XIV. The only persons who are really at leisure are those who devote

themselves to philosophy: and they alone really live: for they do

not merely enjoy their own lifetime, but they annex every century

to their own: all the years which have passed before them belong

to them. Unless we are the most ungrateful creatures in the world,

we shall regard these noblest of men, the founders of divine schools

of thought, as having been born for us, and having prepared life

for us: we are led by the labour of others to behold most beautiful

things which have been brought out of darkness into light; we are

not shut out from any period, we can make our way into every subject,

{310} and, if only we can summon up sufficient strength of mind to

overstep the narrow limit of human weakness, we have a vast extent

of time wherein to disport ourselves: we may argue with Socrates,

doubt with Carneades, repose with Epicurus, overcome human nature

with the Stoics, out-herod it with the Cynics. Since Nature allows

us to commune with every age, why do we not abstract ourselves from

our own petty fleeting span of time, and give ourselves up with our

whole mind to what is vast, what is eternal, what we share with

better men than ourselves? Those who gad about in a round of calls,

who worry themselves and others, after they have indulged their

madness to the full, and crossed every patron’s threshold daily,

leaving no open door unentered, after they have hawked about their

interested greetings in houses of the most various character,—after

all, how few people are they able to see out of so vast a city,

divided among so many different ruling passions: how many will be

moved by sloth, self-indulgence, or rudeness to deny them admittance:

how many, after they have long plagued them, will run past them

with feigned hurry? how many will avoid coming out through their

entrance-hall with its crowds of clients, and will escape by some

concealed backdoor? as though it were not ruder to deceive their

visitor than to deny him admittance!—how many, half asleep and

stupid with yesterday’s debauch, can hardly be brought to return

the greeting of the wretched man who has broken his own rest in

order to wait on that of another, even after his name has been

whispered to them for the thousandth time, save by a most offensive

yawn of his half-opened lips. We may truly say that those men are

pursuing the true path of duty, who wish every day to consort on

the most familiar terms with Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, and the

rest of those high priests of virtue, with Aristotle and with

Theophrastus. None of these men will be “engaged,” {311} none of

these will fail to send you away after visiting him in a happier

frame of mind and on better terms with yourself, none of them will

let you leave him empty-handed: yet their society may be enjoyed

by all men, and by night as well as by day.

XV. None of these men will force you to die, but all of them will

teach you how to die: none of these will waste your time, but will

add his own to it. The talk of these men is not dangerous, their

friendship will not lead you to the scaffold, their society will

not ruin you in expenses: you may take from them whatsoever you

will; they will not prevent your taking the deepest draughts of

their wisdom that you please. What blessedness, what a fair old age

awaits the man who takes these for his patrons! he will have friends

with whom he may discuss all matters, great and small, whose advice

he may ask daily about himself, from whom he will hear truth without

insult, praise without flattery, and according to whose likeness

he may model his own character. We are wont to say that we are not

able to choose who our parents should be, but that they were assigned

to us by chance; yet we may be born just as we please: there are

several families of the noblest intellects: choose which you would

like to belong to: by your adoption you will not receive their name

only, but also their property, which is not intended to be guarded

in a mean and miserly spirit: the more persons you divide it among

the larger it becomes. These will open to you the path which leads

to eternity, and will raise you to a height from whence none shall

cast you down. By this means alone can you prolong your mortal life,

nay, even turn it into an immortal one. High office, monuments, all

that ambition records in decrees or piles up in stone, soon passes

away: lapse of time casts down and ruins everything; but those

things on which Philosophy has set its seal are beyond the reach

of injury: no age will discard them or {312} lessen their force,

each succeeding century will add somewhat to the respect in which

they are held: for we look upon what is near us with jealous eyes,

but we admire what is further off with less prejudice. The wise

man’s life, therefore, includes much: he is not hedged in by the

same limits which confine others: he alone is exempt from the laws

by which mankind is governed: all ages serve him like a god. If any

time be past, he recals it by his memory; if it be present, he uses

it; if it be future, he anticipates it: his life is a long one

because he concentrates all times into it.

XVI. Those men lead the shortest and unhappiest lives who forget

the past, neglect the present, and dread the future: when they reach

the end of it the poor wretches learn too late that they were busied

all the while that they were doing nothing. You need not think,

because sometimes they call for death, that their lives are long:

their folly torments them with vague passions which lead them into

the very things of which they are afraid: they often, therefore,

wish for death because they live in fear. Neither is it, as you

might think, a proof of the length of their lives that they often

find the days long, that they often complain how slowly the hours

pass until the appointed time arrives for dinner: for whenever they

are left without their usual business, they fret helplessly in their

idleness, and know not how to arrange or to spin it out. They betake

themselves, therefore, to some business, and all the intervening

time is irksome to them; they would wish, by Hercules, to skip over

it, just as they wish to skip over the intervening days before a

gladiatorial contest or some other time appointed for a public

spectacle or private indulgence: all postponement of what they wish

for is grievous to them. Yet the very time which they enjoy is brief

and soon past, and is made much briefer by their own fault: for

they run from one pleasure to another, and are not able to devote

{313} themselves consistently to one passion: their days are not

long, but odious to them: on the other hand, how short they find

the nights which they spend with courtezans or over wine? Hence

arises that folly of the poets who encourage the errors of mankind

by their myths, and declare that Jupiter to gratify his voluptuous

desires doubled the length of the night. Is it not adding fuel to

our vices to name the gods as their authors, and to offer our

distempers free scope by giving them deity for an example? How can

the nights for which men pay so dear fail to appear of the shortest?

they lose the day in looking forward to the night, and lose the

night through fear of the dawn.

XVII. Such men’s very pleasures are restless and disturbed by various

alarms, and at the most joyous moment of all there rises the anxious

thought: “How long will this last?” This frame of mind has led kings

to weep over their power, and they have not been so much delighted

at the grandeur of their position, as they have been terrified by

the end to which it must some day come. That most arrogant Persian

king,[8] when his army stretched over vast plains and could not be

counted but only measured, burst into tears at the thought that in

less than a hundred years none of all those warriors would be alive:

yet their death was brought upon them by the very man who wept over

it, who was about to destroy some of them by sea, some on land,

some in battle, and some in flight, and who would in a very short

space of time put an end to those about whose hundredth year he

showed such solicitude. Why need we wonder at their very joys being

mixed with fear? they do not rest upon any solid grounds, but are

disturbed by the same emptiness from which they spring. What must

we suppose to be the misery of such times as even they acknowledge

to be wretched, when even the joys by which they elevate themselves

and raise themselves above their fellows are of {314} a mixed

character. All the greatest blessings are enjoyed with fear, and

no thing is so untrustworthy as extreme prosperity: we require fresh

strokes of good fortune to enable us to keep that which we are

enjoying, and even those of our prayers which are answered require

fresh prayers. Everything for which we are dependent on chance is

uncertain: the higher it rises, the more opportunities it has of

falling. Moreover, no one takes any pleasure in what is about to

fall into ruin: very wretched, therefore, as well as very short

must be the lives of those who work very hard to gain what they

must work even harder to keep: they obtain what they wish with

infinite labour, and they hold what they have obtained with fear

and trembling. Meanwhile they take no account of time, of which

they will never have a fresh and larger supply: they substitute new

occupations for old ones, one hope leads to another, one ambition

to another: they do not seek for an end to their wretchedness, but

they change its subject. Do our own preferments trouble us? nay,

those of other men occupy more of our time. Have we ceased from our

labours in canvassing? then we begin others in voting. Have we got

rid of the trouble of accusation? then we begin that of judging.

Has a man ceased to be a judge? then he becomes an examiner. Has

he grown old in the salaried management of other people’s property?

then he becomes occupied with his own. Marius is discharged from

military service; he becomes consul many times: Quintius is eager

to reach the end of his dictatorship; he will be called a second

time from the plough: Scipio marched against the Carthaginians

before he was of years sufficient for so great an undertaking; after

he has conquered Hannibal, conquered Antiochus, been the glory of

his own consulship and the surety for that of his brother, he might,

had he wished it, have been set on the same pedestal with Jupiter;

but civil factions will vex the saviour of the state, and he who

when {315} a young man disdained to receive divine honours, will

take pride as an old man in obstinately remaining in exile. We shall

never lack causes of anxiety, either pleasurable or painful: our

life will be pushed along from one business to another: leisure

will always be wished for, and never enjoyed.

XVIII. Whefore, my dearest Paulinus, tear yourself away from the

common herd, and since you have seen more rough weather than one

would think from your age, betake yourself at length to a more

peaceful haven: reflect what waves you have sailed through, what

storms you have endured in private life, and brought upon yourself

in public. Your courage has been sufficiently displayed by many

toilsome and wearisome proofs; try how it will deal with leisure:

the greater, certainly the better part of your life, has been given

to your country; take now some part of your time for yourself as

well. I do not urge you to practise a dull or lazy sloth, or to

drown all your fiery spirit in the pleasures which are dear to the

herd: that is not rest: you can find greater works than all those

which you have hitherto so manfully carried out, upon which you may

employ yourself in retirement and security. You manage the revenues

of the entire world, as unselfishly as though they belonged to

another, as laboriously as if they were your own, as scrupulously

as though they belonged to the public: you win love in an office

in which it is hard to avoid incurring hatred; yet, believe me, it

is better to understand your own mind than to understand the

corn-market. Take away that keen intellect of yours, so well capable

of grappling with the greatest subjects, from a post which may be

dignified, but which is hardly fitted to render life happy, and

reflect that you did not study from childhood all the branches of

a liberal education merely in order that many thousand tons of corn

might safely be entrusted to your charge: you have {316} given us

promise of something greater and nobler than this. There will never

be any want of strict economists or of laborious workers: slow-going

beasts of burden are better suited for carrying loads than well-bred

horses, whose generous swiftness no one would encumber with a heavy

pack. Think, moreover, how full of risk is the great task which you

have undertaken: you have to deal with the human stomach: a hungry

people will not endure reason, will not be appeased by justice, and

will not hearken to any prayers. Only just a few days ago, when G.

Caesar perished, grieving for nothing so much (if those in the other

world can feel grief) as that the Roman people did not die with

him, there was said to be only enough corn for seven or eight days’

consumption: while he was making bridges with ships[9] and playing

with the resources of the empire, want of provisions, the worst

evil that can befall even a besieged city, was at hand: his imitation

of a crazy outlandish and misproud king very nearly ended in ruin,

famine, and the general revolution which follows famine. What must

then have been the feelings of those who had the charge of supplying

the city with corn, who were in danger of stoning, of fire and

sword, of Gaius himself? With consummate art they concealed the

vast internal evil by which the state was menaced, and were quite

right in so doing; for some diseases must be cured without the

patient’s knowledge: many have died through discovering what was

the matter with them.

XIX. Betake yourself to these quieter, safer, larger fields of

action: do you think that there can be any comparison between seeing

that corn is deposited in the public {317} granary without being

stolen by the fraud or spoilt by the carelessness of the importer,

that it does not suffer from damp or overheating, and that it

measures and weighs as much as it ought, and beginning the study

of sacred and divine knowledge, which will teach you of what elements

the gods are formed, what are their pleasures, their position, their

form? to what changes your soul has to look forward? where Nature

will place us when we are dismissed from our bodies? what that

principle is which holds all the heaviest particles of our universe

in the middle, suspends the lighter ones above, puts fire highest

of all, and causes the stars to rise in their courses, with many

other matters, full of marvels? Will you not[10] cease to grovel

on earth and turn your mind’s eye on these themes? nay, while your

blood still flows swiftly, before your knees grow feeble, you ought

to take the better path. In this course of life there await you

many good things, such as love and practice of the virtues,

forgetfulness of passions, knowledge of how to live and die, deep

repose. The position of all busy men is unhappy, but most unhappy

of all is that of those who do not even labour at their own affairs,

but have to regulate their rest by another man’s sleep, their walk

by another man’s pace, and whose very love and hate, the freest

things in the world, are at another’s bidding. If such men wish to

know how short their lives are, let them think how small a fraction

of them is their own.

XX. When, therefore, you see a man often wear the purple robes of

office, and hear his name often repeated in the forum, do not envy

him: he gains these things by losing so much of his life. Men throw

away all their years in order to have one year named after them as

consul: some lose their lives during the early part of the struggle,

and never reach the height to which they aspired: {318} some after

having submitted to a thousand indignities in order to reach the

crowning dignity, have the miserable reflexion that the only result

of their labours will be the inscription on their tombstone. Some,

while telling off extreme old age, like youth, for new aspirations,

have found it fail from sheer weakness amid great and presumptuous

enterprises. It is a shameful ending, when a man’s breath deserts

him in a court of justice, while, although well stricken in years,

he is still striving to gain the sympathies of an ignorant audience

for some obscure litigant: it is base to perish in the midst of

one’s business, wearied with living sooner than with working;

shameful, too, to die in the act of receiving payments, amid the

laughter of one’s long-expectant heir. I cannot pass over an an

instance which occurs to me: Turannius was an old man of the most

painstaking exactitude, who after entering upon his ninetieth year,

when he had by G. Caesar’s own act been relieved of his duties as

collector of the revenue, ordered himself to be laid out on his bed

and mourned for as though he were dead. The whole house mourned for

the leisure of its old master, and did not lay aside its mourning

until his work was restored to him. Can men find such pleasure in

dying in harness? Yet many are of the same mind: they retain their

wish for labour longer than their capacity for it, and fight against

their bodily weakness; they think old age an evil for no other

reason than because it lays them on the shelf. The law does not

enrol a soldier after his fiftieth year, or require a senator’s

attendance after his sixtieth: but men have more difficulty in

obtaining their own consent than that of the law to a life of

leisure. Meanwhile, while they are plundering and being plundered,

while one is disturbing another’s repose, and all are being made

wretched alike, life remains without profit, without pleasure,

without any intellectual progress: no one keeps death well before

his eyes, no one refrains from far-reaching {319} hopes. Some even

arrange things which lie beyond their own lives, such as huge

sepulchral buildings, the dedication of public works, and exhibitions

to be given at their funeral-pyre, and ostentatious processions:

but, by Hercules, the funerals of such men ought to be conducted

by the light of torches and wax tapers,[11] as though they had lived

but a few days.

[1] “On croit que ce Paulin étoit frère de Pauline, épouse de

Sénéque.” —La Grange.

[2] “L’un se consume en projets d’ambition, dont le succès depend

du suffrage de l’autrui.”—La Grange.

[3] “Combien d’orateurs qui s’épuisent de sang et de forces pour

faire montrer de leur génie!”—La Grange.

[4] “Pour vous, jamais vous ne daignâtes vous regarder seulement,

ou vous entendre. Ne faites pas non plus valoir votre condescendance

a écouter les autres. Lorsque vous vous y prêtez, ce n’est pas que

vous aimiez a vous communiquer aux autres; c’est que vous craignez

de vous trouver avec vous-même.”—La Grange.

“It is a folly therefore beyond Sence, When great men will not

give us Audience To count them proud; how dare we call it pride

When we the same have to ourselves deny’d.

Yet they how great, how proud so e’re, have bin Sometimes so

courteous as to call thee in. And hear thee speak; but thou

could’st nere afford Thyself the leisure of a look or word.

Thou should’st not then herein another blame, Because when thou

thyself do’st do the same. Thou would’st not be with others,

but we see Plainly thou can’st not with thine own self be.”

“L. ANNAEUS SENECA, the Philosopher, his book of the Shortness of

Life, translated into an English Poem. Imprinted at London, by

William Goldbird, for the Author, mdclxiii.”

[5] “Dans une lettre qu’il envoya au Sénat apres avoir promis que

son repos n’aura rièn indigne de la gloire de ses premières années,

il ajoute: Mais l’execution y mettra un prix, que ne peuvent y

mettre les promesses. J’obeis cependant a la vive passion que j’ai,

de me voir a ce temps si désiré; et puisque l’heureuse situation

d’affaires m’en tient encore éloigné, j’ai voulu du moins me

satisfaire en partie, par la douceur que je trouve à vous en

parler.”—La Grange.

“Such words I find. But these things rather ought Be done, then

said; yet so far hath the thought Of that wish’d time prevail’d,

that though the glad Fruition of the thing be not yet had. Yet

I,” &c.

[6] Fasces, the rods carried by the _lictors_ as symbols of office.

See Smith’s “Diet, of Antiquities,” _s.v._

[7] See Smith’s “Dict. of Antiquities.”

[8] Xerxes.

[9] “Sénéque parle ici du pont que Caligula fit construire sur le

golphe de Baies, l’an de Rome 791, 40 de J. C. . . . . rassembla

et fit entrer dans la construction de son pont tous les vaisseaux

qui se trouverent dans les ports d’Italie et des contrées voisines.

Il n’excepta pas même ceux qui etoient destinés a y apporter des

grains étrangers,” &c.—LaGrange.

[10] For _vis tu_ see Juv. v., vis tu consuetis, &c. Mayor’s note.

[11] As those of children were.

{320}

THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED

TO HIS MOTHER, HELVIA.

OF CONSOLATION.

I. My best of mothers, I have often felt eager to console you, and

have as often checked that impulse. Many things urged me to make

the attempt: in the first place, I thought that if, though I might

not be able to restrain your tears, yet that if I could even wipe

them away, I should set myself free from all my own sorrows: then

I was quite sure that I should rouse you from your grief with more

authority if I had first shaken it off myself. I feared, too, lest

Fortune, though overcome by me, might nevertheless overcome some

one of my family. Then I endeavoured to crawl and bind up your

wounds in the best way I could, holding my hand over my own wound;

but then again other considerations occurred to me which held me

back: I knew that I must not oppose your grief during its first

transports, lest my very attempts at consolation might irritate it,

and add fuel to it: for in diseases, also, there is nothing more

hurtful than medicine applied too soon. I waited, therefore, until

it exhausted itself by its own violence, and being weakened by time,

so that it was able to bear remedies, would allow itself to be

handled and {321} touched. Beside this, while turning over all the

works which the greatest geniuses have composed, for the purpose

of soothing and pacifying grief, I could not find any instance of

one who had offered consolation to his relatives, while he himself

was being sorrowed over by them. Thus, the subject being a new one,

I hesitated and feared that instead of consoling, I might embitter

your grief. Then there was the thought that a man who had only just

raised his head after burying his child, and who wished to console

his friends, would require to use new phrases not taken from our

common every-day words of comfort: but every sorrow of more than

usual magnitude must needs prevent one’s choosing one’s words,

seeing that it often prevents one’s using one’s very voice. However

this may be, I will make the attempt, not trusting in my own genius,

but because my consolation will be most powerful since it is I who

offer it. You never would deny me anything, and I hope, though all

grief is obstinate, that you will surely not refuse me this request,

that you will allow me to set bounds to your sorrow.

II. See how far I have presumed upon your indulgence: I have no

doubts about my having more power over you than your grief, than

which nothing has more power over the unhappy. In order, therefore,

to avoid encountering it straightway, I will at first take its part

and offer it every encouragement: I will rip up and bring to light

again wounds already scarred. Some one may say, “What sort of

consolation is this, for a man to rake up buried evils, and to bring

all its sorrows before a mind which scarcely can bear the sight of

one?” but let him reflect that diseases which are so malignant that

they do but gather strength from ordinary remedies, may often be

cured by the opposite treatment: I will, therefore, display before

your grief all its woes and miseries: this will be to effect a cure,

not by soothing measures, but by cautery and {322} the knife. What

shall I gain by this? I shall make the mind that could overcome so

many sorrows, ashamed to bewail one wound more in a body so full

of scars. Let those whose feeble minds have been enervated by a

long period of happiness, weep and lament for many days, and faint

away on receiving the slightest blow: but those whose years have

all been passed amid catastrophes should bear the severest losses

with brave and unyielding patience. Continual misfortune has this

one advantage, that it ends by rendering callous those whom it is

always scourging. Ill fortune has given you no respite, and has not

left even your birthday free from the bitterest grief: you lost

your mother as soon as you were born, nay, while you were being

born, and you came into life, as it were, an outcast: you grew up

under a step-mother, whom you made into a mother by all the obedience

and respect which even a real daughter could have bestowed upon

her: and even a good step-mother costs every one dear. You lost

your most affectionate uncle, a brave and excellent man, just when

you were awaiting his return: and, lest Fortune should weaken its

blows by dividing them, within a month you lost your beloved husband,

by whom you had become the mother of three children. This sorrowful

news was brought you while you were already in mourning, while all

your children were absent, so that all your misfortunes seemed to

have been purposely brought upon you at a time when your grief could

nowhere find any repose. I pass over all the dangers and alarms

which you have endured without any respite: it was but the other

day that you received the bones of three of your grandchildren in

the bosom from which you had sent them forth: less than twenty days

after you had buried my child, who perished in your arms and amid

your kisses, you heard that I had been exiled: you wanted only this

drop in your cup, to have to weep for those who still lived.

{323}

III. The last wound is, I admit, the severest that you have ever

yet sustained: it has not merely torn the skin, but has pierced you

to the very heart: yet as recruits cry aloud when only slightly

wounded, and shudder more at the hands of the surgeon than at the

sword, while veterans even when transfixed allow their hurts to be

dressed without a groan, and as patiently as if they were in some

one else’s body, so now you ought to offer yourself courageously

to be healed. Lay aside lamentations and wailings, and all the usual

noisy manifestations of female sorrow: you have gained nothing by

so many misfortunes, if you have not learned how to suffer. Now,

do I seem not to have spared you? nay, I have not passed over any

of your sorrows, but have placed them all together in a mass before

you.

IV. I have done this by way of a heroic remedy: for I have determined

to conquer this grief of yours, not merely to limit it; and I shall

conquer it, I believe, if in the first place I can prove that I am

not suffering enough to entitle me to be called unhappy, let alone

to justify me in rendering my family unhappy: and, secondly, if I

can deal with your case and prove that even your misfortune, which

comes upon you entirely through me, is not a severe one.

The point to which I shall first address myself is that of which

your motherly love longs to hear, I mean, that I am not suffering:

if I can, I will make it clear to you that the events by which you

think that I am overwhelmed, are not unendurable: if you cannot

believe this, I at any rate shall be all the more pleased with

myself for being happy under circumstances which could make most

men miserable. You need not believe what others say about me: that

you may not be puzzled by any uncertainty as to what to think, I

distinctly tell you that I am not miserable: I will add, for your

greater comfort, that it is not possible for me to be made miserable.

V. We are born to a comfortable position enough, if we {324} do not

afterwards lose it: the aim of Nature has been to enable us to live

well without needing a vast apparatus to enable us to do so: every

man is able by himself to make himself happy. External circumstances

have very little importance either for good or for evil: the wise

man is neither elated by prosperity nor depressed by adversity; for

he has always endeavoured to depend chiefly upon himself and to

derive all his joys from himself. Do I, then, call myself a wise

man? far from it: for were I able to profess myself wise, I should

not only say that I was not unhappy, but should avow myself to be

the most fortunate of men, and to be raised almost to the level of

a god: as it is, I have applied myself to the society of wise men,

which suffices to lighten all sorrows, and, not being as yet able

to rely upon my own strength, I have betaken myself for refuge to

the camp of others, of those, namely, who can easily defend both

themselves and their friends. They have ordered me always to stand

as it were on guard, and to mark the attacks and charges of Fortune

long before she delivers them; she is only terrible to those whom

she catches unawares; he who is always looking out for her assault,

easily sustains it: for so also an invasion of the enemy overthrows

those by whom it is unexpected, but those who have prepared themselves

for the coming war before it broke out, stand in their ranks fully

equipped and repel with ease the first, which is always the most

furious onset. I never have trusted in Fortune, even when she seemed

most peaceful. I have accepted all the gifts of wealth, high office,

and influence, which she has so bountifully bestowed upon me, in

such a manner that she can take them back again without disturbing

me: I have kept a great distance between them and myself: and

therefore she has taken them, not painfully torn them away from me.

No man loses anything by the frowns of Fortune unless he has been

deceived by her smiles: those who have {325} enjoyed her bounty as

though it were their own heritage for ever, and who have chosen to

take precedence of others because of it, lie in abject sorrow when

her unreal and fleeting delights forsake their empty childish minds,

that know nothing about solid pleasure: but he who has not been

puffed up by success, does not collapse after failure: he possesses

a mind of tried constancy, superior to the influences of either

state; for even in the midst of prosperity he has experimented upon

his powers of enduring adversity. Consequently I have always believed

that there was no real good in any of those things which all men

desire: I then found that they were empty, and merely painted over

with artificial and deceitful dyes, without containing anything

within which corresponds to their outside: I now find nothing so

harsh and fearful as the common opinion of mankind threatened me

with in this which is known as adversity: the word itself, owing

to the prevalent belief and ideas current about it, strikes somewhat

unpleasantly upon one’s ears, and thrills the hearers as something

dismal and accursed, for so hath the vulgar decreed that it should

be: but a great many of the decrees of the vulgar are reversed by

the wise.

VI. Setting aside, then, the verdict of the majority, who are carried

away by the first appearance of things and the usual opinion about

them, let us consider what is meant by exile: clearly a changing

from one place to another. That I may not seem to be narrowing its

force, and taking away its worst parts, I must add, that this

changing of place is accompanied by poverty, disgrace, and contempt.

Against these I will combat later on: meanwhile I wish to consider

what there is unpleasant in the mere act of changing one’s place

of abode.

”It is unbearable,” men say, “to lose one’s native land.” Look, I

pray you, on these vast crowds, for whom all the countless roofs

of Rome can scarcely find shelter: the {326} greater part of those

crowds have lost their native land: they have flocked hither from

their country towns and colonies, and in fine from all parts of the

world. Some have been brought by ambition, some by the exigencies

of public office, some by being entrusted with embassies, some by

luxury which seeks a convenient spot, rich in vices, for its exercise,

some by their wish for a liberal education, others by a wish to see

the public shows. Some have been led hither by friendship, some by

industry, which finds here a wide field for the display of its

powers. Some have brought their beauty for sale, some their eloquence:

people of every kind assemble themselves together in Rome, which

sets a high price both upon virtues and vices. Bid them all to be

summoned to answer to their names, and ask each one from what home

he has come: you will find that the greater part of them have left

their own abodes, and journeyed to a city which, though great and

beauteous beyond all others, is nevertheless not their own. Then

leave this city, which may be said to be the common property of all

men, and visit all other towns: there is not one of them which does

not contain a large proportion of aliens. Pass away from those whose

delightful situation and convenient position attracts many settlers:

examine wildernesses and the most rugged islands, Sciathus and

Seriphus, Gyarus and Corsica: you will find no place of exile where

some one does not dwell for his own pleasure. What can be found

barer or more precipitous on every side than this rock? what more

barren in respect of food? what more uncouth in its inhabitants?

more mountainous in its configuration? or more rigorous in its

climate? yet even here there are more strangers than natives. So

far, therefore, is the mere change of place from being irksome,

that even this place has allured some away from their country. I

find some writers who declare that mankind has a natural itch for

change of abode and alteration of {327} domicile: for the mind of

man is wandering and unquiet; it never stands still, but spreads

itself abroad and sends forth its thoughts into all regions, known

or unknown; being nomadic, impatient of repose, and loving novelty

beyond everything else. You need not be suprised at this, if you

reflect upon its original source: it is not formed from the same

elements as the heavy and earthly body, but from heavenly spirit:

now heavenly things are by their nature always in motion, speeding

along and flying with the greatest swiftness. Look at the luminaries

which light the world: none of them stands still. The sun is

perpetually in motion, and passes from one quarter to another, and

although he revolves with the entire heaven, yet nevertheless he

has a motion in the contrary direction to that of the universe

itself, and passes through all the constellations without remaining

in any: his wandering is incessant, and he never ceases to move

from place to place. All things continually revolve and are for

ever changing; they pass from one position to another in accordance

with natural and unalterable laws: after they have completed a

certain circuit in a fixed space of time, they begin again the path

which they had previously trodden. Be not surprised, then, if the

human mind, which is formed from the same seeds as the heavenly

bodies, delights in change and wandering, since the divine nature

itself either takes pleasure in constant and exceeding swift motion

or perhaps even preserves its existence thereby.

VII. Come now, turn from divine to human affairs: you will see that

whole tribes and nations have changed their abodes. What is the

meaning of Greek cities in the midst of barbarous districts? or of

the Macedonian language existing among the Indians and the Persians?

Scythia and all that region which swarms with wild and uncivilized

tribes boasts nevertheless Achaean cities along the shores of the

Black Sea. Neither the rigours of eternal winter, {328} nor the

character of men as savage as their climate, has prevented people

migrating thither. There is a mass of Athenians in Asia Minor.

Miletus has sent out into various parts of the world citizens enough

to populate seventy-five cities. That whole coast of Italy which

is washed by the Lower Sea is a part of what once was “Greater

Greece.” Asia claims the Tuscans as her own: there are Tyrians

living in Africa, Carthaginians in Spain; Greeks have pushed in

among the Gauls, and Gauls among the Greeks. The Pyrenees have

proved no barrier to the Germans: human caprice makes its way through

pathless and unknown regions: men drag along with them their children,

their wives, and their aged and worn-out parents. Some have been

tossed hither and thither by long wanderings, until they have become

too wearied to choose an abode, but have settled in whatever place

was nearest to them: others have made themselves masters of foreign

countries by force of arms: some nations while making for parts

unknown have been swallowed up by the sea: some have established

themselves in the place in which they were originally stranded by

utter destitution. Nor have all men had the same reasons for leaving

their country and for seeking for a new one: some have escaped from

their cities when destroyed by hostile armies, and having lost their

own lands have been thrust upon those of others: some have been

cast out by domestic quarrels: some have been driven forth in

consequence of an excess of population, in order to relieve the

pressure at home: some have been forced to leave by pestilence, or

frequent earthquakes, or some unbearable defects of a barren soil:

some have been seduced by the fame of a fertile and over-praised

clime. Different people have been led away from their homes by

different causes; but in all cases it is clear that nothing remains

in the same place in which it was born: the movement of the human

race is perpetual: in this vast world some changes {329} take place

daily. The foundations of new cities are laid, new names of nations

arise, while the former ones die out, or become absorbed by more

powerful ones. And yet what else are all these general migrations

but the banishments of whole peoples? Why should I lead you through

all these details? what is the use of mentioning Antenor the founder

of Padua, or Evander who established his kingdom of Arcadian settlers

on the banks of the Tiber? or Diomedes and the other heroes, both

victors and vanquished, whom the Trojan war scattered over lands

which were not their own? It is a fact that the Roman Empire itself

traces its origin back to an exile as its founder, who, fleeing

from his country after its conquest, with what few relics he had

saved from the wreck, had been brought to Italy by hard necessity

and fear of his conqueror, which bade him seek distant lands. Since

then, how many colonies has this people sent forth into every

province? wherever the Roman conquers, there he dwells. These

migrations always found people eager to take part in them, and

veteran soldiers desert their native hearths and follow the flag

of the colonists across the sea. The matter does not need illustrations

by any more examples: yet I will add one more which I have before

my eyes: this very island[1] has often changed its inhabitants. Not

to mention more ancient events, which have become obscure from their

antiquity, the Greeks who inhabit Marseilles at the present day,

when they left Phocaea, first settled here, and it is doubtful what

drove them hence, whether it was the rigour of the climate, the

sight of the more powerful land of Italy, or the want of harbours

on the coast: for the fact of their having placed themselves in the

midst of what were then the most savage and uncouth tribes of Gaul

proves that they were not driven hence by the ferocity of the

natives. Subsequently {330} the Ligurians came over into this same

island, and also the Spaniards,[2] which is proved by the resemblance

of their customs: for they wear the same head-coverings and the

same sort of shoes as the Cantabrians, and some of their words are

the same: for by association with Greeks and Ligurians they have

entirely lost their native speech. Hither since then have been

brought two Roman colonies, one by Marius, the other by Sulla: so

often has the population of this barren and thorny rock been changed.

In fine, you will scarcely find any land which is still in the hands

of its original inhabitants: all peoples have become confused and

intermingled: one has come after another: one has wished for what

another scorned: some have been driven out of the land which they

took from another. Thus fate has decreed that nothing should ever

enjoy an uninterrupted course of good fortune.

VIII. Varro, that most learned of all the Romans, thought that for

the mere change of place, apart from the other evils attendant on

exile, we may find a sufficient remedy in the thought that wherever

we go we always have the same Nature to deal with. Marcus Brutus

thought that there was sufficient comfort in the thought that those

who go into exile are permitted to carry their virtues thither with

them. Though one might think that neither of these alone were able

to console an exile, yet it must be confessed that when combined

they have great power: for how very little it is that we lose!

whithersoever we betake ourselves two most excellent things will

accompany us, namely, a common Nature and our own especial virtue.

Believe me, this is the work of whoever was the Creator of the

universe, whether he be an all-powerful deity, an incorporeal mind

which effects vast works, a divine spirit by which all things from

the greatest to the smallest are equally pervaded, or {331} fate

and an unalterable connected sequence of events, this, I say, is

its work, that nothing above the very lowest can ever fall into the

power of another: all that is best for a man’s enjoyment lies beyond

human power, and can neither be bestowed or taken away: this world,

the greatest and the most beautiful of Nature’s productions, and

its noblest part, a mind which can behold and admire it, are our

own property, and will remain with us as long as we ourselves endure.

Let us therefore briskly and cheerfully hasten with undaunted steps

whithersoever circumstances call us: let us wander over whatever

countries we please; no place of banishment can be found in the

whole world in which man cannot find a home. I can raise my eyes

from the earth to the sky in one place as well as in another; the

heavenly bodies are everywhere equally near to mankind: accordingly,

as long as my eyes are not deprived of that spectacle of which they

never can have their fill, as long as I am allowed to gaze on the

sun and moon, to dwell upon the other stars, to speculate upon their

risings and settings, their periods, and the reasons why they move

faster or slower, to see so many stars glittering throughout the

night, some fixed, some not moving in a wide orbit but revolving

in their own proper track, some suddenly diverging from it, some

dazzling our eyes by a fiery blaze as though they were falling, or

flying along drawing after them a long trail of brilliant light:

while I am permitted to commune with these, and to hold intercourse,

as far as a human being may, with all the company of heaven, while

I can raise my spirit aloft to view its kindred sparks above, what

does it matter upon what soil I tread?

IX. “But this country does not produce beautiful or fruit-bearing

trees; it is not watered by the courses of large or navigable rivers;

it bears nothing which other nations would covet, since its produce

barely suffices to support its inhabitants: no precious marbles are

quarried here, no veins {332} of gold and silver are dug out.” What

of that! It must be a narrow mind that takes pleasure in things of

the earth: it ought to be turned away from them to the contemplation

of those which can be seen everywhere, which are equally brilliant

everywhere: we ought to reflect, also, that these vulgar matters

by a mistaken perversion of ideas prevent really good things reaching

us: the further men stretch out their porticos, the higher they

raise their towers, the more widely they extend their streets, the

deeper they sink their retreats from the heats of summer, the more

ponderous the roofs with which they cover their banqueting halls,

the more there will be to obstruct their view of heaven. Fortune

has cast you into a country in which there is no lodging more

splendid than a cottage: you must indeed have a poor spirit, and

one which seeks low sources of consolation, if you endure this

bravely because you have seen the cottage of Romulus: say, rather,

“Should that lowly barn be entered by the virtues, it will straightway

become more beautiful than any temple, because within it will be

seen justice, self-restraint, prudence, love, a right division of

all duties, a knowledge of all things on earth and in heaven. No

place can be narrow, if it contains such a company of the greatest

virtues; no exile can be irksome in which one can be attended by

these companions. Brutus, in the book which he wrote upon virtue,

says that he saw Marcellus in exile at Mytilene, living as happily

as it is permitted to man to live, and never keener in his pursuit

of literature than at that time. He consequently adds the reflexion:

‘I seemed rather to be going into exile myself when I had to return

without him, than to be leaving him in exile.’ O how much more

fortunate was Marcellus at that time, when Brutus praised him for

his exile, than when Rome praised him for his consulship! what a

man that must have been who made any one think himself exiled because

he was leaving him in exile! what a man that {333} must have been

who attracted the admiration of one whom even his friend Cato

admired! Brutus goes on to say:— ‘Gaius Caesar sailed past Mytilene

without landing, because he could not bear to see a fallen man.’

The Senate did indeed obtain his recall by public petition, being

so anxious and sorrowful the while, that you would have thought

that they all were of Brutus’s mind that day, and were not pleading

the cause of Marcellus, but their own, that they might not be sent

into exile by being deprived of him: yet he gained far greater glory

on the day when Brutus could not bear to leave him in exile, and

Caesar could not bear to see him: for each of them bore witness to

his worth: Brutus grieved, and Caesar blushed at going home without

Marcellus. Can you doubt that so great a man as Marcellus frequently

encouraged himself to endure his exile patiently in some such terms

as these: “The loss of your country is no misery to you: you have

so steeped yourself in philosophic lore, as to know that all the

world is the wise man’s country? What! was not this very man who

banished you absent from his country for ten successive years? he

was, no doubt, engaged in the extension of the empire, but for all

that he was absent from his country. Now see how his presence is

required in Africa, which threatens to re-kindle the war, in Spain

which is nursing up again the strength of the broken and shattered

opposite faction, in treacherous Egypt, in fine, in all the parts

of the world, for all are watching their opportunity to seize the

empire at a disadvantage. Which will he go to meet first? which

part of the universal conspiracy will he first oppose? His victory

will drag him through every country in the world. Let nations look

up to him and worship him: do thou live satisfied with the admiration

of Brutus.”

X. Marcellus, then, nobly endured his exile, and his change of place

made no change in his mind, even though it was accompanied by

poverty, in which every man who {334} has not fallen into the madness

of avarice and luxury, which upset all our ideas, sees no harm.

Indeed, how very little is required to keep a man alive? and who,

that has any virtue whatever, will find this fail him? As for myself,

I do not feel that I have lost my wealth, but my occupation: the

wants of the body are few: it wants protection from the cold, and

the means of allaying hunger and thirst: all desires beyond these

are vices, not necessities. There is no need for prying into all

the depths of the sea, for loading one’s stomach with heaps of

slaughtered animals, or for tearing up shell-fish[3] from the unknown

shore of the furthest sea: may the gods and goddesses bring ruin

upon those whose luxury transcends the bounds of an empire which

is already perilously wide. They want to have their ostentatious

kitchens supplied with game from the other side of the Phasis, and

though Rome has not yet obtained satisfaction from the Parthians,

they are not ashamed to obtain birds from them: they bring together

from all regions everything, known or unknown, to tempt their

fastidious palate: food, which their stomach, worn out with delicacies,

can scarcely retain, is brought from the most distant ocean: they

vomit that they may eat, and eat that they may vomit, and do not

even deign to digest the banquets which they ransack the globe to

obtain. If a man despises these things, what harm can poverty do

him? If he desires them, then poverty even does him good, for he

is cured in spite of himself, and though he will not receive remedies

even upon compulsion, yet while he is unable to fulfil his wishes

he is as though he had them not. Gaius Caesar, whom in my opinion

Nature produced in order to show what unlimited vice would be capable

of when combined with unlimited power, dined one day at a cost of

ten millions of sesterces: and though in this he had the {335}

assistance of the intelligence of all his subjects, yet he could

hardly find how to make one dinner out of the tribute-money of three

provinces. How unhappy are they whose appetite can only be aroused

by costly food! and the costliness of food depends not upon its

delightful flavour and sweetness of taste, but upon its rarity and

the difficulty of procuring it: otherwise, if they chose to return

to their sound senses, what need would they have of so many arts

which minister to the stomach? of so great a commerce? of such

ravaging of forests? of such ransacking of the depths of the sea?

Food is to be found everywhere, and has been placed by Nature in

every part the world, but they pass it by as though they were blind,

and wander through all countries, cross the seas, and excite at a

great cost the hunger which they might allay at a small one. One

would like to say: Why do you launch ships? why do you arm your

hands for battle both with men and wild beasts? why do you run so

riotously hither and thither? why do you amass fortune after fortune?

Are you unwilling to remember how small our bodies are? is it not

frenzy and the wildest insanity to wish for so much when you can

contain so little? Though you may increase your income, and extend

the boundaries of your property, yet you never can enlarge your own

bodies: when your business transactions have turned out well, when

you have made a successful campaign, when you have collected the

food for which you have hunted through all lands, you will have no

place in which to bestow all these superfluities. Why do you strive

to obtain so much? Do you think that our ancestors, whose virtue

supports our vices even to the present day, were unhappy, though

they dressed their food with their own hands, though the earth was

their bed, though their roofs did not yet glitter with gold, nor

their temples with precious stones? and so they used then to swear

with scrupulous honesty by earthenware {336} gods; those who called

these gods to witness would go back to the enemy for certain death

rather than break their word.[4] Do you suppose that our dictator

who granted an audience to the ambassadors of the Samnites, while

he roasted the commonest food before the fire himself with that

very hand with which he had so often smitten the enemy, and with

which he had placed his laurel wreath upon the lap of Capitolian

Jove, enjoyed life less than the Apicius who lived in our own days,

whose habits tainted the entire century, who set himself up as a

professor of gastronomy in that very city from which philosophers

once were banished as corrupters of youth? It is worth while to

know his end. After he had spent a hundred millions of sesterces

on his kitchen, and had wasted on each single banquet a sum equal

to so many presents from the reigning emperors, and the vast revenue

which he drew from the Capitol, being overburdened with debt, he

then for the first time was forced to examine his accounts: he

calculated that he would have ten millions left of his fortune,

and, as though he would live a life of mere starvation on ten

millions, put an end to his life by poison. How great must the

luxury of that man have been, to whom ten millions signified want?

Can you think after this that the amount of money necessary to make

a fortune depends upon its actual extent rather than on the mind

of the owner? Here was a man who shuddered at the thought of a

fortune of ten million sesterces, and escaped by poison from a

prospect which other men pray for. Yet, for a mind so diseased,

that last draught of his was the most wholesome: he was really

eating and drinking poisons when he was not only enjoying, but

boasting of his enormous banquets, when he was flaunting his vices,

when he was causing his country to follow his example, when he was

inviting youths to imitate him, albeit youth is quick {337} to learn

evil, without being provided with a model to copy. This is what

befalls those who do not use their wealth according to reason, which

has fixed limits, but according to vicious fashion, whose caprices

are boundless and immeasurable. Nothing is sufficient for covetous

desire, but Nature can be satisfied even with scant measure. The

poverty of an exile, therefore, causes no inconvenience, for no

place of exile is so barren as not to produce what is abundantly

sufficient to support a man.

XI. Next, need an exile regret his former dress and house? If he

only wishes for these things because of their use to him, he will

want neither roof nor garment, for it takes as little to cover the

body as it does to feed it: Nature has annexed no difficult conditions

to anything which man is obliged to do. If, however, he sighs for

a purple robe steeped in floods of dye, interwoven with threads of

gold and with many coloured artistic embroideries, then his poverty

is his own fault, not that of Fortune: even though you restored to

him all that he has lost, you would do him no good; for he would

have more unsatisfied ambitions, if restored, than he had unsatisfied

wants when he was an exile. If he longs for furniture glittering

with silver vases, plate which boasts the signature of antique

artists, bronze which the mania of a small clique has rendered

costly, slaves enough to crowd however large a house, purposely

overfed horses, and precious stones of all countries: whatever

collections he may make of these, he never will satisfy his insatiable

appetite, any more than any amount of liquor will quench a thirst

which arises not from the need of drink but from the burning heat

within a man; for this is not thirst but disease. Nor does this

take place only with regard to money and food, but every want which

is caused by vice and not by necessity is of this nature: however

much you supply it with you do not quench it but intensify it. He

who restrains himself within the limits prescribed by {338} nature,

will not feel poverty; he who exceeds them will always be poor,

however great his wealth may be. Even a place of exile suffices to

provide one with necessaries; whole kingdoms do not suffice to

provide one with superfluities. It is the mind which makes men rich:

this it is that accompanies them into exile, and in the most savage

wildernesses, after having found sufficient sustenance for the body,

enjoys its own overflowing resources: the mind has no more connexion

with money than the immortal gods have with those things which are

so highly valued by untutored intellects, sunk in the bondage of

the flesh. Gems, gold, silver, and vast polished round tables are

but earthly dross, which cannot be loved by a pure mind that is

mindful of whence it came, is unblemished by sin, and which, when

released from the body, will straightway soar aloft to the highest

heaven: meanwhile, as far as it is permitted by the hindrances of

its mortal limbs and this heavy clog of the body by which it is

surrounded, it examines divine things with swift and airy thought.

From this it follows that no free-born man, who is akin to the gods,

and fit for any world and any age, can ever be in exile: for his

thoughts are directed to all the heavens and to all times past and

future: this trumpery body, the prison and fetter of the spirit,

may be tossed to this place or to that; upon it tortures, robberies,

and diseases may work their will: but the spirit itself is holy and

eternal, and upon it no one can lay hands.

XII. That you may not suppose that I merely use the maxims of the

philosophers to disparage the evils of poverty, which no one finds

terrible, unless he thinks it so; consider in the first place how

many more poor people there are than rich, and yet you will not

find that they are sadder or more anxious than the rich: nay, I am

not sure that they are not happier, because they have fewer things

to distract their minds. From these poor men, who often are not

{339} unhappy at their poverty, let us pass to the rich. How many

occasions there are on which they are just like poor men! When they

are on a journey their baggage is cut down, whenever they are obliged

to travel fast their train of attendants is dismissed. When they

are serving in the army, how small a part of their property can

they have with them, since camp discipline forbids superfluities!

Nor is it only temporary exigences or desert places that put them

on the same level as poor men: they have some days on which they

become sick of their riches, dine reclining on the ground, put away

all their gold and silver plate, and use earthenware. Madmen! they

are always afraid of this for which they sometimes wish. O how dense

a stupidity, how great an ignorance of the truth they show when

they flee from this thing and yet amuse themselves by playing with

it! Whenever I look back to the great examples of antiquity, I feel

ashamed to seek consolation for my poverty, now that luxury has

advanced so far in the present age, that the allowance of an exile

is larger than the inheritance of the princes of old. It is well

known that Homer had one slave, that Plato had three, and that Zeno,

who first taught the stern and masculine doctrine of the Stoics,

had none: yet could any one say that they lived wretchedly without

himself being thought a most pitiable wretch by all men? Menenius

Agrippa, by whose mediation the patricians and plebeians were

reconciled, was buried by public subscription. Attilius Regulus,

while he was engaged in scattering the Carthaginians in Africa,

wrote to the Senate that his hired servant had left him, and that

consequently his farm was deserted: whereupon it was decreed that

as long as Regulus was absent, it should be cultivated at the expense

of the state. Was it not worth his while to have no slave, if thereby

he obtained the Roman people for his farm-bailiff? Scipio’s daughters

received their dowries from the Treasury, because {340} their father

had left them none: by Hercules, it was right for the Roman people

to pay tribute to Scipio for once, since he had exacted it for ever

from Carthage. O how happy were those girls’ husbands, who had the

Roman people for their father-in-law. Can you think that those whose

daughters dance in the ballet, and marry with a settlement of a

million sesterces, are happier than Scipio, whose children received

their dowry of old-fashioned brass money from their guardian the

Senate? Can any one despise poverty, when she has such a noble

descent to boast of? can an exile be angry at any privation, when

Scipio could not afford a portion for his daughters, Regulus could

not afford a hired labourer, Menenius could not afford a funeral?

when all these men’s wants were supplied in a manner which rendered

them a source of additional honour? Poverty, when such men as these

plead its cause, is not only harmless, but positively attractive.

XIII. To this one may answer: “Why do you thus ingeniously divide

what can indeed be endured if taken singly, but which all together

are overwhelming? Change of place can be borne if nothing more than

one’s place be changed: poverty can be borne if it be without

disgrace, which is enough to cow our spirits by itself.” If any one

were to endeavour to frighten me with the number of my misfortunes,

I should answer him as follows: If you have enough strength to

resist any one part of your ill-fortune, you will have enough to

resist it all. If virtue has once hardened your mind, it renders

it impervious to blows from any quarter: if avarice, that greatest

pest of the human race, has left it, you will not be troubled by

ambition: if you regard the end of your days not as a punishment,

but as an ordinance of nature, no fear of anything else will dare

to enter the breast which has cast out the fear of death. If you

consider sexual passion to have been bestowed on mankind not for

the sake of pleasure, but for {341} the continuance of the race,

all other desires will pass harmlessly by one who is safe even from

this secret plague, implanted in our very bosoms. Reason does not

conquers vices one by one, but all together: if reason is defeated,

it is utterly defeated once for all. Do you suppose that any wise

man, who relies entirely upon himself, who has set himself free

from the ideas of the common herd, can be wrought upon by disgrace?

A disgraceful death is worse even than disgrace: yet Socrates bore

the same expression of countenance with which he had rebuked thirty

tyrants, when he entered the prison and thereby took away the

infamous character of the place; for the place which contained

Socrates could not be regarded as a prison. Was any one ever so

blind to the truth as to suppose that Marcus Cato was disgraced by

his double defeat in his candidature for the praetorship and the

consulship? that disgrace fell on the praetorship and consulship

which Cato honoured by his candidature. No one is despised by others

unless he be previously despised by himself: a grovelling and abject

mind may fall an easy prey to such contempt: but he who stands up

against the most cruel misfortunes, and overcomes those evils by

which others would have been crushed—such a man, I say, turns his

misfortunes into badges of honour, because we are so constituted

as to admire nothing so much as a man who bears adversity bravely.

At Athens, when Aristides was being led to execution, every one who

met him cast down his eyes and groaned, as though not merely a just

man but justice herself was being put to death. Yet one man was

found who spat in his face: he might have been disturbed at this,

since he knew it could only be a foul-mouthed fellow that would

have the heart to do so; he, however, wiped his face, and with a

smile asked the magistrate who accompanied him to warn that man not

to open his mouth so rudely again. To act thus was to treat contumely

itself {342} with contempt. I know that some say that there is

nothing more terrible than disgrace, and that they would prefer

death. To such men I answer that even exile is often accompanied

by no disgrace whatever: if a great man falls, he remains a great

man after his fall, you can no more suppose that he is disgraced

than when people tread upon the walls of a ruined temple, which the

pious treat with as much respect as when they were standing.

XIV. Since, then, my dearest mother, you have no reason for endless

weeping on my account, it follows that your tears must flow on your

own: there are two causes for this, either your having lost my

protection, or your not being able to bear the mere fact of separation.

The first of these I shall only touch upon lightly, for I know that

your heart loves nothing belonging to your children except themselves.

Let other mothers look to that, who make use of their sons’ authority

with a woman’s passion, who are ambitious through their sons because

they cannot bear office themselves, who spend their sons’ inheritance,

and yet are eager to inherit it, and who weary their sons by lending

their eloquence to others: you have always rejoiced exceedingly in

the successes of your sons, and have made no use of them whatever:

you have always set bounds to our generosity, although you set none

to your own: you, while a minor under the power of the head of the

family, still used to make presents to your wealthy sons: you managed

our inheritances with as much care as if you were working for your

own, yet refrained from touching them as scrupulously as if they

belonged to strangers: you have spared to use our influence, as

though you enjoyed other means of your own, and you have taken no

part in the public offices to which we have been elected beyond

rejoicing in our success and paying our expenses: your indulgence

has never been tainted by any thought of profit, and you cannot

regret the loss of your son for a reason which never had any weight

with you before his exile.

{343}

XV. All my powers of consolation must be directed to the other

point, the true source of your maternal grief. You say, “I am

deprived of the embraces of my darling son, I cannot enjoy the

pleasure of seeing him and of hearing him talk. Where is he at whose

sight I used to smooth my troubled brow, in whose keeping I used

to deposit all my cares? Where is his conversation, of which I never

could have enough? his studies, in which I used to take part with

more than a woman’s eagerness, with more than a mother’s familiarity?

Where are our meetings? the boyish delight which he always showed

at the sight of his mother?” To all this you add the actual places

of our merrymakings and conversation, and, what must needs have

more power to move you than anything else, the traces of our late

social life, for Fortune treated you with the additional cruelty

of allowing you to depart on the very third day before my ruin,

without a trace of anxiety, and not fearing anything of the kind.

It was well that we had been separated by a vast distance: it was

well that an absence of some years had prepared you to bear this

blow: you came home, not to take any pleasure in your son, but to

get rid of the habit of longing for him. Had you been absent long

before, you would have borne it more bravely, as the very length

of your absence would have moderated your longing to see me: had

you never gone away, you would at any rate have gained one last

advantage in seeing your son for two days longer: as it was, cruel

Fate so arranged it that you were not present with me during my

good fortune, and yet have not become accustomed to my absence. But

the harder these things are to bear, the more virtue you must summon

to your aid, and the more bravely you must struggle as it were with

an enemy whom you know well, and whom you have already often

conquered. This blood did not flow from a body previously unhurt:

you have been struck through the scar of an old wound.

{344}

XVI. You have no grounds for excusing yourself on the ground of

being a woman, who has a sort of right to weep without restraint,

though not without limit. For this reason our ancestors allotted a

space of ten months’ mourning for women who had lost their husbands,

thus settling the violence of a woman’s grief by a public ordinance.

They did not forbid them to mourn, but they set limits to their

grief: for while it is a foolish weakness to give way to endless

grief when you lose one of those dearest to you, yet it shows an

unnatural hardness of heart to express no grief at all: the best

middle course between affection and hard common sense is both to

feel regret and to restrain it. You need not look at certain women

whose sorrow, when once begun, has been ended only by death: you

know some who after the loss of their sons have never laid aside

the garb of mourning: you are constitutionally stronger than these,

and from you more is required. You cannot avail yourself of the

excuse of being a woman, for you have no womanish vices. Unchastity,

the greatest evil of the age, has never classed you with the majority

of women; you have not been tempted either by gems or by pearls;

riches have not allured you into thinking them the greatest blessing

that man can own; respectably brought up as you were in an old-fashioned

and strict household, you have never been led astray by that imitation

of others which is so full of danger even to virtuous women. You

have never been ashamed of your fruitfulness as though it were a

reproach to your youth: you never concealed the signs of pregnancy

as though it were an unbecoming burden, nor did you ever destroy

your expected child within your womb after the fashion of many other

women, whose attractions are to be found in their beauty alone. You

never defiled your face with paints or cosmetics: you never liked

clothes which showed the figure as plainly as though it were naked:

your sole ornament has been a consummate {345} loveliness which no

time can impair, your greatest glory has been your modesty. You

cannot, therefore, plead your womanhood as an excuse for your grief,

because your virtues have raised you above it: you ought to be as

superior to womanish tears as you are to womanish vices. Even women

would not allow you to pine away after receiving this blow, but

would bid you quickly and calmly go through the necessary amount

of mourning, and then to arise and shake it off: I mean, if you are

willing to take as your models those women whose eminent virtue has

given them a place among even great men. Misfortune reduced the

number of Cornelia’s children from twelve to two: if you count the

number of their deaths, Cornelia had lost ten: if you weigh them,

she had lost the Gracchi: nevertheless, when her friends were weeping

around her and using too bitter imprecations against her fate, she

forbade them to blame fortune for having deprived[5] her of her

sons the Gracchi. Such ought to have been the mother of him who,

when speaking in the Forum, said, “Would you speak evil of the

mother who bore me?” The mother’s speech seems to me to show a far

greater spirit: the son set a high value on the birth of the Gracchi;

the mother set an equal value on their deaths. Rutilia followed her

son Cotta into exile, and was so passionately attached to him that

she could bear exile better than absence from him; nor did she

return home before her son did so: after he had been restored, and

had been raised to honour in the republic, she bore his death as

bravely as she had borne his exile. No one saw any traces of tears

upon her cheeks after she had buried her son: she displayed her

courage when he was banished, her wisdom when he died: she allowed

no {346} considerations either to interfere with her affection, or

to force her to protract a useless and foolish mourning. These are

the women with whom I wish you to be numbered: you have the best

reasons for restraining and suppressing your sorrow as they did,

because you have always imitated their lives.

XVII. I am aware that this is a matter which is not in our power,

and that none of the passions, least of all that which arises from

grief, are obedient to our wishes; indeed, it is overbearing and

obstinate, and stubbornly rejects all remedies: we sometimes wish

to crush it, and to swallow our emotion, but, nevertheless, tears

flow over our carefully arranged and made-up countenance. Sometimes

we occupy our minds with public spectacles and shows of gladiators;

but during the very sights by which it is amused, the mind is wrung

by slight touches of sorrow. It is better, therefore, to conquer

it than to cheat it; for a grief which has been deceived and driven

away either by pleasure or by business rises again, and its period

of rest does but give it strength for a more terrible attack; but

a grief which has been conquered by reason is appeased for ever. I

shall not, then, give you the advice which so many, I know, adopt,

that you should distract your thoughts by a long journey, or amuse

them by a beautiful one; that you should spend much of your time

in the careful examination of accounts, and the management of your

estate, and that you should keep constantly engaging in new

enterprises: all these things avail but little, and do not cure,

but merely obstruct our sorrow. I had rather it should be brought

to an end than that it should be cheated: and, therefore, I would

fain lead you to the study of philosophy, the true place of refuge

for all those who are flying from the cruelty of Fortune: this will

heal your wounds and take away all your sadness: to this you would

now have to apply yourself, even though you {347} had never done

so before; but as far as my father’s old-fashioned strictness

permitted, you have gained a superficial, though not a thorough

knowledge of all liberal studies. Would that my father, most excellent

man that he was, had been less devoted to the customs of our

ancestors, and had been willing to have you thoroughly instructed

in the elements of philosophy, instead of receiving a mere smattering

of it! I should not now need to be providing you with the means of

struggling against Fortune, but you would offer them to me: but he

did not allow you to pursue your studies far, because some women

use literature to teach them luxury instead of wisdom. Still, thanks

to your keen intellectual appetite, you learned more than one could

have expected in the time: you laid the foundations of all good

learning: now return to them: they will render you safe, they will

console you, and charm you. If once they have thoroughly entered

into your mind, grief, anxiety, the distress of vain suffering will

never gain admittance thither: your breast will not be open to any

of these; against all other vices it has long been closed. Philosophy

is your most trustworthy guardian, and it alone can save you from

the attacks of Fortune.

XVIII. Since, however, you require something to lean upon until you

can reach that haven of rest which philosophy offers to you, I wish

in the meantime to point out to you the consolations which you have.

Look at my two brothers—while they are safe, you have no grounds

for complaint against Fortune; you can derive pleasure from the

virtues of each of them, different as they are; the one has gained

high office by attention to business, the other has philosophically

despised it. Rejoice in the great place of one of your sons, in the

peaceful retirement of the other, in the filial affection of both.

I know my brothers’ most secret motives: the one adorns his high

office in order to confer lustre upon you, the {348} other has

withdrawn from the world into his life of quiet and contemplation,

that he may have full enjoyment of your society. Fortune has consulted

both your safety and your pleasure in her disposal of your two sons:

you may be protected by the authority of the one, and delighted by

the literary leisure of the other. They will vie with one another

in dutiful affection to you, and the loss of one son will be supplied

by the love of two others. I can confidently promise that you will

find nothing wanting in your sons except their number. Now, then,

turn your eyes from them to your grandchildren; to Marcus, that

most engaging child, whose sight no sorrow can withstand. No grief

can be so great or so fresh in any one’s bosom as not to be charmed

away by his presence. Where are the tears which his joyousness could

not dry? whose heart is so nipped by sorrow that his animation would

not cause it to dilate? who would not be rendered mirthful by his

playfulness? who would not be attracted and made to forget his

gloomy thoughts by that prattle to which no one can ever be weary

of listening? I pray the gods that he may survive us: may all the

cruelty of fate exhaust itself on me and go no further; may all the

sorrow destined for my mother and my grandmother fall upon me; but

let all the rest flourish as they do now: I shall make no complaints

about my childlessness or my exile, if only my sacrifice may be

received as a sufficient atonement, and my family suffer nothing

more. Hold in your bosom Novatilla, who soon will present you with

great-grandchildren, she whom I had so entirely adopted and made

my own, that, now that she has lost me, she seems like an orphan,

even though her father is alive. Love her for my sake as well as

for her own: Fortune has lately deprived her of her mother: your

affection will be able to prevent her really feeling the loss of

the mother whom she mourns. Take this opportunity of forming and

strengthening her principles; nothing sinks {349} so deeply into

the mind as the teaching which we receive in our earliest years;

let her become accustomed to hearing your discourses; let her

character be moulded according to your pleasure: she will gain much

even if you give her nothing more than your example. This continually

recurring duty will be a remedy in itself: for when your mind is

full of maternal sorrow, nothing can distract it from its grief

except either philosophic argument or honourable work. I should

count your father among your greatest consolations, were he not

absent: as it is, judge from your affection for me what his affection

is for you, and then you will see how much more just it is that you

should be preserved for him than that you should be sacrificed to

me. Whenever your keenest paroxysms of grief assail you and bid you

give way to them, think of your father. By giving him so many

grandchildren and great-grandchildren you have made yourself no

longer his only daughter; but you alone can crown his prosperous

life by a happy end: as long as he is alive it is impiety for you

to regret having been born.

XIX. I have hitherto said nothing of your chief source of consolation,

your sister, that most faithful heart which shares all your sorrows

as fully as your own, and who feels for all of us like a mother.

With her you have mingled your tears, on her bosom you have tasted

your first repose: she always feels for your troubles, and when I

am in the case she does not grieve for you alone. It was in her

arms that I was carried into Rome: by her affectionate and motherly

nursing I regained my strength after a long period of sickness: she

enlarged her influence to obtain the office of quaestor for me, and

her fondness for me made her conquer a shyness which at other times

made her shrink from speaking to, or loudly greeting her friends.

Neither her retired mode of life, nor her country-bred modesty, at

a time when so many women display such boldness of manner, her

placidity, nor her habits of solitary seclusion {350} prevented her

from becoming actually ambitious on my account. Here, my dearest

mother, is a source from which you may gain true consolation: join

yourself, as far as you are able, to her, bind yourself to her by

the closest embraces. Those who are in sorrow are wont to flee from

those who are dearest to them, and to seek liberty for the indulgence

of their grief: do you let her share your every thought: if you

wish to nurse your grief, she will be your companion, if you wish

to lay it aside she will bring it to an end. If, however, I rightly

understand the wisdom of that most perfect woman, she will not

suffer you to waste your life in unprofitable mourning, and will

tell you what happened in her own instance, which I myself witnessed.

During a sea-voyage she lost a beloved husband, my uncle, whom she

married when a maiden; she endured at the same time grief for him

and fear for herself, and at last, though shipwrecked, nevertheless

rescued his body from the vanquished tempest. How many noble deeds

are unknown to fame! If only she had had the simple-minded ancients

to admire her virtues, how many brilliant intellects would have

vied with one another in singing the praises of a wife who forgot

the weakness of her sex, forgot the perils of the sea, which terrify

even the boldest, exposed herself to death in order to lay him in

the earth, and who was so eager to give him decent burial that she

cared nothing about whether she shared it or no. All the poets have

made the wife[6] famous who gave herself to death instead of her

husband: my aunt did more when she risked her life in order to give

her husband a tomb: it shows greater love to endure the same peril

for a less important end. After this, no one need wonder that for

sixteen years, during which her husband governed the province of

Egypt, she was never beheld in public, never admitted any of the

natives to her house, never {351} begged any favour of her husband,

and never allowed anyone to beg one of her. Thus it came to pass

that a gossiping province, ingenious in inventing scandal about its

rulers, in which even the blameless often incurred disgrace, respected

her as a singular example of uprightness,[7] never made free with

her name,—a remarkable piece of self-restraint among a people who

will risk everything rather than forego a jest,—and that at the

present time it hopes for another governor’s wife like her, although

it has no reasonable expectation of ever seeing one. It would have

been greatly to her credit if the province had approved her conduct

for a space of sixteen years: it was much more creditable to her

that it knew not of her existence. I do not remind you of this in

order to celebrate her praises, for to take such scanty notice of

them is to curtail them, but in order that you may understand the

magnanimity of a woman who has not yielded either to ambition or

to avarice, those twin attendants and scourges of authority, who,

when her ship was disabled and her own death was impending, was not

restrained by fear from keeping fast hold of her husband’s dead

body, and who sought not how to escape from the wreck, but how to

carry him out of it with her. You must now show a virtue equal to

hers, recall your mind from grief, and take care that no one may

think that you are sorry that you have borne a son.

XX. However, since it is necessary, whatever you do, that your

thoughts should sometimes revert to me, and that I should now be

present to your mind more often than your other children, not because

they are less dear to you, but because it is natural to lay one’s

hands more often upon a place that pains one; learn how you are to

think of me: I am as joyous and cheerful as in my best days: indeed

these {352} days are my best, because my mind is relieved from all

pressure of business and is at leisure to attend to its own affairs,

and at one time amuses itself with lighter studies, at another

eagerly presses its inquiries into its own nature and that of the

universe: first it considers the countries of the world and their

position: then the character of the sea which flows between them,

and the alternate ebbings and flowings of its tides; next it

investigates all the terrors which hang between heaven and earth,

the region which is torn asunder by thunderings, lightnings, gusts

of wind, vapour, showers of snow and hail. Finally, having traversed

every one of the realms below, it soars to the highest heaven,

enjoys the noblest of all spectacles, that of things divine, and,

remembering itself to be eternal, reviews all that has been and all

that will be for ever and ever.

[1] Corsica.

[2] Seneca himself was of Spanish extraction.

[3] Qu., oysters from Britain.

[4] The allusion is evidently to Regulus.

[5] I think Madvig’s _ademisset_ spoils the sense. _Dedisset_ means:

“when you bid me mourn the loss of the Gracchi you bid me blame

fortune for having given me such sons.” “’Tis better to have loved

and lost than to have never loved at all.”—J. E. B. M.

[6] Alcestis.

[7] The context shows that _sanctitas_ is opposed to “rapacity,”

“taking bribes,” like the Celaeno of Juv. viii.—J. E. B. M.

{353}

THE TWELFTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED

TO POLYBIUS.

OF CONSOLATION.

I. .... compared with ours is firm and lasting; but if you transfer

it to the domain of Nature, which destroys everything and calls

everything back to the place from whence it came, it is transitory.

What, indeed, have mortal hands made that is not mortal? The seven

wonders of the world, and any even greater wonders which the ambition

of later ages has constructed, will be seen some day levelled with

the ground. So it is: nothing lasts for ever, few things even last

for long: all are susceptible of decay in one way or another. The

ways in which things come to an end are manifold, but yet everything

that has a beginning has an end also. Some threaten the world with

death, and, though you may think the thought to be impious, this

entire universe, containing gods and men and all their works will

some day be swept away and plunged a second time into its original

darkness and chaos. Weep, if you can, after this, over the loss of

any individual life! Can we mourn the ashes of Carthage, Numantia,

Corinth, or any city that has fallen from a high estate, when we

know that the world must perish, albeit it has no place {354} into

which it can fall. Weep, if you can, because Fate has not spared

you, she who some day will dare to work so great a wickedness! Who

can be so haughtily and peevishly arrogant as to expect that this

law of nature by which everything is brought to an end will be set

aside in his own case, and that his own house will be exempted from

the ruin which menaces the whole world itself? It is, therefore, a

great consolation to reflect that what has happened to us has

happened to every one before us and will happen to every one after

us. In my opinion, nature has made her cruellest acts affect all

men alike, in order that the universality of their lot might console

them for its hardship.

II. It will also be no small assistance to you to reflect that grief

can do no good either to him whom you have lost or to yourself, and

you would not wish to protract what is useless: for if we could

gain anything by sorrow, I should not refuse to bestow upon your

misfortunes whatever tears my own have left at my disposal: I would

force some drops to flow from these eyes, exhausted as they are

with weeping over my own domestic afflictions, were it likely to

be of any service to you. Why do you hesitate? let us lament together,

and I will even make this quarrel my own:—“Fortune, whom every one

thinks most unjust, you seemed hitherto to have restrained yourself

from attacking one who by your favour had become the object of such

universal respect that—rare distinction for any one—his prosperity

had excited no jealousy: but now, behold! you have dealt him the

cruellest wound which, while Caesar lives, he could receive, and

after reconnoitring him from all sides you have discovered that on

this point alone he was exposed to your strokes. What else indeed

could you have done to him? should you take away his wealth? he

never was its slave: now he has even as far as possible put it away

from him, and the chief thing that he has gained by his unrivalled

facilities {355} for amassing money has been to despise it. Should

you take away his friends? you knew that he was of so loveable a

disposition that he could easily gain others to replace those whom

he might lose: for of all the powerful officers of the Imperial

household he seems to me to be the only one whom all men wish to

have for their friend without considering how advantageous his

friendship would be. Should you take away his reputation? it is so

firmly established, that even you could not shake it. Should you

take away his health? you knew that his mind was so grounded on

philosophical studies, in whose schools he was born as well as bred,

that it would rise superior to any sufferings of the body. Should

you take away his breath? how small an injury would that be to him?

fame promised his genius one of the longest of lives: he himself

has taken care that his better part should remain alive, and has

guarded himself against death by the composition of his admirable

works of eloquence: as long as literature shall be held in any

honour, as long as the vigour of the Latin or the grace of the Greek

language shall endure, he will flourish together with their greatest

writers, with whose genius he has measured, or, if his modesty will

not let me say this, has connected his own. This, then, was the

only means you could devise of doing him a great injury. The better

a man is, the more frequently he is wont to suffer from your

indiscriminate rage, you who are to be feared even when you are

bestowing benefits upon one. How little it would have cost you to

avert this blow from one upon whom your favours seemed to be conferred

according to some regular plan, and not to be flung at random in

your wonted fashion!”

III. Let us add, if you please, to these grounds of complaint the

disposition of the youth himself, cut off in the midst of its first

growth. He was worthy to be your brother: you most certainly did

not deserve to be given {356} any pain through your brother, even

though he had been unworthy. All men alike bear witness to his

merits: he is regretted for your sake, and is praised for his own.

He had no qualities which you would not be glad to recognize. You

would indeed have been good to a worse brother, but to him your

fraternal love was given all the more freely because in him it found

so fitting a field for its exercise. No one ever was made to feel

his influence by receiving wrongs at his hands, he never used the

fact of your being his brother to threaten any one: he had moulded

his character after the pattern of your modesty, and reflected how

great a glory and how great a burden you were to your family: the

burden he was able to sustain; but, O pitiless Fate, always unjust

to virtue—before your brother could taste the happiness of his

position, he was called away. I am well aware that I express my

feelings inadequately; for nothing is harder than to find words

which adequately represent great grief: still, let us again lament

for him, if it be of any use to do so:—“What did you mean, Fortune,

by being so unjust and so savage? did you so soon repent you of

your favour? What cruelty it was to fall upon brothers, to break

up so loving a circle by so deadly an attack; why did you bring

mourning into a house so plenteously stocked with admirable youths,

in which no brother came short of the high standard of the rest,

and without any cause pluck one of them away? So, then, scrupulous

innocency of life, old-fashioned frugality, the power of amassing

vast wealth wielded with the greatest self-denial, a true and

imperishable love of literature, a mind free from the least spot

of sin, all avail nothing: Polybius is in mourning, and, warned by

the fate of one brother what he may have to dread for the rest, he

fears for the very persons who soothe his grief. O shame! Polybius

is in mourning, and mourns even though he still enjoys the favour

of Caesar. No doubt, Fortune, what you aimed at in {357} your

impotent rage was to prove that no one could be protected from your

attacks, not even by Caesar himself.”

IV. We might go on blaming fate much longer, but we cannot alter

it: it stands harsh and inexorable: no one can move it by reproaches,

by tears, or by justice. Fate never spares any one, never makes

allowances to any one. Let us, then, refrain from unprofitable

tears: for our grief will carry us away to join him sooner than it

will bring him back to us: and if it tortures us without helping

us, we ought to lay it aside as soon as possible, and restore the

tone of our minds after their indulgence in that vain solace and

the bitter luxury of woe: for unless reason puts an end to our

tears, fortune will not do so. Look around, I pray you, upon all

mortals: everywhere there is ample and constant reason for weeping:

one man is driven to daily labour by toilsome poverty, another is

tormented by never-resting ambition, another fears the very riches

that he once wished for, and suffers from the granting of his own

prayer: one man is made wretched by loneliness, another by labour,

another by the crowds which always besiege his antechamber. This

man mourns because he has children, that one because he has lost

them. Tears will fail us sooner than causes for shedding them. Do

you not see what sort of a life it must be that Nature has promised

to us men when she makes us weep as soon as we are born? We begin

life in this fashion, and all the chain of years that follow it is

in harmony with it. Thus we pass our lives, and consequently we

ought to be sparing in doing what we have to do so often, and when

we look back upon the mass of sorrows that hangs over us, we ought,

if not to end our tears, at any rate to reserve them. There is

nothing that we ought to husband more carefully than this, which

we are so often obliged to expend.

V. It will also be no small assistance to you to consider that there

is no one to whom your grief is more offensive {358} than he upon

whom it is nominally bestowed: he either does not wish you to suffer

or does not understand why you suffer. There is, therefore, no

reason for a service which is useless if it is not felt by him who

is the object of it, and which is displeasing to him if it is. I

can boldly affirm that there is no one in the whole world who derives

any pleasure from your tears. What then? do you suppose that your

brother has a feeling against you which no one else has, that he

wishes you to be injured by your self-torture, that he desires to

separate you from the business of your life, that is, from philosophy

and from Caesar? that is not likely: for he always gave way to you

as a brother, respected you as a parent, courted you as a superior.

He wishes to be fondly remembered by you, but not to be a source

of agony to you. Why, then, should you insist upon pining away with

a grief which, if the dead have any feelings, your brother wishes

to bring to an end? If it were any other brother about whose affection

there could be any question, I should put all this vaguely, and

say, “If your brother wishes you to be tortured with endless mourning,

he does not deserve such affection: if he does not wish it, dismiss

the grief which affects you both: an unnatural brother ought not,

a good brother would not wish to be so mourned for,” but with one

whose brotherly love has been so clearly proved, we may be quite

sure that nothing could hurt him more than that you should be hurt

by his loss, that it should agonize you, that your eyes, most

undeserving as they are of such a fate, should be by the same cause

continually filled and drained of never-ceasing tears.

Nothing however will restrain your loving nature from these useless

tears so effectually as the reflexion that you ought to show your

brothers an example by bearing this outrage of fortune bravely. You

ought to imitate great generals in times of disaster, when they are

careful to affect {359} a cheerful demeanour, and conceal misfortunes

by a counterfeited joyousness, lest, if the soldiers saw their

leader cast down, they should themselves become dispirited. This

must now be done by you also. Put on a countenance that does not

reflect your feelings, and if you possibly can, cast out conceal

it within you and hide it away so that it may not be seen, and take

care that your brothers, who will think everything honourable that

they see you doing, imitate you in this and take courage from the

sight of your looks. It is your duty to be both their comfort and

their consoler; but you will have no power to check their grief if

you humour your own.

VI. It may also keep you from excessive grief if you remind yourself

that nothing which you do can be done in secret: all men agree in

regarding you as an important personage, and you must keep up this

character: you are encompassed by all that mass of offerers of

consolation who all are peering into your mind to learn how much

strength it has to resist grief, and whether you merely know how

to avail yourself cunningly of prosperity, or whether you can also

bear adversity with a manly spirit: the expression of your very

eyes is watched. Those who are able to conceal their feelings may

indulge them more freely; but you are not free to have any secresy:

your fortune has set you in so brilliant a position, that nothing

which you do can be hid: all men will know how you have borne this

wound of yours, whether you laid down your arms at the first shock

or whether you stood your ground. Long ago the love of Caesar raised

you, and your own literary pursuits brought you, to the highest

rank in the state: nothing vulgar, nothing mean befits you: yet

what can be meaner or more womanish than to make oneself a victim

to grief? Although your sorrow is as great as that of your brothers,

yet you may not indulge it as much as they: the ideas which the

public have formed about your philosophic {360} learning and your

character make many things impossible for you. Men demand much, and

expect much from you: you ought not to have drawn all eyes upon

yourself, if you wished to be allowed to act as you pleased: as it

is, you must make good that of which you have given promise. All

those, who praise the works of your genius, who make copies of them,

who need your genius if they do not need your fortune, are as guards

set over your mind: you cannot, therefore, ever do anything unworthy

of the character of a thorough philosopher and sage, without many

men feeling sorry that they ever admired you. You may not weep

beyond reason: nor is this the only thing that you may not do: you

may not so much as remain asleep after daybreak, or retreat from

the noisy troubles of public business to the peaceful repose of the

country, or refresh yourself with a pleasure tour when wearied by

constant attendance to the duties of your toilsome post, or amuse

yourself with beholding various shows, or even arrange your day

according to your own wish. Many things are forbidden to you which

are permitted to the poorest beggars that lie about in holes and

corners. A great fortune is a great slavery; you may not do anything

according to your wish: you must give audiences to all those thousands

of people, you must take charge of all those petitions: you must

cheer yourself up, in order that all this mass of business which

flows hither from every part of the world may be offered in due

order for the consideration of our excellent emperor. I repeat, you

yourself are forbidden to weep, that you may be able to listen to

so many weeping petitioners: your own tears must be dried, in order

that the tears of those who are in peril and who desire to obtain

the gracious pardon of the kindest-hearted of Caesars may be dried.

VII. These reflexions will serve you as partial remedies for your

grief, but if you wish to forget it altogether, remember Caesar:

think with what loyalty, with what {361} industry you are bound to

requite the favours which he has shown you: you will then see that

you can no more sink beneath your burden than could he of whom the

myths tells us, he whose shoulders upheld the world. Even Caesar,

who may do all things, may not do many things for this very reason:

his watchfulness protects all men’s sleep, his labour guarantees

their leisure, his toil ensures their pleasures, his work preserves

their holidays. On the day on which Caesar devoted his services to

the universe, he lost them for himself, and like the planets which

ever unrestingly pursue their course, he can never halt or attend

to any affair of his own. After a certain fashion this prohibition

is imposed upon you also; you may not consider your own interests,

or devote yourself to your own studies: while Caesar owns the world,

you cannot allow either joy or grief, or anything else to occupy

any part of you: you owe your entire self to Caesar. Add to this

that, since you have always declared that Caesar was dearer to you

than your own life, you have no right to complain of misfortune as

long as Caesar is alive: while he is safe all your friends are

alive, you have lost nothing, your eyes ought not only to be dry,

but glad. In him is your all, he stands in the place of all else

to you: you are not grateful enough for your present happy state

(which God forbid that one of your most wise and loyal disposition

should be) if you permit yourself to weep at all while Caesar is

safe.

VIII. I will now point out to you yet another remedy, of a more

domestic, though not of a more efficacious character. Your sorrow

is most to be feared when you have retired to your own home: for

as long as your divinity is before your eyes, it can find no means

of access to you, but Caesar will possess your entire being; when

you have left his presence, grief, as though it then had an opportunity

of attack, will lie in ambush for you in your loneliness, and creep

by degrees over your mind as it rests from its labours. {362} You

ought not, therefore, to allow any moment to be unoccupied by

literary pursuits: at such times let literature repay to you the

debt which your long and faithful love has laid upon it, let it

claim you for its high priest and worshipper: at such times let

Homer[1] and Virgil be much in your company, those poets to whom

the human race owes as much as every one owes to you, and they

especially, because you have made them known to a wider circle than

that for which they wrote. All time which you entrust to their

keeping will be safe. At such times, as far as you are able, compile

an account of your Caesar’s acts, that they may be read by all

future ages in a panegyric written by one of his own household: for

he himself will afford you both the noblest subject and the noblest

example for putting together and composing a history. I dare not

go so far as to advise you to write in your usual elegant style a

version of Aesop’s fables, a work which no Roman intellect has

hitherto attempted. It is hard, no doubt, for a mind which has

received so rude a shock to betake itself so quickly to these

livelier pursuits: but if it is able to pass from more serious

studies to these lighter ones, you must regard it as a proof that

it has recovered its strength, and is itself again. In the former

case, although it may suffer and hang back, still it will be led

on by the serious nature of the subject under consideration to take

an interest in it: but, unless it has thoroughly recovered, it will

not endure to treat of subjects which must be written of in a

cheerful spirit. You ought, therefore, first to exercise your mind

upon grave studies, and then to enliven it with gayer ones.

{363}

IX. It will also be a great solace to you if you often ask yourself:

“Am I grieving on my own account or on that of him who is gone? if

on my own, I have no right to boast of my affectionate sensibility;

grief is only excusable as long as it is honourable; but when it

is only caused by personal interests, it no longer springs from

tenderness: nothing can be less becoming to a good man than to make

a calculation about his grief for his brother. If I grieve on his

account, I must necessarily take one of the two following views:

if the dead retain no feeling whatever, my brother has escaped from

all the troubles of life, has been restored to the place which he

occupied before his birth, and, being free from every kind of ill,

can neither fear, nor desire, nor suffer: what madness then for me

never to cease grieving for one who will never grieve again? If the

dead have any feeling, then my brother is now like one who has been

let out of a prison in which he has long been confined, who at last

is free and his own master, and who enjoys himself, amuses himself

with viewing the works of Nature, and looks down from above the

earth upon all human things, while he looks at things divine, whose

meaning he has long sought in vain, from a much nearer standpoint.

Why then am I wasting away with grief for one who is either in bliss

or non-existent? it would be envy to weep for one who is in bliss,

it would be madness to weep for one who has no existence whatever.”

Are you affected by the thought that he appears to have been deprived

of great blessings just at the moment when they came crowding upon

him? after thinking how much he has lost, call to mind how much

more he has ceased to fear: anger will never more wring his heart,

disease will not crush him, suspicion will not disquiet him, the

gnawing pain of envy which we feel at the successes of others will

not attend him, terror will not make him wretched, the fickleness

of fortune who quickly transfers her favours from one man {364} to

another will not alarm him. If you reckon it up properly, he has

been spared more than he has lost. He will not enjoy wealth, or

your influence at Court, or his own: he will not receive benefits,

and will not confer them: do you imagine him to be unhappy, because

he has lost these things, or happy because he does not miss them?

Believe me, he who does not need good fortune is happier than he

on whom it attends: all those good things which charm us by the

attractive but unreal pleasures which they afford, such as money,

high office, influence, and many other things which dazzle the

stupid greed of mankind, require hard labour to keep, are regarded

by others with bitter jealousy, and are more of a menace than an

advantage to those who are bedecked and encumbered by them. They

are slippery and uncertain; one never can enjoy them in comfort;

for, even setting aside anxiety about the future, the present

management of great prosperity is an uneasy task. If we are to

believe some profound seekers after truth, life is all torment: we

are flung, as it were, into this deep and rough sea, whose tides

ebb and flow, at one time raising us aloft by sudden accessions of

fortune, at another bringing down low by still greater losses, and

for ever tossing us about, never letting us rest on firm ground.

We roll and plunge upon the waves, and sometimes strike against one

another, sometimes are shipwrecked, always are in terror. For those

who sail upon this stormy sea, exposed as it is to every gale, there

is no harbour save death. Do not, then, grudge your brother his

rest: he has at last become free, safe, and immortal: he leaves

surviving him Caesar and all his family, yourself, and his and your

brothers. He left Fortune before she had ceased to regard him with

favour, while she stood still by him, offering him gifts with a

full hand. He now ranges free and joyous through the boundless

heavens; he has left this poor and low-lying region, and has soared

{365} upwards to that place, whatever it may be, which receives in

its happy bosom the souls which have been set free from the chains

of matter: he now roams there at liberty, and enjoys with the keenest

delight all the blessings of Nature. You are mistaken! your brother

has not lost the light of day, but has obtained a more enduring

light: whither he has gone, we all alike must go: why then do we

weep for his fate? He has not left us, but has gone on before us.

Believe me, there is great happiness in a happy death. We cannot

be sure of anything even for one whole day: since the truth is so

dark and hard to come at, who can tell whether death came to your

brother out of malice or out of kindness?

X. One who is as just in all things as you are, must find comfort

in the thought that no wrong has been done you by the loss of so

noble a brother, but that you have received a benefit by having

been permitted for so long a time to enjoy his affection. He who

will not allow his benefactor to choose his own way of bestowing a

gift upon him, is unjust: he who does not reckon what he receives

as gain, and yet reckons what he gives back again as loss, is greedy:

he who says that he has been wronged, because his pleasure has come

to an end, is ungrateful: he who thinks that we gain nothing from

good things beyond the present enjoyment of them, is a fool, because

he finds no pleasure in past joys, and does not regard those which

are gone as his most certain possessions, since he need not fear

that they will come to an end. A man limits his pleasures too

narrowly if he believes that he enjoys those things only which he

touches and sees, if he counts the having enjoyed them for nothing:

for all pleasure quickly leaves us, seeing that it flows away, flits

across our lives, and is gone almost before it has come. We ought,

therefore, to make our mind travel back over past time, to bring

back whatever we once took pleasure in, and frequently to ruminate

over it {366} in our thoughts: the remembrance of pleasures is truer

and more trustworthy than their reality. Regard it, then, among

your greatest blessings that you have had an excellent brother: you

need not think for how much longer you might have had him, but for

how long you did have him. Nature gave him to you, as she gives

others to other brothers, not as an absolute property, but as a

loan: afterwards when she thought proper she took him back again,

and followed her own rules of action, instead of waiting until you

had indulged your love to satiety. If any one were to be indignant

at having to repay a loan of money, especially if he had been allowed

to use it without having to pay any interest, would he not be thought

an unreasonable man? Nature gave your brother his life, just as she

gave you yours: exercising her lawful rights, she has chosen to ask

one of you to repay her loan before the other: she cannot be blamed

for this, for you knew the conditions on which you received it: you

must blame the greedy hopes of mortal men’s minds, which every now

and then forget what Nature is, and never remember their own lot

unless reminded of it. Rejoice, then, that you have had so good a

brother, and be grateful for having had the use and enjoyment of

him, though it was for a shorter time than you wished. Reflect that

what you have had of him was most delightful, that your having lost

him is an accident common to mankind. There is nothing more

inconsistent than that a man should grieve that so good a brother

was not long enough with him, and should not rejoice that he

nevertheless has been with him.

XI. “But,” you say, “he was taken away unexpectedly.” Every man is

deceived by his own willingness to believe what he wishes, and he

chooses to forget that those whom he loves are mortal: yet Nature

gives us clear proofs that she will not suspend her laws in favour

of any one: the funeral processions of our friends and of strangers

alike {367} pass daily before our eyes, yet we take no notice of

them, and when an event happens which our whole life warns us will

some day happen, we call it sudden. This is not, therefore, the

injustice of fate, but the perversity and insatiable universal

greediness of the human mind, which is indignant at having to leave

a place to which it was only admitted on sufferance. How far more

righteous was he who, on hearing of the death of his son, made a

speech worthy of a great man, saying: “When I begat him, I knew

that he would die some day.” Indeed, you need not be surprised at

the son of such a man being able to die bravely. He did not receive

the tidings of his son’s death as news: for what is there new in a

man’s dying, when his whole life is merely a journey towards death?

“When I begat him, I knew that he would die some day,” said he: and

then he added, what showed even more wisdom and courage, “It was

for this that I brought him up.” It is for this that we have all

been brought up: every one who is brought into life is intended to

die. Let us enjoy what is given to us, and give it back when it is

asked for: the Fates lay their hands on some men at some times, and

on other men at other times, but they will never pass any one by

altogether. Our mind ought always to be on the alert, and while it

ought never to fear what is certain to happen, it ought always to

be ready for what may happen at any time. Why need I tell you of

generals and the children of generals, of men ennobled by many

consulships and triumphs, who have succumbed to pitiless fate? whole

kingdoms together with their kings, whole nations with all their

component tribes, have all submitted to their doom. All men, nay,

all things look forward to an end of their days: yet all do not

come to the same end: one man loses his life in the midst of his

career, another at the very beginning of it, another seems hardly

able to free himself from it when worn out with extreme old age,

and eager to {368} be released: we are all going to the same place,

but we all go thither at different times, I know not whether it is

more foolish not to know the law of mortality, or more presumptuous

to refuse to obey it. Come, take into your hands the poems[2] of

whichever you please of those two authors upon whom your genius has

expended so much labour, whom you have so well paraphrased, that

although the structure of the verse be removed, its charm nevertheless

is preserved; for you have transferred them from one language to

another so well as to effect the most difficult matter of all, that

of making all the beauties of the original reappear in a foreign

speech: among their works you will find no volume which will not

offer you numberless instances of the vicissitudes of human life,

of the uncertainty of events, and of tears shed for various reasons.

Read with what fire you have thundered out their swelling phrases:

you will feel ashamed of suddenly failing and falling short of the

elevation of their magnificent language. Do not commit the fault

of making every one, who according to his ability admires your

writings, ask how so frail a mind can have formed such stable and

well-connected ideas.

XII. Turn yourself away from these thoughts which torment you, and

look rather at those numerous and powerful sources of consolation

which you possess: look at your excellent brothers, look at your

wife and your son. It is to guarantee the safety of all these that

Fortune[3] has struck you in this quarter: you have many left in

whom you can take comfort. Guard yourself from the shame of letting

all men think that a single grief has more power with you than these

many consolations. You see all of them cast down into the same

despondency as yourself, and you know that they cannot help you,

nay, that on the other hand they look to {369} you to encourage

them: wherefore, the less learning and the less intellect they

possess, the more vigorously you ought to withstand the evil which

has fallen upon you all. The very fact of one’s grief being shared

by many persons acts as a consolation, because if it be distributed

among such a number the share of it which falls upon you must be

small. I shall never cease to recall your thoughts to Caesar. While

he governs the earth, and shows how far better the empire may be

maintained by kindnesses than by arms, while he presides over the

affairs of mankind, there is no danger of your feeling that you

have lost anything: in this fact alone you will find ample help and

ample consolation; raise yourself up, and fix your eyes upon Caesar

whenever tears rise to them; they will become dry on beholding that

greatest and most brilliant light; his splendour will attract them

and firmly attach them to himself, so that they are able to see

nothing else. He whom you behold both by day and by night, from

whom your mind never deviates to meaner matters, must occupy your

thoughts and be your defence against Fortune; indeed, so kind and

gracious as he is towards all his followers that he has already, I

doubt not, laid many healing balms upon this wound of yours, and

furnished you with many antidotes for your sorrow. Why, even had

he done nothing of the kind, is not the mere sight and thought of

Caesar in itself your greatest consolation? May the gods and goddesses

long spare him to the earth: may he rival the deeds of the Emperor

Augustus, and surpass him in length of days! as long as he remains

among mortals, may he never be reminded that any of his house are

mortal: may he train up his son by long and faithful service to be

the ruler of the Roman people, and see him share his father’s power

before he succeeds to it: may the day on which his kindred shall

claim him for heaven be far distant, and may our grandchildren alone

be alive to see it.

{370}

XIII. Fortune, refrain your hands from him, and show your power

over him only in doing him good: allow him to heal the long sickness

from which mankind has suffered; to replace and restore whatever

has been shattered by the frenzy of our late sovereign: may this

star, which has shed its rays upon a world overthrown and cast into

darkness, ever shine brightly: may he give peace to Germany, open

Britain to us, and lead through the city triumphs, both over the

nations whom his fathers conquered, and over new ones. Of these his

clemency, the first of his many virtues, gives me hopes of being a

spectator: for he has not so utterly cast me down that he will never

raise me up again; nay, he has not cast me down at all; rather he

has supported me when I was struck by evil fortune and was tottering,

and has gently used his godlike hand to break my headlong fall: he

pleaded with the Senate on my behalf, and not only gave me my life

but even begged it for me. He will see to my cause: let him judge

my cause to be such as he would desire; let his justice pronounce

it good or his clemency so regard it: his kindness to me will be

equal in either case, whether he knows me to be innocent or chooses

that I should be thought so. Meanwhile it is a great comfort to me

for my own miseries to behold his pardons travelling throughout the

world: even from the corner in which I am confined his mercy has

unearthed and restored to light many exiles who had been buried and

forgotten here for long years, and I have no fear that I alone shall

be passed over by it. He best knows the time at which he ought to

show favour to each man: I will use my utmost efforts to prevent

his having to blush when he comes to me. O how blessed is your

clemency, Caesar, which makes exiles live more peacefully during

your reign than princes did in that of Gaius! We do not tremble or

expect the fatal stroke every hour, nor are we terrified whenever

a ship comes in sight: you have set bounds to the cruelty of Fortune

towards {371} us, and have given us present peace and hopes of a

happier future. You may indeed be sure that those thunderbolts alone

are just which are worshipped even by those who are struck by them.

XIV. Thus this prince, who is the universal consoler of all men,

has, unless I am altogether mistaken, already revived your spirit

and applied more powerful remedies to so severe a wound than I can:

he has already strengthened you in every way: his singularly retentive

memory has already furnished you with all the examples which will

produce tranquillity: his practised eloquence has already displayed

before you all the precepts of sages. No one therefore could console

you as well as he: when he speaks his words have greater weight,

as though they were the utterances of an oracle: his divine authority

will crush all the strength of your grief. Think, then, that he

speaks to you as follows:—“Fortune has not chosen you as the only

man in the world to receive so severe a blow: there is no house in

all the earth, and never has been one, that has not something to

mourn for: I will pass over examples taken from the common herd,

which, while they are of less importance, are also endless in number,

and I will direct your attention to the Calendar and the State

Chronicles. Do you see all these images which fill the hall of the

Caesars? there is not one of these men who was not especially

afflicted by domestic sorrows: no one of those men who shine there

as the ornament of the ages was not either tortured by grief for

some of his family or most bitterly mourned for by those whom he

left behind. Why need I remind you of Scipio Africanus, who heard

the news of his brother’s death when he was himself in exile? he

who saved his brother from prison could not save him from his fate.

Yet all men saw how impatient Africanus’s brotherly affection was

even of equal law: on the same day on which Scipio Africanus rescued

his brother from the {372} hands of the apparitor, he, although not

holding any office, protested against the action of the tribune of

the people. He mourned for his brother as magnanimously as he had

defended him. Why need I remind you of Scipio Aemilianus,[4] who

almost at one and the same time beheld his father’s triumph and the

funeral of his two brothers? yet, although a stripling and hardly

more than a boy, he bore the sudden bereavement which befel his

family at the very time of Paulus’s triumph with all the courage

which beseemed one who was born that Rome might not be without a

Scipio and that she might be without a Carthage.

XV. Why should I speak of the intimacy of the two Luculli, which

was broken only by their death? or of the Pompeii? whom the cruelty

of Fortune did not even allow to perish by the same catastrophe;

for Sextus Pompeius in the first place survived his sister,[5] by

whose death the firmly knit bond of peace in the Roman empire was

broken, and he also survived his noble brother, whom Fortune had

raised so high in order that she might cast him down from as great

a height as she had already cast down his father; yet after this

great misfortune Sextus Pompeius was able not only to endure his

grief but even to make war. Innumerable instances occur to me of

brothers who were separated by death: indeed on the other hand we

see very few pairs of brothers growing old together: however, I

shall content myself with examples from my own family. No one can

be so devoid of feeling or of reason as to complain of Fortune’s

having thrown him into mourning when he learns that she has coveted

the tears of the Caesars themselves. The Emperor Augustus lost his

darling sister Octavia, and though Nature destined him for heaven,

yet she did not relax her laws to spare him from mourning while on

earth: nay, he suffered every kind of bereavement, {373} losing his

sister’s son,[6] who was intended to be his heir. In fine, not to

mention his sorrows in detail, he lost his son-in-law, his children,

and his grandchildren, and, while he remained among men, no mortal

was more often reminded that he was a man. Yet his mind, which was

able to bear all things, bore all these heavy sorrows, and the

blessed Augustus was the conqueror, not only of foreign nations,

but also of his own sorrows. Gaius Caesar,[7] the grandson of the

blessed Augustus, my maternal great uncle, in the first years of

manhood, when Prince of the Roman Youth, as he was preparing for

the Parthian war, lost his darling brother Lucius[8] who was also

‘Prince of the Roman Youth,’ and suffered more thereby in his mind

than he did afterwards in his body, though he bore both afflictions

with the greatest piety and fortitude. Tiberius Caesar, my paternal

uncle, lost his younger brother Drusus Germanicus,[9] my father,

when he was opening out the innermost fastnesses of Germany, and

bringing the fiercest tribes under the dominion of the Roman empire;

he embraced him and received his last kiss, but he nevertheless

restrained not only his own grief but that of others, and when the

whole army, not merely sorrowful but heartbroken, claimed the corpse

of their Drusus for themselves, he made them grieve only as it

became Romans to grieve, {374} and taught them that they must observe

military discipline not only in fighting but also in mourning. He

could not have checked the tears of others had he not first repressed

his own.

XVI. “Marcus Antonius, my grandfather, who was second to none save

his conqueror, received the news of his brother’s execution at the

very time when the state was at his disposal, and when, as a member

of the triumvirate, he saw no one in the world superior to himself

in power, nay, when, with the exception of his two colleagues, every

man was subordinate to himself. O wanton Fortune, what sport you

make for yourself out of human sorrows! At the very time when Marcus

Antonius was enthroned with power of life and death over his

countrymen, Marcus Antonius’s brother was being led to his death:

yet Antonius bore this cruel wound with the same greatness of mind

with which he had endured all his other crosses; and he mourned for

his brother by offering the blood of twenty legions to his manes.

However, to pass by all other instances, not to speak of the other

deaths which have occurred in my own house. Fortune has twice

assailed me through the death of a brother; she has twice learned

that she could wound me but could not overthrow me. I lost my brother

Germanicus, whom I loved in a manner which any one will understand

if he thinks how affectionate brothers love one another; yet I so

restrained my passion of grief as neither to leave undone anything

which a good brother could be called upon to do, nor yet to do

anything which a sovereign could be blamed for doing.”

Think, then, that our common parent quotes these instances to you,

and that he points out to you how nothing is respected or held

inviolable by Fortune, who actually dares to send out funeral

processions from the very house in which she will have to look for

gods: so let no one be surprised at her committing any act of cruelty

{375} or injustice; for how could she show any humanity or moderation

in her dealings with private families, when her pitiless fury has

so often hung the very throne[10] itself with black? She will not

change her habits even though reproached, not by my voice alone,

but by that of the entire nation: she will hold on her course in

spite of all prayers and complaints. Such has Fortune always been,

and such she ever will be in connexion with human affairs: she has

never shrunk from attacking anything, and she will never let anything

alone: she will rage everywhere terribly, as she has always been

wont to do: she will dare to enter for evil purposes into those

houses whose entrance lies through the temples of the gods, and

will hang signs of mourning upon laurelled door-posts. However, if

she has not yet determined to destroy the human race: if she still

looks with favour upon the Roman nation, may our public and private

prayers prevail upon her to regard as sacred from her violence this

prince, whom all men think to be sacred, who has been granted them

by heaven to give them rest after their misfortunes: let her learn

clemency from him, and let the mildest of all sovereigns teach her

mildness.