Old man, I reverence thy aged head,
Who to a mighty length hast spun thy thread;
Safe from all dangers, to the grave goest down
Ingloriously, because thou art unknown.[82]
Such expostulations as these with thyself will serve to dispel this
querulous humor, which makes thee fondly applaud other people’s
conditions and depreciate thy own.
12. This likewise greatly obstructs the tranquillity of the mind,
that our desires are immoderate and not suited to our abilities of
attainment, which, like sails beyond the proportion of the vessel,
help only to overset it; so that, being blown up with extravagant
expectations, if ill success frustrates our attempts, we presently
curse our stars and accuse Fortune, when we ought rather to lay the
blame upon our enterprising folly. For we do not reckon him unfortunate
who will shoot with a ploughshare, and let slip an ox at a hare. Nor
is he born under an unlucky influence who cannot catch a buck with a
sling or drag-net; for it was the weakness and perverseness of his mind
which inflamed him on to impossible things. The partial love of himself
is chiefly in fault, which infuseth a vicious inclination to arrogate,
and an insatiable ambition to attempt every thing. For they are not
content with the affluence of riches and the accomplishments of the
mind, that they are robust, have a complaisance of humor and strength
of brain for company, that they are privadoes to princes and governors
of cities, unless they have dogs of great sagacity and swiftness,
horses of a generous strain, nay, unless their quails and cocks are
better than other men’s. Old Dionysius, not being satisfied that he
was the greatest potentate of his time, grew angry, even to a frenzy,
that Philoxenus the poet exceeded him in the sweetness of his voice,
and Plato in the subtleties of disputation; therefore he condemned one
to the quarries, and sold the other into Aegina. But Alexander was of
another temper; for when Criso the famous runner contended with him
for swiftness, and seemed to be designedly lagging behind and yielding
the race, he was in a great rage with him. And Achilles in Homer spake
very well, when he said:—
None of the Greeks for courage me excel;
Let others have the praise of speaking well.[83]
When Megabyzus the Persian came into the shop of Apelles, and began
to ask some impertinent questions concerning his art, the famous
painter checked him into silence with this reprimand: As long as thou
didst hold thy peace, thou didst appear to be a man of condition, and
I paid a deference to the eclat of thy purple and the lustre of thy
gold; but now, since thou art frivolous, thou exposest thyself to the
laughter even of my boys that mix the colors. Some think the Stoics
very childish, when they hear them affirm that the wise man must not
only deserve that appellation for his prudence, be of exact justice
and great fortitude, but must likewise have all the flowers of a
rhetorician and the conduct of a general, must have the elegancies of
a poet, be very wealthy, and called a king; but these good men claim
all these titles for themselves, and if they do not receive them, they
grow peevish and are presently out of temper. But the qualifications of
the Gods themselves are different; for the one is styled the deity of
war, another of the oracle, a third of traffic; and Jupiter makes Venus
preside over marriages and be goddess of the nuptial bed, the delicacy
of her sex being unapt for martial affairs.
13. And there are some things which carry a contrariety in their
nature, and cannot be consistent. As for instance, the study of the
mathematics and practice in oratory are exercises which require a
great leisure and freedom from other concerns; but the intrigues of
politics cannot be managed, and the favor of princes cannot be attained
or cultivated, without severe application and being involved in
affairs of high moment. Then the indulging ourselves to drink wine
and eat flesh makes the body strong, but it effeminates the mind.
Industry to acquire and care to preserve our wealth do infinitely
increase it; but the contempt of riches is the best refreshment in our
philosophic journey. Hence it is very manifest that there is a wide
difference in things, and that we ought to obey the inscription of the
Pythian oracle, that every man should know himself, that he should not
constrain his genius but leave it to its own propensions, and then that
he should apply himself to that to which he is most adapted, and not do
violence to Nature by dragging her perforce to this or that course of
life.
With generous provender they the horse do feed,
That he may win the race with strength and speed.
The mighty ox is fitted to the yoke,
And by his toil the fertile clods are broke.
The dolphin, when a ship he doth espy,
Straight the good-natured fish his fins doth ply;
By the ship’s motion he his own doth guide,
And lovingly swims constant to her side.
And if you’d apprehend the foaming boar,
The monster by a mastiff must be tore.[84]
But he is stupid in his wishes who takes it amiss that he is not a lion,
Who with a proud insulting air doth tread,
Rough as the mountains where he first was bred;[85]
or that he is not a Malta-shock, delicately brought up in the lap of a
fond widow. He is not a jot more rational who would be an Empedocles,
a Plato, or a Democritus, and write about the universe and the reality
of things therein, and at the same time would sleep by the dry side of
an old woman, because she is rich, as Euphorion did; or be admitted to
debauch with Alexander amongst his club of drunkards, as Medius was;
or be concerned that he is not in as high a vogue of admiration as
Ismenias was for his riches and Epaminondas for his virtue. For those
who run races do not think they have injury done them if they are
not crowned with those garlands which are due to the wrestlers, but
they are rather transported with joy at their own rewards. “Sparta has
fallen to thy lot; honor and adorn her.” Solon hath expressed himself
to this purpose:—
Virtue for sordid wealth shall not be sold;
It’s beauty far outshines the miser’s gold.
This without Fortune’s shocks doth still endure;
But that’s possession is insecure.[86]
And Strato, who wrote of physics, when he heard that Menedemus had
a great number of scholars, asked: What wonder is it, if more come
to wash than to be anointed? And Aristotle, writing to Antipater,
declared, that Alexander was not the only one who ought to think
highly of himself because his dominion extended over many subjects,
since they had a right to think as well of themselves who entertained
becoming sentiments of the Gods. So that, by having a just opinion of
our own excellences, we shall be disturbed with the less envy against
those of other men. But now, although in other cases we do not expect
figs from the vine nor grapes from the olive-tree, yet, if we have not
the complicated titles of being rich and learned, philosophers in the
schools and commanders in the field, if we cannot flatter, and have the
facetious liberty to speak what we please, nay, if we are not counted
parsimonious and splendid in our expenses at the same time, we grow
uneasy to ourselves, and despise our life as maimed and imperfect.
Besides, Nature seems to instruct us herself; for, as she ministers
different sorts of food to her animals, and hath endowed them with
diversity of appetites,—some to eat flesh, others to pick up seed, and
others to dig up roots for their nourishment,—so she hath bestowed
upon her rational creatures various sorts of accommodations to sustain
their being. The shepherd hath one distinct from the ploughman; the
fowler hath another peculiar to himself; and the fourth lives by the
sea. So that in common equity we ought to labor in that vocation which
is appointed and most commodious for us, and let alone the rest; and so
not to prove that Hesiod fell short of the truth when he spake after
this manner:—
The potter hates another of the trade,
If by his hands a finer dish is made;
The smith his brother smudge with scorn doth treat,
If he his iron strikes with brisker heat.[87]
And this emulation is not confined to mechanics and those who follow
the same occupations; but the rich man envies the learned. He that hath
a bright reputation envies the miser’s guineas, and the pettifogger
thinks he is outdone in talking by the sophister. Nay, by Heaven, he
that is born free sottishly admires the servile attendance of him who
is of the household to a king; and the man that hath patrician blood
in his veins calls the comedian happy who acts his part gracefully
and with humor, and applauds even the mimic who pleaseth with farce
and scaramouchy gestures; thus by a false estimate of happiness they
disturb and perplex themselves.
14. Now that every man hath a storehouse of trouble and contentment
in his own bosom, and that the vessels which contain good and evil
are not placed at Jupiter’s threshold,[88] but in the recesses of the
mind, the variety of our passions is an abundant demonstration. The
fool doth not discern, and consequently cannot mind, the good that is
obvious to him, for his thoughts are still intent upon the future; but
the prudent man retrieves things that were lost out of their oblivion,
by strength of recollection renders them perspicuous, and enjoys them
as if they were present. Happiness having only a few coy minutes to be
courted in, the man that hath no intellect neglects this opportunity,
and so it slides away from his sense and no more belongs to him. But
like him that is painted in hell twisting a rope, and who lets the ass
that is by him devour all the laborious textures as fast as he makes
them, so most men have such a lethargy of forgetfulness upon them,
that they lose the remembrance of all great actions, and no more call
to mind their pleasant intervals of leisure and repose. The relish
of their former banquets is grown insipid, and delight hath left no
piquant impression upon their palates; by this means they break as it
were the continuity of life, and destroy the union of present things to
the past; and dividing yesterday from to-day and to-day from to-morrow,
they utterly efface all events, as if they had never been. For, as
those who are dogmatical in the schools, and deny the augmentation of
bodies by reason of the perpetual flux of all substance, do strip us
out of ourselves and make no man to be the same to-day that he was
yesterday; so those who bury all things that have preceded them in
oblivion, who lose all the notices of former times and let them all be
shattered carelessly out of their minds, do every day make themselves
void and empty; and they become utterly dependent on the morrow, as if
those things which happened last year and yesterday and the day before
were not to affect their cognizance and be occurrences worthy their
observation.
15. This is a great impediment to the tranquillity of the mind. But
that which is its more sensible disturbance is this, that as flies
upon a mirror easily slide down the smooth and polished parts of it,
but stick to those which are rugged and uneven and fall into its
flaws, so men let what is cheerful and pleasant flow from them, and
dwell only upon sad melancholy remembrances. Nay, as those of Olynthus
carry beetles into a certain place, which from the destruction of them
is called their slaughter-house, where, all passages being stopped
against their escape, they are killed by the weariness of perpetual
flying about; so when men have once fallen upon the memory of their
former sorrows, no consolation can take them off from the mournful
theme. But as in a landscape we draw the most beautiful colors, so
we ought to fill the prospect of our minds with the most agreeable
and sprightly images; that, if we cannot utterly abolish those which
are dark and unpleasant, we may at least obscure them by more gay and
lively representations. For as the strings of a lute or bow, so is the
harmony of the world alternately tightened and relaxed by vicissitude
and change; and in human affairs there is nothing that is unmixed,
nothing that is unallied. But as in music there are some sounds which
are flat and some sharp, and in grammar some letters that are vocal and
some mute, but neither the man of concord nor syntax doth industriously
decline one sort, but with the fineness of his art mixeth them
together; so in things in this world which carry a direct opposition in
their nature one to another,—when, as Euripides expresseth it,
The good things with the evil still are joined,
And in strict union mutually combined;
The chequered work doth beautiful appear,
For what is sweet allays the more severe;—
yet we ought not to be discouraged or have any despondencies. But in
this case let us imitate the musicians, who drown the harsh cadences
with others that more caress the ear; so, by tempering our adverse
fortune with what is more prosperous, let us render our lives pleasant
and of an equal tone. For that is not true which Menander tells us:—
Soon as an infant doth salute the day,
A genius his first cryings doth obey,
And to his charge comes hastily away;
The daemon doth assist the tender lad,
Shows him what’s good, and saves him from the bad.
But the opinion of Empedocles deserves more our approbation, who
saith that, as soon as any one is born, he is carefully taken up and
governed by two guardian spirits. “There were Chthonia and far-seeing
Heliope, and bloody Deris and grave-faced Harmonia, Kallisto and
Aeschra, Thoösa and Denaea, with lovely Nemertes and black-fruited
Asaphaea.”
16. By this diversity of characters is expressed only the variety of
our passions; and these are the seeds of discontent we brought into
the world with us. Since now these disorder our lives and make them
unequal, he that is master of himself wishes for the better, but
expects the worse; but he useth them both with a moderation suitable
to that injunction, Do not any thing too much. For, as Epicurus said,
not only does he that is least impatient after to-morrow enjoy it most
when it comes; but honor, riches, and power give those the greatest
complacency who are not tormented with any apprehensions that the
contrary will befall them. For an immoderate craving after things
of this nature infuseth a fear of losing them, equal to the first
intemperate desire. This deadens the fruition, and makes the pleasure
as weak and unstable as flame driven by the wind. But he to whom his
reason hath given the assurance that he can boldly say to Fortune,
Welcome to me, if good thou bringest aught.
And if thou fail, I will take little thought,—
this is the man who can confidently enjoy what is present with him,
and who is not afflicted with such cowardice of thoughts as to be in
constant alarms lest he should lose his possessions, which would be
an intolerable grievance. But let us not only admire but imitate that
temper of mind in Anaxagoras, which made him express himself in these
words upon the death of his son:—