32. Having these things fixed in our minds, all vain and fruitless
sorrow will be superseded; the time that we have all to live being but
very short, we ought to spare and husband it, and not lay it out too
prodigally upon sorrow, but rather spend it in tranquillity, deserting
the mournful colors, and so take care of our own bodies, and consult
the safety of those who live with us. It is requisite that we should
call to mind what reasons we urged to our kinsmen and friends when
they were in the like calamities, when we exhorted them to suffer
these usual accidents of life with a common patience, and bear mortal
things with humanity; lest being prepared with instructions for other
men’s misfortunes, we reap no benefit ourselves out of the remembrance
of those consolations, and so do not cure our minds by the sovereign
application of reason. For in any thing a delay is less dangerous than
in sorrow; and when by every one it is so tritely said, that he that
procrastinates in an affair contests with destruction, I think the
character will more fitly sit upon him who defers the removing his
troubles and the perturbations of his mind.
33. We ought also to cast our eyes upon those conspicuous examples
who have borne the deaths of their sons generously and with a great
spirit; such as were Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Demosthenes of Athens,
Dion of Syracuse, King Antigonus, and many others who have lived
either in our times or in the memory of our fathers. They report of
Anaxagoras that, when he was reading natural philosophy to his pupils
and reasoning with them, sudden news was brought him of the death of
his son. He presently stopped short in his lecture, and said this to
his auditors, I knew that I begot my son mortal. And of Pericles, who
was surnamed Olympius for his wisdom and the strength of his eloquence,
when he heard that both his sons were dead, Paralus and Xanthippus,
how he behaved himself upon this accident Protagoras tells us in these
words. “When his sons,” saith he, “being in the first verdure of their
youth and handsome lads, died within eight days, he bore the calamity
without any repining; for he was of a pacific temper, from whence
there was every day an accession of advantages towards the making
him happy, the being free from grief, and thereby acquiring a great
reputation amongst his fellow-citizens. For every one that saw him bear
this calamity with so brave a resolution thought him magnanimous, and
indeed entertained an higher opinion of him than he strictly deserved;
for he was conscious to himself of some weakness and defects in cases
of this nature.” Now after he had received the news of the death of
his sons, he put on a garland according to the custom of his country,
and being clothed in white, he made an harangue to the people, was the
author of safe and rational counsels, and stirred up the courage of
his Athenians to warlike expeditions. Chronicles tell us, that when
an express came out of the field to Xenophon the Socratic as he was
sacrificing, which acquainted him that his son perished in the fight,
he pulled the garland from his head, and enquired after what manner
he fell; and it being told him that he died gallantly, making a great
slaughter of his enemies, after he had paused awhile to recollect
his thoughts and quiet his first emotion of concern with reason, he
adorned his head again, finished the sacrifice, and spoke thus to the
messengers: I did not make it my request to the Gods, that my son
might be immortal or long-lived, for it is not manifest whether this
was convenient for him or not, but that he might have integrity in his
principles and be a lover of his country; and now I have my desire.
Dion of Syracuse, as he was consulting with his friends concerning some
affairs, heard a great noise; and crying out and asking what was the
matter, he was told the accident, that his son was killed with a fall
from the top of the house. He was not at all surprised or astonished
at the disaster, but commanded the dead body to be delivered to the
women, that they might bury it according to custom. But he went on with
his first deliberations, and re-assumed his discourse in that part
where this accident had broken it off. It is said that Demosthenes the
orator imitated him upon the loss of his only and dearest daughter;
about which Aeschines, thinking to upbraid him, spoke after this
manner: Within seven days after the death of his daughter, before he
had performed the decencies of sorrow, and paid those common rites to
the memory of the deceased, he put on a garland, clothed himself in
white, and sacrificed, thereby outraging decency, though he had lost
his only daughter, the one which had first called him father.[175]
Thus did Aeschines with the strokes of his oratory accuse Demosthenes,
not knowing that he rather deserved a panegyric upon this occasion,
when he rejected his sorrow and preferred the love of his country to
the tenderness and compassion he ought to have for his relations. King
Antigonus, when he heard the death of his son Alcyoneus who was slain
in battle, looking steadily upon the messengers of these sad tidings,
after a little interval of silence and with a modest countenance,
spoke thus: O Alcyoneus, thou hast fallen later than I thought thou
wouldst, so brisk wast thou to run upon the thickest of thy enemies,
having no regard either to thy own safety or to my admonitions. Every
one praiseth these men for the bravery of their spirit, but none can
imitate what they have done, through the weakness of their minds which
proceeds from want of good instruction. But although there are many
examples extant, both in the Greek and Roman stories, of those who have
borne the death of their relations not only with decency but courage,
I think these that I have related to be a sufficient motive to thee to
keep tormenting grief at a distance, and so ease thyself of that labor
which hath no profit in it and is all in vain.
34. For that virtuous men die in the prime of their years by the
kindness of the Gods, to whom they are peculiarly dear, I have already
told thee in the former part of my discourse, and will give a short
hint of it now, bearing witness to that which is so prettily said by
Menander:—
He whom the Gods do love dies young.
But perhaps, my dear Apollonius, thou wilt thus object to me: My young
Apollonius was blessed by fortune in his life, and I ought first to
have died that he might bury me; for this is according to nature.
According to our human nature, I confess; but Providence hath other
measures, and that supreme order which governs the world is very
different; for thy son being now made happy, it was not requisite
according to nature that he should tarry in this life longer than
the time prefixed him, but that, having consummated the term of his
duration, he should perform his fatal journey, Nature recalling him to
herself. But he died untimely, you may say. Upon that account he is the
happier, not having been sensible of those evils which are incident to
life. For Euripides said truly:—
The time of being here we style amiss;
We call it life, but truly labor ’tis.
Thy Apollonius died in the beautiful flower of his years, a youth in
all points perfect, who gained the love, and provoked the emulation
of all his contemporaries. He was dutiful to his father and mother,
obliging to his domestics, was a scholar, and (to comprehend all in
a word) he was a lover of mankind. He had a veneration for the old
men that were his friends, as if they had been his parents, had an
affection for his companions and equals, reverenced his instructors,
was hospitable and mild to his guests and strangers, gracious to all,
and beloved by all, as well for his attractive countenance as for his
lovely affability. Therefore, being accompanied with the applauses of
thy piety and his own, he hath only made a digression from this mortal
life to eternity, as if he had withdrawn from the entertainment before
he grew absurd, and before the staggerings of drunkenness came upon
him, which are incident to a long old age. Now if the sayings of the
old philosophers and poets are true, as there is probability to think,
that honors and high seats of dignity are conferred upon the righteous
after they are departed this life, and if, as it is said, a particular
region is appointed for their souls to dwell in, you ought to cherish
very fair hopes that your son stands numbered amongst those blest
inhabitants.
35. Of the state of the pious after death, Pindar discourseth after
this manner:—
There the sun shines with an unsullied light,
When all the world below is thick with night.
There all the richly scented plants do grow,
And there the crimson-colored roses blow;
Each flower blooming on its tender stalk,
And all these meadows are their evening walk.
There trees peculiarly delight the sense,
With their exhaled perfumes of frankincense.
The boughs their noble burdens cannot hold,
The weight must sink them when the fruit is gold.
Some do the horse unto the manege bring,
Others unto the tuneful lute do sing;
There’s plenty to excess of every thing.
The region always doth serene appear,
The sun and pious flames do make it clear,
Where fragrant gums do from the altars rise,
When to the Gods they offer sacrifice.
And proceeding farther, in another lamentation he spake thus concerning
the soul:—
Just we that distribution may call,
Which to each man impartially doth fall.
It doth decide the dull contentious strife,
And easeth the calamities of life.
Death doth its efforts on the body spend;
But the aspiring soul doth upwards tend.
Nothing can damp that bright and subtile flame,
Immortal as the Gods from whence it came.
But this sometimes a drowsy nap will take,
When all the other members are awake.
Fancy in various dreams doth to it show,
What punishments unto each crime is due;
What pleasures are reserved for pious deeds,
And with what scourges the incestuous bleeds.
36. Divine Plato hath spoken many things of the immortality of the soul
in that book which he calls his Phaedo; not a few in his Republic,
his Menon, and his Gorgias; and hath some scattered expressions in
the rest of his dialogues. The things which are written by him in his
Dialogue concerning the Soul I will send you by themselves, illustrated
with my commentaries upon them, according to your request. I will now
only quote those which are opportune and to the present purpose, and
they are the words of Socrates to Callicles the Athenian, who was the
companion and scholar of Gorgias the rhetorician. For so saith Socrates
in Plato:—
“Hear then,” saith he, “a most elegant story, which you, I fancy, will
think to be a fable, but I take it to be a truth, for the things which
I shall tell you have nothing but reality in them. Jupiter, Neptune,
and Pluto, as Homer tells us, divided amongst themselves the kingdom
which they received by inheritance from their father; but there was a
law established concerning men in the reign of Saturn, which was then
valid and still remains in force amongst the Gods, that that mortal
which had led a just and pious life should go, when he died, into the
fortunate islands of the blest, and there dwell in happiness, free from
all misery; but he that had lived impiously and in contempt of the Gods
should be shackled with vengeance, and be thrust into that prison which
they call Tartarus. In the time of Saturn, and in the first beginning
of Jove’s empire, the living judged the living, and that the same day
that they were to die; whereupon the decisions of the bench were not
rightly managed. Therefore Pluto and his curators under him came out of
these fortunate islands, and complained to Jupiter that men were sent
to both places who were not worthy. I, saith Jupiter, will take care
that this thing be not practised for the future; for the reason that
the sentences are now unjustly passed is that the guilty come clothed
to the tribunal, and whilst they are yet alive. For some of profligate
dispositions are yet palliated with a beautiful outside, with riches,
and titles of nobility; and so when they come to be arraigned, many
will offer themselves as witnesses to swear that they have lived very
pious lives. The judges are dazzled with these appearances, and they
sit upon them too in their robes; so that their minds are (as it
were) covered and obscured with eyes and ears, and indeed with the
encumbrance of the whole body. The judges and the prisoners being
clothed is thus a very great impediment. Therefore in the first place
the foreknowledge of death is to be taken away; for now they see the
end of their line, and Prometheus has been commanded to see that this
be no longer allowed. Next they ought to be divested of all dress
and ornament, and come dead to the tribunal. The judge himself is to
be naked and dead too, that with his own soul he may view the naked
soul of each one so soon as he is dead, when he is now forsaken of
his relations, and has left behind him all his gayeties in the other
world; and so justice will be impartially pronounced. Deliberating on
this with myself before I received your advice, I have constituted my
sons judges, Minos and Rhadamanthus from Asia, and Aeacus from Europe;
these therefore, after they have departed this life, shall assume their
character, and exercise it in the field, and in the road where two
ways divide themselves, the one leading to the fortunate islands, and
the other to the deep abyss; so Rhadamanthus shall judge the Asians,
and Aeacus the Europeans. But to Minos I will grant the authority of a
final appeal, that if any thing hath escaped the notice of the others,
it shall be subjected to his cognizance, as to the last resort of a
supreme judge; that so it may be rightly decided what journey every one
ought to take. These are the things, Callicles, which I have heard and
think to be true; and I draw this rational inference from them, that
death in my opinion is nothing else but the separation of two things
nearly united, which are soul and body.”[176]
37. These collections, my dear Apollonius, I have joined together with
all the accuracy I could, and out of them composed this consolatory
letter I now send thee, which is very necessary to dispel thy
melancholy humor and put a period to thy sighs. I have paid likewise
that deference which became me to the ashes of thy son, who is the
darling of the Gods, such an honor being most acceptable to those whom
fame hath consecrated to immortality. Thou wilt therefore do handsomely
to believe the reasons I have urged to thee, and gratify thy deceased
son, by shaking off this unprofitable sorrow, which eats into thy mind
and afflicts thy body, and again returning to that course of humor
which nature hath chalked out and the former customs of thy life have
made familiar to thee. For as, when thy son lived amongst us, he could
not without the deepest regret see thee or his mother sad, so now that
he is amongst the Gods enjoying the intimacy of their conversation,
such a prospect from thence must be much more displeasing. Therefore
take up the resolutions of a good and generous man and of one who loved
his son, and so extricate thyself, the mother of the lad, thy kinsmen
and friends at once from this great infelicity. Betake thyself to a
more tranquil sort of life; which, as it will be acceptable to thy son,
will also be extremely pleasing to all of us who have that concern for
thee that we ought to have.