in torment. Every occasion is sufficient to stir up grief and lamentation. It is the poets who have set all this in motion, and first and foremost among them Homer, who says how a father laments over his son's bones as he burns them — a bridegroom, one whose death brought grief to his poor parents, and caused his parents unspeakable wailing and mourning.
And in this case it is not yet clear whether his grief is justified; but consider what follows: "an only, cherished son, amid much wealth." For who knows whether God, caring in fatherly fashion for the human race and foreseeing what is going to happen, leads some away from life before their time? Hence one should not think that what they suffer is something to be shunned — for nothing that is necessary for mortals is truly terrible, whether it comes about
through a leading cause or as a consequence of one; and most deaths occur in place of other, greater misfortunes; and for some it would not even have been advantageous to be born at all, for others it was better to die as soon as they were born, for others after advancing only a little in life, and for others in the prime of life. Toward all these kinds of death, then, one must bear oneself lightly, knowing that fate cannot be escaped; and it belongs to educated
people to have grasped, further, that those who seem to have been deprived of life before their time have merely taken the lead over us by a brief span; for even the longest life is short and a mere point compared to unending eternity, and that many of those who mourned too long soon after followed those whom they had mourned, having gained no benefit at all from their grief, but having in vain tormented themselves with
hardships. Since the span of our sojourn in life is exceedingly brief, we ought not to destroy ourselves in parched grief or in the most wretched mourning, wearing ourselves out with pains and bodily self-torment, but rather to turn toward what is better and more humane, striving earnestly to seek out men who will not share and stir up our grief through flattery, but rather those who will remove
our griefs through noble and dignified consolation, giving ear and keeping in mind that Homeric line which Hector spoke to Andromache in consoling her in turn, thus: "My strange one, do not grieve too much at heart for me; for no man will send me to Hades before my fated time; and I say that no man has escaped his fate, be he coward or
brave, once he has been born." This same fate, the poet says elsewhere, "the thread of destiny spun for him at his birth, when his mother bore him." Taking these thoughts to heart, we shall be freed from useless and empty excess of grief, since the time that lies between birth and death is altogether brief. We must therefore be careful to pass this time cheerfully and undisturbed by the pains of mourning, laying aside
the outward marks of grief, and giving thought to the care of the body and to the safety of those who live with us. It is also good to recall the arguments which, in all likelihood, we ourselves once used toward relatives or friends who found themselves in similar misfortunes, consoling and persuading them to bear the common misfortunes of life in common fashion, and human troubles in a human way, and not to be able to help others
toward freedom from grief while being of no help to ourselves through the recollection of these same arguments, by which the pain of the soul must be healed "with the healing remedies of reason," since delay must be made for anything rather than for freedom from grief. And yet, he says, the man who in any matter is "slow to act wrestles with disasters" — this saying that circulates among everyone — but far more, I think, does the man who postpones
the burdensome and hostile sufferings of his soul wrestle with what is to come with time. One should also look to those who have borne, nobly and with greatness of soul, the deaths of their sons, and endured them gently — Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, and Demosthenes the Athenian, and Dion of Syracuse, and King Antigonus, and many others both of the ancients and of our own time. Of these, Anaxagoras
we have received the account, as they say, that while engaged in natural philosophy and conversing with his associates, on hearing from one of those who brought him the news of his son's death, he paused only briefly and said to those present: "I knew that I had begotten a mortal son." And Pericles, called "the Olympian" because of his surpassing power in eloquence and understanding, on learning that both his sons had departed this life,
Paralus and Xanthippus, is said by Protagoras to have spoken as follows: "For though his sons were young men and handsome, and died within the same eight days, he bore it without excessive grief; for he held to his accustomed calm, from which he gained much benefit every day toward good fortune and freedom from pain, and toward his reputation among the many; for everyone who saw him bearing his own sorrows with vigor
thought him great-souled and manly, and superior to himself, knowing well his own helplessness in such matters." This man, immediately after the announcement of both his sons' deaths, nonetheless, crowned according to ancestral custom and dressed in white, addressed the assembly, "opening with good counsels," and further urged the Athenians on toward the war. And Xenophon the Socratic, while once sacrificing, on learning from the
messengers from the war that his son Gryllus had died fighting, took off his garland and asked in what manner he had died. When those who brought the news told him that he had fought bravely, distinguishing himself and killing many of the enemy, he fell completely silent for a short time, holding back his emotion by reasoning, then put his garland back on and completed the sacrifice, and said to the messengers:
"I prayed to the gods not that my son be immortal or long-lived — for whether that would be advantageous is unclear — but that he be good and a lover of his country, which indeed he became." And Dion of Syracuse, while sitting in council with his friends, when a disturbance and a great outcry arose in the house, on asking the cause and hearing what had happened — that his son had fallen from the
...had died after falling from the roof, he was not at all overwhelmed: he ordered the body of the deceased to be handed over to the women for the customary burial, while he himself did not set aside the business he had been deliberating about.
It is said that Demosthenes the orator emulated this man's example, though he lost his only and dearly beloved daughter. Aeschines speaks of her in the passage where, professing to accuse him, he says the following: "On the seventh day after his daughter's death, before he had mourned her or performed the customary rites, he put on a garland, dressed in white clothing, sacrificed oxen, and broke the law — he who, the wretched man, had lost the only child who had ever called him father." This man, then, meaning to accuse him rhetorically, ran through these details without realizing that in doing so he actually praises him, for setting aside his mourning and showing his love of country ahead of sympathy for his kin.
King Antigonus, on learning of the death of his son Alcyoneus, which had occurred in battle, looked with great-souled composure at those who brought him the news of the misfortune; and after pausing briefly and showing his grief, he said, "O Alcyoneus, you departed this life somewhat too late, since you rushed out against the enemy with such disregard for your own safety and without heeding either your own preservation or my advice."
Now everyone admires and is amazed at the greatness of soul of these men, but they are unable to imitate them in practice, because of the weakness of spirit that comes from lack of education. Yet, though there are many examples handed down to us through history, both Greek and Roman, of men who conducted themselves nobly and well at the deaths of those close to them, what has been said will suffice for setting aside the most grievous of all griefs, and the fruitless toil that goes with it, which serves no useful purpose.
For that those who excel in virtue, as being dear to the gods, pass on to what is fated, I reminded you a while ago through my earlier words, and now too I shall try to run through it very briefly, adding my testimony to what was well said by Menander: "He whom the gods love dies young." But perhaps you would reply, dearest Apollonius, that the young man was very much subject to Apollo and to the Fates, since it was under that god, once he himself had reached his fullness, that you ought to have been laid to rest when you departed this life — for that would be in accordance with nature, our human nature, that is, though not in accordance with the providence that governs the whole and the ordering of the cosmos. But for him who has been blessed, it was not in accordance with nature to wait beyond the time allotted to him for this life here, but rather, having fulfilled it in due order, to return to the journey ordained by fate, since fate itself, as the saying goes, was already calling him to herself.
But did he die before his time? Then for that very reason he is the more fortunate, and has had no experience of evils: for, as Euripides says, "life is a name only, and what is real is misfortune, once one is born." He, however, in the very flower of his youth, departed whole and undefiled, an object of envy and admiration to all who knew him, having shown himself a lover of his father, a lover of his mother, a lover of his kin, and a lover of wisdom — in a word, a lover of humanity: respecting the elder among his friends as fathers, cherishing those of his own age and his companions, honoring his teachers, most gentle to strangers and to citizens alike, gracious and dear to all, both because of the charm of his appearance and because of his affable kindness.
But indeed that young man, having secured for all time to come the good report that becomes both your piety and his own, departed from this mortal life, as it were from a banquet, before falling into any of the unseemly excess that accompanies extreme old age.
And if the account given by the ancient poets and philosophers is true, as is likely, then for the pious among the departed there is a certain honor and precedence, as is said, and a place set apart in which their souls dwell; and you ought to have good hopes concerning your blessed son, that he has been numbered among these and dwells with them. Pindar the lyric poet says the following about the pious in Hades: "For them the strength of the sun shines during the night here below, and in meadows of red roses their suburb is shaded with frankincense and laden with golden fruit. And some of them delight in horses and in exercises, others in draughts, and others in lyres, and among them all flourishing prosperity blooms, and a lovely fragrance spreads always through that region, as they mingle all manner of offerings with far-shining fire upon the altars of the gods." And going on a little further, in another dirge speaking about the soul, he says: "But all, by a blessed fate, attain an end that releases them from toil. And the body follows death, which is mighty over all, but a living image of eternity is left behind, for that alone comes from the gods. It sleeps while the limbs are active, but to those who sleep it reveals in many a dream a judgment of pleasant and harsh things that is coming."
Now the divine Plato has said a great deal about the immortality of the soul in his dialogue On the Soul, and no little in the Republic, the Meno, and the Gorgias, and scattered remarks in the other dialogues as well. The statements made in the dialogue On the Soul I shall present to you set down separately in my own notes, as you requested; but for the present purpose, what was said to Callicles the Athenian, a companion and pupil of Gorgias the orator, will be timely and useful. For the Socrates of Plato says: "Listen, then," they say, "to a very fine account, which you, I think, will consider a myth, but which I consider a true account; for what I am about to tell you I shall tell you as being true. As Homer says, Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto divided the rule among themselves when they took it over from their father. Now there was this law concerning men, in force even in the time of Cronus, and still in effect now among the gods: that the man who has passed through life justly and piously departs, when he dies, to the Isles of the Blessed, and dwells there in complete happiness free from evils, while the one who has lived unjustly and impiously goes to the prison of justice and retribution, which they call Tartarus.
"Of these men the judges, in the time of Cronus and still recently, when Zeus had just taken over the rule, were living men judging the living, on the very day on which they were about to die. Consequently the cases were not being judged well. So Pluto and the overseers who came from the Isles of the Blessed went and told Zeus that unworthy men were coming to them from both directions. Zeus then said, 'Well, I will put a stop to this happening. For at present the cases are being judged badly, because,' he said, 'those who are being judged are judged while clothed, that is, while still alive. Many, therefore,' he went on, 'who have wicked souls are clothed in beautiful bodies, good birth, and wealth, and when the judgment takes place, many come forward to testify on their behalf, that they have lived justly. The judges, then, are overawed by these witnesses, and at the same time they themselves judge while clothed, having their own eyes and ears and their whole body wrapped as a veil before their soul. All this stands as an obstacle before them — both their own garments and those of the ones being judged.
"'First, then, we must stop them from foreknowing their death in advance, for at present they know it beforehand. This has already been arranged with Prometheus, so that he may put a stop to it. Next, they must be judged naked, stripped of all these things — for they must be judged after death. And the judge too must be naked, dead, beholding with his very soul, itself alone, the soul itself of each person the moment after he has died, bereft of all his kin and having left behind on earth all that adornment, so that the judgment may be just. Now I, having realized this before you did, have made my own sons judges: two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthys, and one from Europe, Aeacus. These, then, once they have died, shall judge in the meadow, at the crossroads from which the two roads lead, one to the Isles of the Blessed, the other to Tartarus. And those from Asia Rhadamanthys shall judge, and those from Europe, Aeacus; and to Minos I shall give the privilege of deciding as an arbiter of last resort, if the other two are at a loss over anything, so that the judgment concerning the journey of men may be as just as possible.'
"This, Callicles, is what I have heard and believe to be true; and from this account I reckon that the following follows, that death, as it seems to me, happens to be nothing other than the separation of two things from each other, the soul and the body."
Having gathered these things together for you, dearest Apollonius, and having composed them with much care, I have produced this consolatory discourse for you, which is most necessary for you both for relief from your present grief and for a respite from the most painful mourning of all. It also contains the honor due to your most god-beloved son Apollonius, an honor most longed for by those who have been consecrated — the honor that comes through good remembrance and unceasing praise for all time to come.
You will therefore do well both to be persuaded by this discourse and, in gratifying your blessed son, to turn from the profitless affliction and ruin of body and soul and come to the manner of life that is customary and natural for you. For just as, while he was living with us, he took no pleasure in seeing either you or his mother downcast, so now too, being with the gods and feasting with them, he would not be pleased by such conduct on your part. Take up, then, the resolve of a good, noble, and child-loving man, and free yourself and the young man's mother and his relatives and friends from such wretchedness, passing over to a calmer and more agreeable manner of life, one more pleasing both to your son and to all of us who care for you as is fitting.