Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Plutarch to Paccius, greeting. I received your letter late, in which you asked me to write something for you about tranquility of mind, and about the passages in the Timaeus that need a more careful exposition. At the same time our friend Eros was for some reason compelled to sail at once to Rome, having received a letter from the excellent Fundanus, urging him on with haste, as is his way. Since I had neither the time, as I had intended, to compose something suited to what you wished, nor was I willing for him to be seen arriving from us to you with hands utterly empty, I gathered together my thoughts about tranquility of mind from the notes I happened to have made for myself, thinking that you too were seeking this discourse not for the sake of a hearing that hunts after fine writing, but for practical use in life; and rejoicing that, though you have friendships with men in power and a reputation no less than that of those who speak in the assembly, you have not suffered the fate of the tragic Merops, nor has the crowd that calls such a man blessed driven you out of your natural feelings — you have often heard, and you remember, that neither does patrician rank free a man from gout, nor an expensive ring from a whitlow, nor a royal diadem from headache.
What use, then, toward freedom from pain of soul and an unruffled life, is wealth, or reputation, or power at court, unless the enjoyment of them is agreeable to those who have them, and there constantly attends them a freedom from need of what is absent? And what else is this but reasoning, habituated and trained, again and again quickly to take hold of the emotional and irrational part of the soul when it starts out of place, and not to allow it to be swept away and carried off by present circumstances? Just as Xenophon advised that we should especially remember and honor the gods when we are prosperous, so that when we come to be in need, we may confidently call upon them as already well disposed and friendly — so too, of those arguments that help against the passions, men of sense must take care before the passions arise, so that, being prepared long in advance, they may be of greater use. For just as fierce dogs, roused to fury at every sound, are calmed only by a familiar voice, so too the passions of the soul, once made savage, cannot easily be stilled unless familiar and habitual arguments are at hand to take hold of what is disturbed.
Now the man who said that "he who is going to have peace of mind must not do many things, either privately or in common," makes tranquility, in the first place, a costly thing for us, since it comes to be purchased at the price of inactivity — as if one were advising each sick man: "Poor wretch, lie quiet in your bed"; and yet insensibility is indeed a poor remedy for the body's freedom from pain. No physician of the soul is worse than one who removes its turbulence and pain by laziness, softness, and betrayal of friends, relatives, and country. Besides, it is also false that those who do not do much are at peace of mind: for then women would have to be more tranquil than men, since they spend most of their time confined to the house; yet nowadays, though "not even the north wind blows through a tender maiden's soft skin," as Hesiod says, griefs and disturbances and ill humors, arising from jealousy, superstition, ambition, and empty opinions — more than one could name — flow into the women's quarters. And Laertes, who for twenty years lived by himself in the country with only an old serving-woman to bring him food and drink, fled indeed from his country, his home, and his kingship, but kept grief as an ever-present housemate, together with inactivity and dejection.
Some men indeed are cast into despondency by the very fact of not being active, as was Achilles: "But he sat by the swift-faring ships nursing his wrath, the Zeus-born son of Peleus, swift-footed Achilles; never would he go to the assembly where men win glory, nor ever to war, but wasted his own heart away, remaining there, and longed for the war-cry and for battle." And, deeply distressed and vexed about this, he himself says: "But here I sit beside the ships, a useless burden on the earth." Hence not even Epicurus thinks that men who are ambitious and fond of honor ought to remain at rest, but rather that they should follow their own nature and engage in politics and public affairs, since they are by nature more liable to be disturbed and harmed by inactivity if they fail to obtain what they desire. But he is not being absurd, in urging on — not those who are capable of managing public affairs, but those who are incapable of keeping quiet.
One must define what is conducive to peace of mind and what to distress, not by the multitude or the paucity of one's occupations, but by what is noble and what is base: for the omission of noble deeds is no less painful and disturbing than the commission of base ones, as has been said. As for those who suppose that some one particular kind of life, taken by itself, is free from pain — as some suppose the farmer's life to be, or the bachelor's, or the king's — Menander reminds us sufficiently of the truth when he says: "I used to think, Phanias, that the rich, who have no need to borrow, did not groan through the nights, nor, tossing this way and that, cry out 'Alas!', but slept a sweet and gentle sleep" — and then he goes on to describe how he saw that the rich suffer the very same things as the poor: "Is there, then," he says, "some kinship between grief and life? It keeps company with a life of luxury, it attends a life of fame, it grows old together with a life of poverty."
But just as timid men who grow seasick while sailing, thinking they will fare better by changing from a small boat to a merchant vessel, and again from that to a trireme, accomplish nothing, since they carry their own bile and their own cowardice along with them — so exchanges of one way of life for another do not remove from the soul the things that grieve and disturb it. These are: inexperience of affairs, irrationality, the inability and lack of skill to make right use of what is present. These things trouble the rich and the poor alike; these things vex the married and the unmarried alike; because of these, men flee the public square, and then cannot bear their retirement; because of these, they pursue advancement at court, and no sooner have they attained it than they are at once weighed down by it.
The sick are hard to please because of their helplessness: they find fault with their wife, blame the doctor, and are dissatisfied with the sickbed; and of friends, as Ion says, "the one who comes is tiresome, and the one who leaves is a burden." But then, once the illness has passed and a different constitution of body has set in, health arrives, making everything friendly and agreeable. For the man who yesterday spat out eggs and fine cakes and bread made of spring wheat, today eats coarse whole-wheat bread with olives or cress gladly and eagerly. It is reasoning, once it takes root in us, that produces this kind of readiness and change toward each way of life. Alexander wept on hearing Anaxarchus discourse about the infinity of worlds, and when his friends asked him what was wrong, he said, "Is it not worth weeping, if, there being infinite worlds, we have not yet become master of even one?"
But Crates, who owned only a wallet and a worn cloak, spent his whole life playing and laughing as though at a festival. And indeed the rule over many peoples caused Agamemnon grief: "You will come to know the son of Atreus, Agamemnon, on whom Zeus laid toils continually, throughout." Diogenes, while being sold as a slave, lying down, mocked the auctioneer; and when ordered to stand up he refused, but joking and laughing said, "What if you were selling a fish?" And Socrates, philosophizing in prison, conversed with his companions; while Phaethon, having ascended into heaven, wept because no one would hand over to him his father's horses and chariot. Just as the shoe is bent to the shape of the foot, and not the other way round, so too our dispositions make our ways of life resemble themselves. For it is not habit that makes life pleasant for those who have chosen the best life, as someone has said, but it is wisdom that makes the very same life both best and most pleasant.
Therefore let us purify within ourselves the very spring of tranquility, so that external things too, as if familiar and dear to us, may work together favorably with those who deal with circumstances without harshness. For it is not right to be angry at circumstances, since they care nothing for us; but he who happens upon them, if he sets them right, fares well. For Plato compared life to a game of dice, in which one must both throw what is fitting, and, having thrown, make good use of what has fallen. Of these two things, the throw is not in our power; but the fitting acceptance of what falls to us from fortune, and the assigning to each thing its proper place, where what is our own will benefit us most and what is unwanted will least distress those who meet with it — that is our own task, if we are of sound mind.
For the unskilled and senseless in life, like the sickly in body who can endure neither heat nor cold, are thrown out of themselves by good fortune and shrink under misfortune; and they are disturbed by both, but more by themselves in both, and no less by what are called goods. For Theodorus, the man called the Atheist, used to say, while offering his arguments with his right hand, that his hearers received them with their left; and the uneducated, often receiving fortune, though it is offered them with the right hand, in a left-handed manner, behave disgracefully. But the wise, just as bees draw the sharpest and driest honey from thyme, so too often take from the most difficult circumstances something that is their own and useful to them.
This, then, is what one must first practice and study — like the man who, missing the dog with his stone and hitting his stepmother instead, said, "Not so bad, after all" — for it is possible to redirect fortune away from what is unwanted. Diogenes was driven into exile — not so bad, after all, for it was after his exile that he began to practice philosophy. Zeno of Citium had one cargo ship left; and when he learned that it had been lost, cargo and all, wrecked in a storm, he said, "Well done, Fortune, driving us to the cloak and the Stoa!"
What, then, keeps us from imitating such men? Did you fail at the very start of some undertaking? You will live in the country, tending your own affairs. But were you rebuffed in seeking the friendship of a ruler? You will live free of danger and free of trouble. Again, have you become involved in affairs full of occupation and care? "Not even so much warm water will soften weary limbs," as Pindar says, as glory does, and being honored, together with some measure of power, which make toil pleasant and hardship easy to bear. But has some misfortune and public disgrace befallen you through slander or envy? A favoring wind blows you toward the Muses and the Academy, as it did for Plato when he was caught in the storm of his friendship with Dionysius. Hence this too is a great aid toward tranquility of mind: to look to famous men, and see whether they too have not suffered the same things.
Is it childlessness that grieves you? Look at the kings of the Romans, not one of whom left his rule to a son. Are you weighed down by present poverty? And who would you rather be — of the Boeotians, than Epaminondas? Or of the Romans, than Fabricius? But has your wife proven unfaithful? Have you not read the inscription at Delphi: "King Agis, of the wet and the dry, dedicated me"? Have you not heard that his wife Timaea was seduced by Alcibiades, and that, whispering to her maidservants, she used to call the child that was born Alcibiades? Yet this did not prevent Agis from being the most illustrious and greatest of the Greeks — just as it did not prevent Stilpo, the most cheerful of the philosophers of his time, from living most happily, though his daughter was unchaste. And when Metrocles reproached him for it, he said, "Is this fault mine, then, or hers?" And when Metrocles said, "Hers is the fault, but yours the misfortune," Stilpo replied, "How do you mean? Are not faults also failures?" "Quite so," said Metrocles. "And are not failures the failures of those whose failures they are, and misses?" Metrocles agreed to this too. "And are not misses the misses of those whose misses they are, and misfortunes?" By this gentle and philosophical argument he showed the Cynic's abuse to be an empty bark.
Most people are vexed and provoked to anger not only by the misdeeds of friends and relatives, but also by those of their enemies. For abusive words, fits of anger, envy, malice, and jealousy, together with ill will, are indeed the banes of those who possess them, but they also trouble and provoke fools — just as, no doubt, the irascibility of neighbors, the difficult tempers of acquaintances, and certain failings of those who serve under us in our affairs do too. And it seems to me that you yourself are not least disturbed by such things, so that, like the physicians in Sophocles who purge bitter bile with a bitter drug, you grow harsh in turn and become embittered together with the passions and maladies of others — and not reasonably so. For the affairs you have been entrusted to manage are carried out, for the most part, not by simple and decent characters, as by well-fitted instruments, but by crooked and jagged ones.
Do not think it your task to straighten these men out, nor is this in any case easy; but if you deal with them as being naturally such as they are, like a physician with his forceps and cauterizing tools, and show yourself, so far as circumstances allow, mild and moderate, you will find more pleasure in your own disposition than you will suffer pain from the unpleasantness and depravity of others. And just as, when dogs bark, you will suppose that they are only doing what is proper to their nature, so you will avoid gathering up many griefs, which flow together as into a hollow and low-lying place — this pettiness of spirit and weakness, filling itself up with the troubles of others.
For whereas some philosophers even find fault with the pity felt toward men in misfortune, holding that it is a fine thing to help one's neighbors, not to share their suffering and give way along with them; what is more — and this is a greater point — they do not even allow men, when they are themselves aware of their own faults and find themselves in a bad moral condition, to be despondent and distressed over it, but hold that vice must be treated without pain: consider, then, how unreasonable it is to be vexed at ourselves because not all who deal with us and approach us are fair-minded and agreeable, but are instead burdensome and difficult.
But watch, dear Paccius, lest we fail to notice that it is not the general depravity of those we deal with, but rather some kind of self-love, not hatred of wickedness, that we put forward and are apprehensive about, when it touches ourselves. For violent alarms about practical affairs, and undeserved eager pursuits and rejections, or again aversions and slanders, breed in us suspicions and ill feeling toward men, because of which we seem, in some cases, to be robbed of things, and in others, to fall into misfortunes. But he who has grown accustomed to deal lightly and moderately with circumstances becomes the most agreeable and gentlest of men in his dealings with others. Hence let us take up again that argument concerning circumstances.
For just as, in a fever, all things taste bitter and unpleasant to those who partake of them, but when we see others eating the same food without being disgusted, we no longer blame the food or the drink, but ourselves and our disease — so too, with regard to circumstances, we shall cease finding fault and being discontented, if we see others accepting the very same things without pain and with cheerfulness. It is a good thing, then, toward tranquility of mind, in the face of unwanted misfortunes, not to overlook such things as are agreeable and pleasant that are present to us, but rather, by mingling them in, to dim out what is worse with what is better.
As it is, though we turn our eyes away from things that are overly bright, since they injure our sight, and soothe them with the fresh colors of flowers and grass, we instead strain our mind toward what is distressing and force it to dwell on calculations of painful things, all but tearing it away by force from what is better. And yet, as to the
the busybody is not unpleasant to transfer here as well: "Why, most malicious of men, do you see so sharply another's evil, but overlook your own? Why, blessed one, do you stare so intently at your own trouble and always keep it vivid and fresh, while you do not turn your mind to the good things present to you? Instead, like cupping-glasses that draw off the worst matter from the flesh, you gather to yourself the worst of your own affairs" — no better than the Chian who, selling much good wine to others, went about tasting for himself in search of something sour for his own dinner. And a household slave, when asked by someone else what he had left his master doing, replied, "With good things at hand, searching for something bad." For most people likewise pass over the wholesome and pleasant parts of their own lives and run toward what is troublesome and hard to bear.
Aristippus, however, was not of this sort, but, like a good man on a balance-scale, was skilled at raising and lightening himself by weighing things toward the better side. Having lost a fine piece of land, he asked one of those who made a great show of sharing his distress and indignation, "Don't you have just one small plot, while three farms are left to me?" And when the man agreed, he said, "Then should not I be sympathizing with you, rather than you with me?" For it is madness to grieve over what is lost and not rejoice over what is preserved, but instead, like small children, if someone takes away one of their many toys, to throw down all the rest and weep and cry out — in the same way, when we are troubled by fortune over one thing, we make everything else useless to ourselves by lamenting and being distressed. "And what do we have?" someone might say. But what do we not have? One man has reputation, another a household, another a marriage, and to another a good friend belongs. Antipater of Tarsus, at the point of death, reckoning up the good things that had fallen to his lot, did not even omit the fair voyage he had once had from Cilicia to Athens.
We ought not overlook the common blessings either, but set some value on them and rejoice that we live, that we are healthy, that we see the sun; that there is neither war nor civil strife; but the earth lies open for farming and the sea for sailing without fear to those who wish it; and it is possible to speak and to act and to be silent and to have leisure. We shall find more cheer in these things while they are present if we do not, by imagining their absence, keep reminding ourselves how longed-for health is to the sick, and peace to those at war, and how painful it is to win reputation in so great a city, and friends, when one is unknown and a stranger — and how grievous it is to be deprived of things once one has had them. For each thing does not become great and precious to us only when it is lost, while, so long as it is preserved, it counts for nothing; for the fact of its not existing adds no value to anything. Nor should we acquire things as though they were great and then always tremble with fear of losing what we hold, as though it were something great, while at the same time, while we have them,
overlook and despise them as worth nothing — but rather make the most use of them for the sake of joy and enjoyment, so that if losses do occur, we may bear them more gently. Most people, as Arcesilaus used to say, think they must examine other people's poems and paintings and statues closely and in every detail, going over each one carefully with both mind and eye, and yet they let their own life pass by without the many pleasant reviews it could offer, always looking outward and admiring the reputations and fortunes of others — like adulterers who admire other men's wives while despising themselves and what belongs to them. And yet this too contributes greatly to cheerfulness: to look above all to oneself and to one's own affairs, or failing that, to look at those who are worse off, and not, as most people do, to measure oneself against those who surpass them.
For instance, prisoners in chains count the freed as fortunate, and the freed count the free-born, and the free-born count the citizens, and citizens in turn count the wealthy, and the wealthy count the satraps, and the satraps count the kings, and the kings all but wish to thunder and lighten like the gods. And so, always lacking what is above them, people never feel gratitude for what belongs to them. "I care nothing for the wealth of golden Gyges; envy has never yet seized me, nor do I admire the works of the gods, nor do I aspire to great tyranny — such things are far removed from my sight." That man was a Thasian; but another, a Chian, or a Galatian, or a Bithynian, is not content, whatever share of honor or power he has attained among his own countrymen, but weeps because he does not wear the patrician stripe; and if he does wear it, because he is not yet a praetor of the Romans; and if he is praetor, because he is not consul; and being consul, because he was proclaimed not first but second. What is this but gathering excuses for ingratitude, so as to punish and condemn oneself before fortune?
But the man of sense, mindful of things that bring safety, of the sun that looks out over the countless men, all of them broad-earth's, who gather the fruit of the ground, does not sit lamenting and humbled because he is less famous or less rich than some, but because, among so many myriads upon myriads, he lives more decently and better than most — praising his own guardian spirit, and proceeding on his way through life. For at Olympia it is not possible to win by choosing one's opponents; but in life circumstances allow a man who surpasses many to think highly of himself, and to be envied rather than to envy others — provided, that is, you do not make yourself a rival of Briareus or of Heracles. So, whenever you are greatly struck with admiration for someone as superior because he is carried in a litter, stoop down and look also at the men who are carrying him; and whenever you count that famous Xerxes blessed as he crosses the Hellespont on his bridge,
look also at the men digging through Mount Athos under the lash, and those whose ears and noses were cut off because the bridge was broken apart by the surge, and consider at the same time their state of mind — that they in turn count your life and your circumstances blessed. When Socrates heard one of his friends say how expensive the city was — "Chian wine costs a mina, purple dye three minas, a pint of honey five drachmas" — he took the man and led him to the barley-meal: "a half-measure for an obol — the city is cheap"; then to the olives: "two coppers a quart — the city is cheap"; then to the cloaks: "ten drachmas — the city is cheap." So we too, whenever we hear someone say how small and terribly meager our own circumstances are because we hold no consulship or governorship, may reply, "our circumstances are splendid, and our life is enviable — we do not beg, we do not carry burdens, we do not flatter."
Nevertheless, since through foolishness we have grown accustomed to live more by reference to others than to ourselves, and since our nature has a large share of envy and malice, and does not rejoice so much in its own goods as it is pained by the goods of others — do not look only at the brilliant and celebrated aspects of the people you envy and admire, but draw back and part, as it were, a bright curtain from their reputation and outward show, and get inside, and you will see many troubles and much unpleasantness residing within them. Take that famous Pittacus, of whom there was great renown for courage, wisdom, and justice: he was entertaining guests when his wife came in in a rage and overturned the table; and when the guests were dismayed, he said, "Each of us has some trouble; whoever has only mine is doing very well."
"This man is thought blessed in the marketplace, but once he opens his door, thrice wretched: his wife rules everything, gives orders, is forever quarreling. I suffer from many things; I from none." Many such troubles, unseen by the many, attach also to wealth, reputation, and kingship, for pretension covers them over. "O blessed son of Atreus, child of fate, favored by fortune" — this is how he is congratulated from the outside, amid the mass of weapons and horses and army surrounding him; but the voices of his own passions, testifying from within against that empty glory, cry, "Great Zeus, son of Cronus, has bound me fast in heavy ruin," and, "I envy you, old man, and I envy any man who has passed through life free of danger, unknown, without renown."
It is possible, then, by such further reasonings as well, to draw off the tendency to complain against fortune, and the tendency, through admiring the possessions of neighbors, to belittle and cast down what is one's own. Cheerfulness is not least cut short by failing to use impulses that are proportioned, like sails, to one's underlying capacity, but instead, reaching after greater things with one's hopes and then failing, blaming one's guardian spirit and fortune rather than one's own folly. For the man who wants to shoot arrows with a plow, or hunt hares with an ox, is not unfortunate, nor is the man who fails to catch deer with fish-baskets and nets, nor are those against whom no evil spirit is opposed, but rather it is folly and stupidity attempting the impossible. The chief cause of this is self-love, which makes people eager to be first and eager to win, grasping insatiably at everything and in every field. For people demand not only to be rich and learned and strong and good company at table and pleasant and friends of kings and rulers of cities all at once,
but if they do not also own dogs that excel in quality, and horses, and quails, and fighting cocks, they are downcast. Dionysius the elder was not content with being the greatest of the tyrants of his time, but because he could not sing better than the poet Philoxenus, nor hold his own in conversation better than Plato, he grew angry and provoked, and threw the one into the stone quarries and sold the other, sending him off to Aegina. Alexander was not of this sort; rather, when Crison the runner, racing against him, seemed to hold back on purpose, Alexander was greatly indignant — and rightly so, for even the Homeric Achilles, adding a qualification, said, "being such as no other bronze-clad Achaean was in war; but in council others are better." As for Megabyzus the Persian, when he went up into Apelles' studio and tried to hold forth about the art, Apelles silenced him, saying, "So long as you kept quiet, you seemed to be someone, on account of your gold and purple; but now even the boys here who grind the ochre are laughing at your nonsense."
But some people think the Stoics are joking when they hear that the wise man among them is called not only prudent, just, and courageous, but also an orator, a poet, a general, rich, and a king; yet they themselves lay claim to all these things, and are distressed when they fail to attain them. And yet even among the gods, one has one power and another another — one is called Warlike, another Prophetic, another God of Gain — and Zeus sends Aphrodite off to weddings and bedchambers, as having no part in works of war. For some pursuits are not merely compatible with others but are by nature opposed to them: for instance, the practice of rhetoric and the pursuit of learning require freedom from public business and leisure, whereas political power and friendship with kings are not attained without business and preoccupations. And indeed, "wine and a surfeit of meat make the body strong and vigorous, but the soul weak"; and constant attention to and safeguarding of money increases wealth, while contempt and disregard for it is a great resource for philosophy.
Hence not everything belongs to everyone, but one must, in obedience to the Pythian inscription, come to know oneself, and then apply oneself to that one pursuit for which one is naturally fitted, and not drag one's zeal now toward one way of life, now toward another, forcing nature: "the horse for the chariot, the ox for the plow, the dolphin darts fastest alongside the ship, and for a boar plotting death one must find a stout-hearted hound." The man who is vexed and grieved that he is not also a mountain-bred lion trusting in his strength, while at the same time keeping a little Maltese lapdog nursed in the bosom of a widow, is out of his mind. No better than this man is the one who wants to be Empedocles or Plato or Democritus all at once, writing about the universe and the truth of things, while also sleeping with a rich old woman like Euphorion, or going off to revel and drink with Alexander like Medius — and who is aggrieved and distressed if he is not admired for his wealth like Ismenias, and for his virtue like Epaminondas. For runners are not disheartened because they do not win the crowns given to wrestlers,
but take delight and pride in their own; "you have been allotted Sparta; adorn that" — as Solon too said. "But we will not exchange our virtue for their wealth, since virtue is ever secure, while money passes from one man's hands to another's." And Strato the natural philosopher, on hearing that Menedemus had many times more students than he, said, "What wonder is it, if there are more people who wish to bathe than there are who wish to be anointed with oil?" And Aristotle, writing to Antipater, said, "It is not Alexander alone who has cause to think highly of himself, because he rules over many men, but no less do those who hold correct beliefs about the gods." For those who take such pride in what is their own will not be troubled by what belongs to their neighbors. As it is, we do not require the vine to bear figs, nor the olive to bear grapes; yet we ourselves,
unless we possess at once the advantages of the rich and of the learned and of soldiers and of philosophers and of flatterers and of the outspoken and of the frugal and of the extravagant, malign ourselves and feel no gratitude and despise ourselves as living meagerly and cheaply. And besides this, we can see that nature herself reminds us of this truth. Just as she provided different food for different animals, and did not make all of them carnivorous, or seed-gathering, or root-digging, so too she gave human beings varied resources for life — for the shepherd, the plowman, the fowler, and the man whom the sea sustains. We must choose what is suited to ourselves and work hard at it, and leave the rest to others,
and not, following Hesiod's saying, though he put it too weakly, that "potter is angry with potter, and carpenter with carpenter" — for it is not only those who share the same trade or the same way of life whom we envy, but rich men envy the learned, and the wealthy are envied by men of reputation, and pleaders at law envy sophists, and, by Zeus, free men and men of noble birth stand in stunned admiration and count blessed even comic actors thriving in the theaters, and dancers, and servants in the courts of kings — and in doing so they trouble and disturb themselves beyond measure.
...to the future in their anxieties, while the sensible make even things that no longer exist present to themselves vividly by remembering them; for the present, though it permits us to touch it for the smallest fraction of time before it escapes our perception, no longer seems to belong to us or to be ours, in the eyes of the unthinking. Rather, like the rope-twister depicted in the underworld who lets a certain donkey grazing beside him eat up what he braids,
so an insensible and ungrateful forgetfulness steals upon and consumes most people, blotting out every action, every success, every pleasant occupation, every act of fellowship and enjoyment. It does not allow life to become a unity, since the past is not woven together with the present; instead, as though today were somehow different from yesterday, and tomorrow likewise not the same as today, it makes everything that comes into being
pass at once into non-existence through failure of memory. For just as those in the philosophical schools who deny growth, on the ground that substance is in continuous flux, make each of us in theory a different person from himself and another, so those who fail to retain what came before in their memory, and do not take it back up but let it flow away, in practice make themselves each day deficient and empty and dependent on tomorrow, as though
the events of last year and the day before and yesterday had nothing to do with them and had not happened to them at all at all. This too, then, disturbs our tranquility of mind, and that even more: when, just as flies slip off the smooth places on mirrors but cling to the rough spots and scratches, so people, sliding off cheerful and pleasant things, become entangled instead in the memory of unpleasant ones — very much like
the beetles they speak of in Olynthus, which, once they fall into a certain place called the "beetle-killer," cannot get out but die there, spinning round and round in circles. In just this way people, once they have slipped down into the memory of their misfortunes, are unwilling to rise back up or even catch their breath. Instead, as on a tablet of colors, we must in the soul set forward the bright and radiant elements of our affairs and hide and suppress the gloomy ones,
for it is not possible to erase them altogether or be rid of them entirely. "For the harmony of the world is one that bends back upon itself, like that of the lyre and the bow," and among human affairs nothing is pure or unmixed. But just as in music there are low notes and high, and in grammar vowels and consonants, and the musician or the grammarian is not the one who is annoyed by and avoids one or the other, but the one who knows how to use and blend them all toward what is
fitting — so too, since human affairs have their counterparts (for as Euripides says, "good and bad could not exist apart, but there is some blending, so that things go well"), one ought not to despair over the one set of things or give up, but rather, like harmonists blunting the bad always with the better and taking in the worse elements along with the good, make the mixture of one's life tuneful
and fitting for oneself. For it is not the case, as Menander says, that a guardian spirit stands beside every man the moment he is born, a good initiator into life; rather, as Empedocles says, two fates, so to speak, and daemons take charge of each of us as we come into being and preside over our beginning: "There were Earthy and far-seeing Sun-face, and bloody Strife and stately Harmony, Beauty and Ugliness, Swiftness and Slowness,
truthful Sincerity and dark-fruited Uncertainty." Since, then, our birth has received a mixture of the seeds of all these passions, and is for this reason full of great irregularity, the person of sense prays for the better outcomes but expects the others as well, and makes use of both while removing excess. For not only "he who has the least need of tomorrow," as Epicurus says, "comes most gladly to meet
tomorrow," but wealth too gives joy, and reputation, and power, and office — and most of all to those who least dread their opposites. For intense desire concerning any given thing, by producing an equally intense fear that it will not remain, makes the pleasure weak and unstable, like a flame being blown out. But the person to whom reasoning grants the power to say to Fortune, without fear or trembling, "if you bring something sweet,
and leave but a little pain behind," is enabled by that confidence, and by not dreading the loss of these things as unbearable, to enjoy most gladly what is present. For it is possible, without merely admiring the disposition of Anaxagoras — from which, at the death of his son, he cried out, "I knew I had begotten a mortal" — actually to imitate it, and to say to each of the strokes of fortune, "I know that my wealth is short-lived and not
secure"; "I know that those who granted me office can also take it away"; "I know that my wife, though a good woman, is nonetheless a woman, and my friend, though a man, is by nature a changeable creature," as Plato said. For such preparations and dispositions, if something unwanted but not unexpected occurs, since they do not admit the thoughts "I would never have imagined this" and "I was expecting otherwise" and
"I did not foresee this," remove, as it were, the leapings and throbbings of the heart, and quickly settle again what is frenzied and disturbed. Carneades, then, used to remind people, in the case of great affairs, that the whole and entire cause of grief and despondency is the unexpected. For the kingdom of Macedon was a tiny fraction of Rome's dominion; yet when Perseus lost Macedonia he himself lamented his
own fate, and everyone thought he had become the most unfortunate and heavy-burdened of men; while Aemilius, who defeated him, on handing over to another a power that ruled virtually the whole of land and sea together, was crowned with garlands and offered sacrifice, and was congratulated as fortunate, rightly so. For the one knew that he was receiving a command that would have to be given back, while the other lost his without having expected it. The poet, too, taught well what "contrary to expectation" means: for Odysseus
wept when his dog died, but sitting beside his weeping wife felt nothing of the sort; in the latter case he had arrived with his reasoning already holding the emotion in check and forestalled, but into the former he fell suddenly, through the element of surprise, not having expected it. In general, then, since among unwanted things some by nature bring pain and heaviness, while the majority we become accustomed and taught by opinion to find distressing,
it is not without use, with regard to the latter, to have always at hand the saying of Menander: "You have suffered nothing terrible, unless you make it so." For what is it to you, he asks, if it touches neither your flesh nor your soul — such things as low birth in a father, or a wife's adultery, or the loss of some crown or seat of honor — none of which, even in their absence, prevents a person from having his body
disposed in the best condition, and his soul as well? As for the things that seem by nature to cause pain — such as sicknesses, and toils, and the deaths of friends and children — there is that line of Euripides: "Alas! But why 'alas'? We have suffered what mortals suffer." For no argument seizes hold of the passionate element as it is being carried down and slipping, so effectively as the one that brings to mind the common and natural necessity by which,
through his bodily nature, a human being gives Fortune this one single handhold, while in the things of highest authority and greatest importance he stands secure. Demetrius, on capturing the city of the Megarians, asked Stilpo whether any of his belongings had been plundered, and Stilpo replied that he had seen no one carrying off anything of "his own." And so too, though Fortune plunders and strips away everything else, we still possess something of this sort — within ourselves, something that
neither could the Achaeans carry off nor drive away. For this reason one must not utterly abase or cast down one's nature, as though it possessed nothing strong or lasting or beyond the reach of Fortune; on the contrary, one should recognize that it is only a small part of a human being that is frail and perishable — the part that admits Fortune's power — while we ourselves are masters of the better portion, in which the greatest of goods are established,
namely sound opinions and learning and reasoning that ends in virtue — these possess an essence that cannot be taken away and cannot be corrupted, making us unconquerable and confident in the face of the future, saying to Fortune what Socrates, while seeming to address his accusers, actually said to the jurors: that Anytus and Meletus can kill him, but they cannot harm him. For indeed Fortune has the power to afflict one with sickness,
to take away money, to slander one before the people or a tyrant; but it cannot make a good and manly and great-souled and noble and generous person into one who is bad, cowardly, mean-spirited, ignoble, and envious, nor can it take away that disposition, the constant presence of which is of more use for living than a pilot's skill is for the sea. For a pilot has no power to calm rough waves and
wind, nor, when he needs a harbor, to reach whichever one he wishes, nor to endure with confidence and without trembling whatever happens; rather, so long as he has not given up hope, he uses his skill and "flees, having furled his great sail," until "he raises the lower mast clear of the murky sea" — but he sits there trembling and quaking. The disposition of the wise person, by contrast, provides calm for bodily matters too, relaxing to the greatest extent the causes of illness
through self-control and a temperate regimen and moderate exertions; and if some external onset of suffering occurs, like the sweep of a reef, he passes it by "with sail trimmed low and light," as Asclepiades says; but if something unforeseen and great overtakes and overpowers him, the harbor is near, and it is possible to swim free of the body, as of a small boat that is no longer seaworthy. For it is not the desire to live but the fear of death that makes the foolish man cling
to the body, clutching it as Odysseus clung to the fig tree, dreading the Charybdis lying in wait below — "there neither wind allows one to remain nor to sail" — and so being ill at ease with the one and terrified of the other. But the person who somehow suspects the true nature of the soul, and reckons on its change at death as being either for the better or in no way worse, has
no small provision for the tranquility of his life in his fearlessness of death. For to one who can, so long as the preferable and proper portion prevails, live pleasantly, and, when the foreign elements that lie outside nature's due measure overwhelm him, depart without fear, saying, "the divinity will release me myself, whenever I wish" — what difficulty or hardship or disturbance could we imagine befalling such a man? For the one who
says, "I have forestalled you, O Fortune, and blocked off every avenue of approach for you," fortified himself not with bars or locks or walls, but with convictions and reasonings that are available to all who wish them. And one must neither despair of nor disbelieve such sayings, but, admiring and emulating and sharing their enthusiasm, at the same time make trial of oneself and gain understanding through the lesser occasions in preparation for the
greater, neither fleeing nor pushing away the soul's attention to them, nor escaping into the thought "perhaps nothing more difficult will occur"; for such sweet complacency of soul, which always spends its time on what is easiest and retreats from unwelcome things toward what is most pleasant, produces weakness and an unexercised softness. But the soul that practices facing the prospect of sickness and toil and exile, and forces
itself by reasoning to confront each of these, will find much that is false and hollow and unsound in the things that seem harsh and fearful, as the argument shows in each particular case. And yet many shudder even at that saying of Menander, "It is not possible for a living person to say, 'This I shall not suffer,'" not realizing how great a good it is for freedom from pain to be able to look Fortune in the eye with open eyes,
and not to make the images within oneself untried and soft, as though nurtured in the shade, always yielding to many hopes and resisting nothing. Yet this much we may say in reply to Menander: it is not possible for a living person to say "this I shall not suffer," but it is possible to say while living, "this I shall not do — I shall not lie, I shall not act unscrupulously, I shall not defraud, I shall not plot against another"; for this, being within our own power,
contributes not a small but a great share to tranquility of mind. Just as, conversely, the awareness that comes from knowing one has done terrible things leaves behind, like a wound in the flesh, remorse forever bloodying and stabbing at the soul; for reason removes other griefs, but repentance is produced by the mind itself, as the soul is bitten with shame and punishes itself. For just as those shivering
with chills and burning with fevers are more troubled and worse off than those who suffer the same heat or cold from an outside source, so too the sufferings that come from fortune have lighter griefs, since they are borne as coming, so to speak, from outside; but the thought "no one else is to blame for this but I myself" — lamented over one's own wrongdoing, welling up from within oneself — makes the pain heavier through shame. Hence neither a costly house, nor
an abundance of gold, nor distinction of birth, nor greatness of office, nor grace of speech, nor cleverness, provides such calm weather and tranquility for life as a soul kept pure of wicked deeds and designs, and possessing an untroubled and undefiled character as the very source of its life; from this source flow noble actions, giving one's activity an inspired and joyful quality along with a sense of high purpose, and
a memory sweeter and more secure than Pindar's "nurse of old age," hope. For it is not the case, as Carneades used to say, that only "frankincense boxes, even when emptied, continue for a long time to give off their fragrance" — for in the soul of the person of understanding, noble deeds too leave behind a recollection that is forever pleasing and fresh, from which one's joy is watered and flourishes, and one looks with contempt on those who lament and
revile life, as though it were some region of evils or a place of exile assigned here to souls. I admire, too, that saying of Diogenes, who, seeing a stranger in Sparta preparing himself and making a great show for some festival, said: "Does not a good man consider every day a festival?" — and indeed a very splendid one, if we are in our right minds; for the universe is a most holy and god-befitting temple, and
into this temple a human being is brought through birth to be a spectator not of statues made by hand and motionless, but, as Plato says, of the sensible likenesses of intelligible things which the divine mind has revealed as possessing an innate principle of life and motion — the sun and moon and stars, and rivers ever pouring forth fresh water, and the earth sending up nourishment for plants and animals. Since life is an initiation
into these things, and a most perfect rite, it ought to be full of cheerfulness and joy — not as most people do, waiting for days like the Cronia and the Diasia and the Panathenaea and other such festivals, so that they may take pleasure and let out purchased laughter, paying wages to mimes and dancers. Then there we sit in reverent silence and good order — for no one laments while being initiated, nor grieves while watching the Pythian games or drinking at the Cronia — yet
But the festivals that god provides for us, and initiates us into as into mysteries, these people dishonor, spending most of their time in lamentations, heavy-heartedness, and burdensome anxieties.
They delight in instruments that produce pleasant sounds, and in birds that sing, and they gladly watch animals at play and frisking about, while conversely they are distressed at those that howl, roar, and look sullen. Yet they see their own life as mirthless and downcast, always oppressed and crushed by the most joyless feelings, affairs, and cares that have no end — and not only do they fail to procure for themselves any breathing space or relief from any source, but they will not even accept the argument, when others urge it upon them, that by making blameless use of what is present and gratefully remembering what has happened, they will fare well, and will approach what remains with a hope that is gracious and bright, holding it without fear and without suspicion.