aye, and entertain themselves with their friends, and perhaps with
a greater relish too, after their engagements and hard services,—as
did Alexander and Agesilaus, and (by Jove) Phocion and Epaminondas
too,—than these gentlemen who anoint themselves by the fireside, and
are gingerly rocked about the streets in sedans. Yea, those make but
small account of such pleasures as these, as being comprised in those
greater ones. For why should a man mention Epaminondas’s denying to
sup with one, when he saw the preparations made were above the man’s
estate, but frankly telling his friend, “I thought you had intended
a sacrifice and not a debauch,” when Alexander himself refused Queen
Ada’s cooks, telling her he had better ones of his own, to wit,
travelling by night for his dinner, and a light dinner for his supper,
and when Philoxenus writing to him about some handsome boys, and
desiring to know of him whether he would have him buy them for him,
was within a small matter of being discharged his office for it? And
yet who might better have them than he? But as Hippocrates saith that
of two pains the lesser is obscured by the greater, so the pleasures
that accrue from action and the love of glory, while they cheer and
refresh the mind, do by their transcendency and grandeur obliterate and
extinguish the inferior satisfactions of the body.
18. If then the remembering of former good things (as they affirm) be
that which most contributes to a pleasurable living, not one of us will
then credit Epicurus when he tells us that, while he was dying away in
the midst of the strongest agonies and distempers, he yet bore himself
up with the memory of the pleasures he formerly enjoyed. For a man
may better see the resemblance of his own face in a troubled deep or
a storm, than a smooth and smiling remembrance of past pleasure in a
body tortured with such lancing and rending pains. But now the memories
of past actions no man can put from him that would. For did Alexander,
think you, (or indeed could he possibly) forget the fight at Arbela?
Or Pelopidas the tyrant Leontiadas? Or Themistocles the engagement at
Salamis? For the Athenians to this very day keep an annual festival
for the battle at Marathon, and the Thebans for that at Leuctra;
and so, by Jove, do we ourselves (as you very well know) for that
which Daiphantus gained at Hyampolis, and all Phocis is filled with
sacrifices and public honors. Nor is there any of us that is better
satisfied with what himself hath either eaten or drunk than he is with
what they have achieved. It is very easy then to imagine what great
content, satisfaction, and joy accompanied the authors of these actions
in their lifetime, when the very memory of them hath not yet after five
hundred years and more lost its rejoicing power. The truth is, Epicurus
himself allows there are some pleasures derived from fame. And indeed
why should he not, when he himself had such a furious lechery and
wriggling after glory as made him not only to disown his masters and
scuffle about syllables and accents with his fellow-pedant Democritus
(whose doctrines he stole verbatim), and to tell his disciples there
never was a wise man in the world besides himself, but also to put it
in writing how Colotes performed adoration to him, as he was one day
philosophizing, by touching his knees, and that his own brother Neocles
was used from a child to say, “There neither is, nor ever was in the
world, a wiser man than Epicurus,” and that his mother had just so many
atoms within her as, when they came together, must have produced a
complete wise man? May not a man then—as Callicratidas once said of the
Athenian admiral Conon, that he whored the sea—as well say of Epicurus
that he basely and covertly forces and ravishes Fame, by not enjoying
her publicly but ruffling and debauching her in a corner? For as men’s
bodies are oft necessitated by famine, for want of other food, to prey
against nature upon themselves, a like mischief to this does vain-glory
create in men’s minds, forcing them, when they hunger after praise and
cannot obtain it from other men, at last to commend themselves.
19. And do not they then that stand so well affected towards applause
and fame themselves own they cast away very extraordinary pleasures,
when they decline magistrature, public offices, and the favor and
confidences of princes, from whom Democritus once said the grandest
blessings of human life are derived? For he will never induce any
mortal to believe, that he that could so highly value and please
himself with the attestation of his brother Neocles and the adoration
of his friend Colotes would not, were he clapped by all the Greeks at
the Olympiads, go quite out of his wits and even hollow for joy, or
rather indeed be elated in the manner spoken of by Sophocles,
Puffed like the down of a gray-headed thistle.
If it be a pleasing thing then to be of a good fame, it is on the
contrary afflictive to be of an ill one; and it is most certain that
nothing in the world can be more infamous than want of friendship,
idleness, atheism, debauchery, and negligence. Now these are looked
upon by all men except themselves as inseparable companions of their
party. But unjustly, some one may say. Be it so then; for we consider
not now the truth of the charge, but what fame and reputation they
are of in the world. And we shall forbear at present to mention the
many books that have been written to defame them, and the blackening
decrees made against them by several republics; for that would look
like bitterness. But if the answers of oracles, the providence of the
Gods, and the tenderness and affection of parents to their issue,—if
civil policy, military order, and the office of magistracy be things
to be looked upon as deservedly esteemed and celebrated, it must of
necessity then be allowed also, that they that tell us it is none of
their business to preserve the Greeks, but they must eat and drink so
as not to offend but pleasure their stomachs, are base and ignominious
persons, and that their being reputed such must needs extremely humble
them and make their lives untoward to them, if they take honor and a
good name for any part of their satisfaction.
20. When Theon had thus spoken, we thought good to break up our walk
to rest us awhile (as we were wont to do) upon the benches. Nor did
we continue any long space in our silence at what was spoken; for
Zeuxippus, taking his hint from what had been said, spake to us: Who
will make up that of the discourse which is yet behind? For it hath
not yet received its due conclusion; and this gentleman, by mentioning
divination and providence, did in my opinion suggest as much to us;
for these people boast that these very things contribute in no small
degree to the providing of their lives with pleasure, serenity,
and assurance; so that there must be something said to these too.
Aristodemus subjoined then and said: As to pleasure, I think there hath
been enough said already to evince that, supposing their doctrine to
be successful and to attain its own design, it yet doth but ease us of
fear and a certain superstitious persuasion, but helps us not to any
comfort or joy from the Gods at all; nay, while it brings us to such a
state as to be neither disquieted nor pleased with them, it doth but
render us in the same manner affected towards them as we are towards
the Scythians or Hyrcanians, from whom we expect neither good nor harm.
But if something more must yet be added to what hath been already
spoken, I think I may very well take it from themselves. And in the
first place, they quarrel extremely with those that would take away
all sorrowing, weeping, and sighing for the death of friends, and tell
them that such unconcernedness as arrives to an insensibility proceeds
from some other worse cause, to wit, inhumanity, excessive vain-glory,
or prodigious fierceness, and that therefore it would be better to be
a little concerned and affected, yea, and to liquor one’s eyes and
be melted, with other pretty things of the like kind, which they use
foppishly to affect and counterfeit, that they may be thought tender
and loving-hearted people. For just in this manner Epicurus expressed
himself upon the occasion of the death of Hegesianax, when he wrote to
Dositheus the father and to Pyrson the brother of the deceased person;
for I fortuned very lately to run over his epistles. And I say, in
imitation of them, that atheism is no less an evil than inhumanity and
vain-glory, and into this they would lead us who take away with God’s
anger the comfort we might derive from him. For it would be much better
for us to have something of the unsuiting passion of dauntedness and
fear conjoined and intermixed with our sentiments of a Deity, than
while we fly from it, to leave ourselves neither hope, comfort, nor
assurance in the enjoyment of our good things, nor any recourse to God
in our adversity and misfortunes.
21. We ought, it is true, to remove superstition from the persuasion
we have of the Gods, as we would the gum from our eyes; but if that
be impossible, we must not root out and extinguish with it the belief
which the most have of the Gods; nor is that a dismaying and sour
one either, as these gentlemen feign, while they libel and abuse the
blessed Providence, representing her as a hobgoblin or as some fell and
tragic fury. Yea, I must tell you, there are some in the world that
fear God in an excess, for whom yet it would not be better not so to
fear him. For, while they dread him as a governor that is gentle to the
good and severe to the bad, and are by this one fear, which makes them
not to need many others, freed from doing ill and brought to keep their
wickedness with them in quiet and (as it were) in an enfeebled languor,
they come hereby to have less disquiet than those that indulge the
practice of it and are rash and daring in it, and then presently after
fear and repent of it. Now that disposition of mind which the greater
and ignorant part of mankind, that are not utterly bad, are of towards
God, hath, it is very true, conjoined with the regard and honor they
pay him, a kind of anguish and astonished dread, which is also called
superstition; but ten thousand times more and greater than this are the
good hope and true joy that attend it, which both implore and receive
the whole benefit of prosperity and good success from the Gods only.
And this is manifest by the greatest tokens that can be; for neither do
the discourses of those that wait at the temples, nor the good times
of our solemn festivals, nor any other actions or sights more recreate
and delight us than what we see and do about the Gods ourselves, while
we assist at the public ceremonies, and join in the sacred balls, and
attend at the sacrifices and initiations. For the mind is not then
sorrowful, demiss, and heavy, as she would be if she were addressing
to certain tyrants or cruel torturers; but on the contrary, where she
is most apprehensive and fullest persuaded the Divinity is present,
there she most of all throws off sorrows, tears, and pensiveness, and
lets herself loose to what is pleasing and agreeable, to the very
degree of tipsiness, frolic, and laughter. In amorous concerns, as the
poet said once,
When old man and old wife think of love’s fires,
Their frozen breasts will swell with new desires;
but now in the public processions and sacrifices not only the old man
and the old wife, nor yet the poor and mean man only, but also
The dusty thick-legged drab that turns the mill,
and household-slaves and day-laborers, are strangely elevated and
transported with mirth and jovialty. Rich men as well as princes are
used at certain times to make public entertainments and to keep open
houses; but the feasts they make at the solemnities and sacrifices,
when they now apprehend their minds to approach nearest the Divinity,
have conjoined with the honor and veneration which they pay him a
much more transcending pleasure and satisfaction. Of this, he that
hath renounced God’s providence hath not the least share; for what
recreates and cheers us at the festivals is not the store of good wine
and roast meat, but the good hope and persuasion that God is there
present and propitious to us, and kindly accepts of what we do. From
some of our festivals we exclude the flute and garland; but if God be
not present at the sacrifice, as the solemnity of the banquet, the rest
is but unhallowed, unfeast-like, and uninspired. Indeed the whole is
but ungrateful and irksome to such a man; for he asks for nothing at
all, but only acts his prayers and adorations for fear of the public,
and utters expressions contradictory to his philosophy. And when he
sacrifices, he stands by and looks upon the priest as he kills the
offering but as he doth upon a butcher; and when he hath done, he goes
his way, saying with Menander,
To bribe the Gods I sacrificed my best,
But they ne’er minded me nor my request.
For such a mien Epicurus would have us to put on, and neither to envy
nor to incur the hatred of the common sort by doing ourselves with
displeasure what others do with delight. For, as Evenus saith,
No man can love what he is made to do.
For which very reason they think the superstitious are not pleased
in their minds but in fear while they attend at the sacrifices and
mysteries; though they themselves are in no better condition, if they
do the same things out of fear, and partake not either of as great good
hope as the others do, but are only fearful and uneasy lest they should
come to be discovered cheating and abusing the public, upon whose
account it is that they compose the books they write about the Gods and
the Divine Nature,
Involved, with nothing truly said,
But all around enveloped;
hiding out of fear the real opinions they contain.
22. And now, after the two former ranks of ill and common men, we
will in the third place consider the best sort and most beloved of
the Gods, and what great satisfactions they receive from their clean
and generous sentiments of the Deity, to wit, that he is the Prince
of all good things and the Parent of all things brave, and can no
more do an unworthy thing than he can be made to suffer it. For he is
good, and he that is good can upon no account fall into envy, fear,
anger, or hatred; for it is not proper to a hot thing to cool, but to
heat; nor to a good thing to do harm. Now anger is by nature at the
farthest distance imaginable from complacency, and spleenishness from
placidness, and animosity and turbulence from humanity and kindness.
For the latter of these proceed from generosity and fortitude, but
the former from impotency and baseness. The Deity is not therefore
constrained by either anger or kindnesses; but that is because it is
natural to it to be kind and aiding, and unnatural to be angry and
hurtful. But the great Jove, whose mansion is in heaven and who drives
his winged chariot, is the first that descends downwards and orders
all things and takes the care of them. But of the other Gods one is
surnamed the Distributer, and another the Mild, and a third the Averter
of Evil. And according to Pindar,
Apollo was by mighty Jove designed
Of all the Gods to be to man most kind.
And Diogenes saith, that all things are the Gods’, and friends have
all things common, and good men are the Gods’ friends; and therefore
it is impossible either that a man beloved of the Gods should not be
happy, or that a wise and a just man should not be beloved of the Gods.
Can you think then that they that take away Providence need any other
chastisement, or that they have not a sufficient one already, when
they root out of themselves such vast satisfaction and joy as we that
stand thus affected towards the Deity have? Metrodorus, Polyaenus,
and Aristobulus were the confidence and rejoicing of Epicurus; the
better part of whom he all his lifetime either attended upon in their
sicknesses or lamented at their deaths. So did Lycurgus, when he was
saluted by the Delphic prophetess,
Dear friend to heavenly Jove and all the Gods.
And did Socrates when he believed that a certain Divinity was used
out of kindness to discourse him, and Pindar when he heard Pan sing
one of the sonnets he had composed, but a little rejoice, think you?
Or Phormio, when he thought he had treated Castor and Pollux at his
house? Or Sophocles, when he entertained Aesculapius, as both he
himself believed, and others too, that thought the same with him by
reason of the apparition that then happened? What opinion Hermogenes
had of the Gods is well worth the recounting in his very own words.
“For these Gods,” saith he, “who know all things and can do all things,
are so friendly and loving to me that, because they take care of me, I
never escape them either by night or by day, wherever I go or whatever
I am about. And because they know beforehand what issue every thing
will have, they signify it to me by sending angels, voices, dreams, and
presages.”
23. Very amiable things must those be that come to us from the
Gods; but when these very things come by the Gods too, this is what
occasions vast satisfaction and unspeakable assurance, a sublimity of
mind and a joy that, like a smiling brightness, doth as it were gild
over our good things with a glory. But now those that are persuaded
otherwise obstruct the very sweetest part of their prosperity, and
leave themselves nothing to turn to in their adversity; but when they
are in distress, look only to this one refuge and port, dissolution
and insensibility; just as if in a storm or tempest at sea, some one
should, to hearten the rest, stand up and say to them: Gentlemen,
the ship hath never a pilot in it, nor will Castor and Pollux come
themselves to assuage the violence of the beating waves or to lay the
swift careers of the winds; yet I can assure you there is nothing at
all to be dreaded in all this, for the vessel will be immediately
swallowed up by the sea, or else will very quickly fall off and be
dashed in pieces against the rocks. For this is Epicurus’s way of
discourse to persons under grievous distempers and excessive pains.
Dost thou hope for any good from the Gods for thy piety? It is thy
vanity; for the blessed and incorruptible Being is not constrained by
either angers or kindnesses. Dost thou fancy something better after
this life than what thou hast here? Thou dost but deceive thyself;
for what is dissolved hath no sense, and that which hath no sense is
nothing to us. Aye; but how comes it then, my good friend, that you bid
me eat and be merry? Why, by Jove, because he that is in a great storm
cannot be far off a shipwreck; and your extreme peril will soon land
you upon Death’s strand. Though yet a passenger at sea, when he is got
off from a shattered ship, will still buoy himself up with some little
hope that he may drive his body to some shore and get out by swimming;
but now the poor soul, according to these men’s philosophy.