|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 36
47. If any god told thee that thou shalt die to-morrow, or certainly on
the day after to-morrow, thou wouldst not care much whether it was on
the third day or on the morrow, unless thou wast in the highest degree
mean-spirited; for how small is the difference! So think it no great
thing to die after as many years as thou canst name rather than
to-morrow.
48. Think continually how many physicians are dead after often
contracting their eyebrows over the sick; and how many astrologers after
predicting with great pretensions the deaths of others; and how many
philosophers after endless discourses on death or immortality; how many
heroes after killing thousands; and how many tyrants who have used their
power over men's lives with terrible insolence, as if they were
immortal; and how many cities are entirely dead, so to speak, Helice[A]
and Pompeii and Herculaneum, and others innumerable. Add to the
reckoning all whom thou hast known, one after another. One man after
burying another has been laid out dead, and another buries him; and all
this in a short time. To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and
worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus,
to-morrow will be a mummy or ashes. Pass then through this little space
of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, as an
olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and
thanking the tree on which it grew.
[A] Ovid, Met. xv. 293:--
"Si quaeras Helicen et Burin Achaidas urbes,
Invenies sub aquis."
49. Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break,
but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.
Unhappy am I because this has happened to me? Not so, but happy am I,
though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain,
neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future. For such a thing
as this might have happened to every man; but every man would not have
continued free from pain on such an occasion. Why then is that rather a
misfortune than this a good fortune? And dost thou in all cases call
that a man's misfortune which is not a deviation from man's nature? And
does a thing seem to thee to be a deviation from man's nature, when it
is not contrary to the will of man's nature? Well, thou knowest the will
of nature. Will then this which has happened prevent thee from being
just, magnanimous, temperate, prudent, secure against inconsiderate
opinions and falsehood; will it prevent thee from having modesty,
freedom, and everything else, by the presence of which man's nature
obtains all that is its own? Remember too on every occasion which leads
thee to vexation to apply this principle; not that this is a misfortune,
but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.
50. It is a vulgar, but still a useful help towards contempt of death,
to pass in review those who have tenaciously stuck to life. What more
then have they gained than those who have died early? Certainly they
lie in their tombs somewhere at last, Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus,
Lepidus, or any one else like them, who have carried out many to be
buried, and then were carried out themselves. Altogether the interval is
small [between birth and death]; and consider with how much trouble, and
in company with what sort of people, and in what a feeble body, this
interval is laboriously passed. Do not then consider life a thing of any
value. + For look to the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time
which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then
what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who
lives three generations?[A]
[A] An allusion to Homer's Nestor, who was living at the war of
Troy among the third generation, like old Parr with his hundred
and fifty-two years, and some others in modern times who have
beaten Parr by twenty or thirty years if it is true; and yet
they died at last. The word is [Greek: triger�niou] in
Antoninus. Nestor is named [Greek: triger�n] by some writers;
but here perhaps there is an allusion to Homer's [Greek:
Ger�nios hippota Nest�r].
51. Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural:
accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest
reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble,+ and warfare, and
all artifice and ostentatious display.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|