Cicero's Tusculan Disputations

Wisdom is oft conceal’d in mean attire.

For as poverty is of equal weight with all, what reason can be given why what was borne by Fabricius should be spoken of by any one else as unsupportable when it falls upon themselves? Of a piece with this is that other way of comforting, which consists in pointing out that nothing has happened but what is common to human nature; for this argument doth not only inform us what human nature is, but implies that all things are tolerable which others have borne and are bearing.

XXIV. Is poverty the subject? They tell you of many who have submitted to it with patience. Is it the contempt of honors? They acquaint you with some who never enjoyed any, and were the happier for it; and of those who have preferred a private retired life to public employment, mentioning their names with respect; they tell you of the verse40 of that most powerful king who praises an old man, and pronounces him happy because he was unknown to fame and seemed likely to arrive at the hour of death in obscurity and without notice. Thus, too, they have examples for those who are deprived of their children: they who are under any great grief are comforted by instances of like affliction; and thus the endurance 116of every misfortune is rendered more easy by the fact of others having undergone the same, and the fate of others causes what has happened to appear less important than it has been previously thought, and reflection thus discovers to us how much opinion had imposed on us. And this is what the Telamon declares, “I, when my son was born,” etc.; and thus Theseus, “I on my future misery did dwell;” and Anaxagoras, “I knew my son was mortal.” All these men, by frequently reflecting on human affairs, had discovered that they were by no means to be estimated by the opinion of the multitude; and, indeed, it seems to me to be pretty much the same case with those who consider beforehand as with those who derive their remedies from time, excepting that a kind of reason cures the one, and the other remedy is provided by nature; by which we discover (and this contains the whole marrow of the matter) that what was imagined to be the greatest evil is by no means so great as to defeat the happiness of life. And the effect of this is, that the blow is greater by reason of its not having been foreseen, and not, as they suppose, that when similar misfortunes befall two different people, that man only is affected with grief whom this calamity has befallen unexpectedly. So that some persons, under the oppression of grief, are said to have borne it actually worse for hearing of this common condition of man, that we are born under such conditions as render it impossible for a man to be exempt from all evil.

XXV. For this reason Carneades, as I see our friend Antiochus writes, used to blame Chrysippus for commending these verses of Euripides:

Man, doom’d to care, to pain, disease, and strife,Walks his short journey thro’ the vale of life:Watchful attends the cradle and the grave,And passing generations longs to save:Last, dies himself: yet wherefore should we mourn?For man must to his kindred dust return;Submit to the destroying hand of fate,As ripen’d ears the harvest-sickle wait.41

117He would not allow a speech of this kind to avail at all to the cure of our grief, for he said it was a lamentable case itself that we were fallen into the hands of such a cruel fate; and that a speech like that, preaching up comfort from the misfortunes of another, was a comfort adapted only to those of a malevolent disposition. But to me it appears far otherwise; for the necessity of bearing what is the common condition of humanity forbids your resisting the will of the Gods, and reminds you that you are a man, which reflection greatly alleviates grief; and the enumeration of these examples is not produced with a view to please those of a malevolent disposition, but in order that any one in affliction may be induced to bear what he observes many others have previously borne with tranquillity and moderation. For they who are falling to pieces, and cannot hold together through the greatness of their grief, should be supported by all kinds of assistance. From whence Chrysippus thinks that grief is called λύπη, as it were λύσις, that is to say, a dissolution of the whole man—the whole of which I think may be pulled up by the roots by explaining, as I said at the beginning, the cause of grief; for it is nothing else but an opinion and judgment formed of a present acute evil. And thus any bodily pain, let it be ever so grievous, may be endurable where any hopes are proposed of some considerable good; and we receive such consolation from a virtuous and illustrious life that they who lead such lives are seldom attacked by grief, or but slightly affected by it.

XXVI. But as besides this opinion of great evil there is this other added also—that we ought to lament what has happened, that it is right so to do, and part of our duty, then is brought about that terrible disorder of mind, grief. And it is to this opinion that we owe all those various and horrid kinds of lamentation, that neglect of our persons, that womanish tearing of our cheeks, that striking on our thighs, breasts, and heads. Thus Agamemnon, in Homer and in Accius,

Tears in his grief his uncomb’d locks;42

from whence comes that pleasant saying of Bion, that the 118foolish king in his sorrow tore away the hairs of his head, imagining that his grief would be alleviated by baldness. But men do all these things from being persuaded that they ought to do so. And thus Æschines inveighs against Demosthenes for sacrificing within seven days after the death of his daughter. But with what eloquence, with what fluency, does he attack him! what sentiments does he collect! what words does he hurl against him! You may see by this that an orator may do anything; but nobody would approve of such license if it were not that we have an idea innate in our minds that every good man ought to lament the loss of a relation as bitterly as possible. And it is owing to this that some men, when in sorrow, betake themselves to deserts, as Homer says of Bellerophon:

Distracted in his mind,Forsook by heaven, forsaking human kind,Wide o’er the Aleïan field he chose to stray,A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way!43

And thus Niobe is feigned to have been turned into stone, from her never speaking, I suppose, in her grief. But they imagine Hecuba to have been converted into a bitch, from her rage and bitterness of mind. There are others who love to converse with solitude itself when in grief, as the nurse in Ennius,

Fain would I to the heavens find earth relateMedea’s ceaseless woes and cruel fate.44

XXVII. Now all these things are done in grief, from a persuasion of their truth and propriety and necessity; and it is plain that those who behave thus do so from a conviction of its being their duty; for should these mourners by chance drop their grief, and either act or speak for a moment in a more calm or cheerful manner, they presently check themselves and return to their lamentations again, and blame themselves for having been guilty of any intermissions 119from their grief; and parents and masters generally correct children not by words only, but by blows, if they show any levity by either word or deed when the family is under affliction, and, as it were, oblige them to be sorrowful. What! does it not appear, when you have ceased to mourn, and have discovered that your grief has been ineffectual, that the whole of that mourning was voluntary on your part? What does that man say in Terence who punishes himself, the Self-tormentor?

I think I do my son less harm, O Chremes,As long as I myself am miserable.

He determines to be miserable: and can any one determine on anything against his will?

I well might think that I deserved all evil.

He would think he deserved any misfortune were he otherwise than miserable! Therefore, you see, the evil is in opinion, not in nature. How is it when some things do of themselves prevent your grieving at them? as in Homer, so many died and were buried daily that they had not leisure to grieve: where you find these lines—

The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall,And endless were the grief to weep for all.Eternal sorrows what avails to shed?Greece honors not with solemn fasts the dead:Enough when death demands the brave to payThe tribute of a melancholy day.One chief with patience to the grave resign’d,Our care devolves on others left behind.45

Therefore it is in our own power to lay aside grief upon occasion; and is there any opportunity (seeing the thing is in our own power) that we should let slip of getting rid of care and grief? It was plain that the friends of Cnæus Pompeius, when they saw him fainting under his wounds, at the very moment of that most miserable and bitter sight were under great uneasiness how they themselves, 120surrounded by the enemy as they were, should escape, and were employed in nothing but encouraging the rowers and aiding their escape; but when they reached Tyre, they began to grieve and lament over him. Therefore, as fear with them, prevailed over grief, cannot reason and true philosophy have the same effect with a wise man?

XXVIII. But what is there more effectual to dispel grief than the discovery that it answers no purpose, and has been undergone to no account? Therefore, if we can get rid of it, we need never have been subject to it. It must be acknowledged, then, that men take up grief wilfully and knowingly; and this appears from the patience of those who, after they have been exercised in afflictions and are better able to bear whatever befalls them, suppose themselves hardened against fortune; as that person in Euripides,

Had this the first essay of fortune been,And I no storms thro’ all my life had seen,Wild as a colt I’d broke from reason’s sway;But frequent griefs have taught me to obey.46

As, then, the frequent bearing of misery makes grief the lighter, we must necessarily perceive that the cause and original of it does not lie in the calamity itself. Your principal philosophers, or lovers of wisdom, though they have not yet arrived at perfect wisdom, are not they sensible that they are in the greatest evil? For they are foolish, and foolishness is the greatest of all evils, and yet they lament not. How shall we account for this? Because opinion is not fixed upon that kind of evil, it is not our opinion that it is right, meet, and our duty to be uneasy because we are not all wise men. Whereas this opinion is strongly affixed to that uneasiness where mourning is concerned, which is the greatest of all grief. Therefore Aristotle, when he blames some ancient philosophers for imagining that by their genius they had brought philosophy 121to the highest perfection, says, they must be either extremely foolish or extremely vain; but that he himself could see that great improvements had been made therein in a few years, and that philosophy would in a little time arrive at perfection. And Theophrastus is reported to have reproached nature at his death for giving to stags and crows so long a life, which was of no use to them, but allowing only so short a span to men, to whom length of days would have been of the greatest use; for if the life of man could have been lengthened, it would have been able to provide itself with all kinds of learning, and with arts in the greatest perfection. He lamented, therefore, that he was dying just when he had begun to discover these. What! does not every grave and distinguished philosopher acknowledge himself ignorant of many things, and confess that there are many things which he must learn over and over again? And yet, though these men are sensible that they are standing still in the very midway of folly, than which nothing can be worse, they are under no great affliction, because no opinion that it is their duty to lament is ever mingled with this knowledge. What shall we say of those who think it unbecoming in a man to grieve? among whom we may reckon Q. Maximus, when he buried his son that had been consul, and L. Paulus, who lost two sons within a few days of one another. Of the same opinion was M. Cato, who lost his son just after he had been elected prætor, and many others, whose names I have collected in my book on Consolation. Now what made these men so easy, but their persuasion that grief and lamentation was not becoming in a man? Therefore, as some give themselves up to grief from an opinion that it is right so to do, they refrained themselves, from an opinion that it was discreditable; from which we may infer that grief is owing more to opinion than nature.

XXIX. It may be said, on the other side, Who is so mad as to grieve of his own accord? Pain proceeds from nature, which you must submit to, say they, agreeably to what even your own Crantor teaches, for it presses and gains upon you unavoidably, and cannot possibly be resisted. So that the very same Oileus, in Sophocles, who had before comforted Telamon on the death of Ajax, on 122hearing of the death of his own son, is broken-hearted. On this alteration of his mind we have these lines:

Show me the man so well by wisdom taughtThat what he charges to another’s fault,When like affliction doth himself betide,True to his own wise counsel will abide.47

Now, when they urge these things, their endeavor is to prove that nature is absolutely and wholly irresistible; and yet the same people allow that we take greater grief on ourselves than nature requires. What madness is it, then, in us to require the same from others? But there are many reasons for our taking grief on us. The first is from the opinion of some evil, on the discovery and certainty of which grief comes of course. Besides, many people are persuaded that they are doing something very acceptable to the dead when they lament bitterly over them. To these may be added a kind of womanish superstition, in imagining that when they have been stricken by the afflictions sent by the Gods, to acknowledge themselves afflicted and humbled by them is the readiest way of appeasing them. But most men appear to be unaware what contradictions these things are full of. They commend those who die calmly, but they blame those who can bear the loss of another with the same calmness, as if it were possible that it should be true, as is occasionally said in love speeches, that any one can love another more than himself. There is, indeed, something excellent in this, and, if you examine it, something no less just than true, that we love those who ought to be most dear to us as well as we love ourselves; but to love them more than ourselves is absolutely impossible; nor is it desirable in friendship that I should love my friend more than myself, or that he should love me so; for this would occasion much confusion in life, and break in upon all the duties of it.

123XXX. But we will speak of this another time: at present it is sufficient not to attribute our misery to the loss of our friends, nor to love them more than, if they themselves could be sensible of our conduct, they would approve of, or at least not more than we do ourselves. Now as to what they say, that some are not at all appeased by our consolations; and, moreover, as to what they add, that the comforters themselves acknowledge they are miserable when fortune varies the attack and falls on them—in both these cases the solution is easy: for the fault here is not in nature, but in our own folly; and much may be said against folly. But men who do not admit of consolation seem to bespeak misery for themselves; and they who cannot bear their misfortunes with that temper which they recommend to others are not more faulty in this particular than most other persons; for we see that covetous men find fault with others who are covetous, as do the vainglorious with those who appear too wholly devoted to the pursuit of glory. For it is the peculiar characteristic of folly to perceive the vices of others, but to forget its own. But since we find that grief is removed by length of time, we have the greatest proof that the strength of it depends not merely on time, but on the daily consideration of it. For if the cause continues the same, and the man be the same, how can there be any alteration in the grief, if there is no change in what occasioned the grief, nor in him who grieves? Therefore it is from daily reflecting that there is no real evil in the circumstance for which you grieve, and not from the length of time, that you procure a remedy for your grief.

XXXI. Here some people talk of moderate grief; but if such be natural, what occasion is there for consolation? for nature herself will determine, the measure of it: but if it depends on and is caused by opinion, the whole opinion should be destroyed. I think that it has been sufficiently said, that grief arises from an opinion of some present evil, which includes this belief, that it is incumbent on us to grieve. To this definition Zeno has added, very justly, that the opinion of this present evil should be recent. Now this word recent they explain thus: those are not the only recent things which happened a little while ago; but as 124long as there shall be any force, or vigor, or freshness in that imagined evil, so long it is entitled to the name of recent. Take the case of Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus, King of Caria, who made that noble sepulchre at Halicarnassus; while she lived, she lived in grief, and died of it, being worn out by it, for that opinion was always recent with her: but you cannot call that recent which has already begun to decay through time. Now the duty of a comforter is, to remove grief entirely, to quiet it, or draw it off as much as you can, or else to keep it under, and prevent its spreading any further, and to divert one’s attention to other matters. There are some who think, with Cleanthes, that the only duty of a comforter is to prove that what one is lamenting is by no means an evil. Others, as the Peripatetics, prefer urging that the evil is not great. Others, with Epicurus, seek to divert your attention from the evil to good: some think it sufficient to show that nothing has happened but what you had reason to expect; and this is the practice of the Cyrenaics. But Chrysippus thinks that the main thing in comforting is, to remove the opinion from the person who is grieving, that to grieve is his bounden duty. There are others who bring together all these various kinds of consolations, for people are differently affected; as I have done myself in my book on Consolation; for as my own mind was much disordered, I have attempted in that book to discover every method of cure. But the proper season is as much to be attended to in the cure of the mind as of the body; as Prometheus in Æschylus, on its being said to him,

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1

Archilochus was a native of Paros, and flourished about 714-676 b.c. His poems were chiefly Iambics of bitter satire. Horace speaks of him as the inventor of Iambics, and calls himself his pupil.

Parios ego primus Iambos

Ostendi Latio, numeros animosque secutusArchilochi, non res et agentia verba Lycamben.Epist. I. xix. 25.

And in another place he says,

Archilochum proprio rabies armavit Iambo—A.P. 74.

2

This was Livius Andronicus: he is supposed to have been a native of Tarentum, and he was made prisoner by the Romans, during their wars in Southern Italy; owing to which he became the slave of M. Livius Salinator. He wrote both comedies and tragedies, of which Cicero (Brutus 18) speaks very contemptuously, as “Livianæ fabulæ non satis dignæ quæ iterum legantur”—not worth reading a second time. He also wrote a Latin Odyssey, and some hymns, and died probably about 221 b.c.

3

C. Fabius, surnamed Pictor, painted the temple of Salus, which the dictator C. Junius Brutus Bubulus dedicated 302 b.c. The temple was destroyed by fire in the reign of Claudius. The painting is highly praised by Dionysius, xvi. 6.

4

For an account of the ancient Greek philosophers, see the sketch at the end of the Disputations.

5

Isocrates was born at Athens 436 b.c. He was a pupil of Gorgias, Prodicus, and Socrates. He opened a school of rhetoric, at Athens, with great success. He died by his own hand at the age of ninety-eight.

6

So Horace joins these two classes as inventors of all kinds of improbable fictions:

Pictoribus atque poetis

Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas.—A. P. 9.

Which Roscommon translates:

Painters and poets have been still allow’dTheir pencil and their fancies unconfined.

7

Epicharmus was a native of Cos, but lived at Megara, in Sicily, and when Megara was destroyed, removed to Syracuse, and lived at the court of Hiero, where he became the first writer of comedies, so that Horace ascribes the invention of comedy to him, and so does Theocritus. He lived to a great age.

8

Pherecydes was a native of Scyros, one of the Cyclades; and is said to have obtained his knowledge from the secret books of the Phœnicians. He is said also to have been a pupil of Pittacus, the rival of Thales, and the master of Pythagoras. His doctrine was that there were three principles (Ζεὺς, or Æther; Χθὼν, or Chaos; and Χρόνος, or Time) and four elements (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water), from which everything that exists was formed.—Vide Smith’s Dict. Gr. and Rom. Biog.

9

Archytas was a native of Tarentum, and is said to have saved the life of Plato by his influence with the tyrant Dionysius. He was especially great as a mathematician and geometrician, so that Horace calls him

Maris et terra numeroque carentis arenæMensorem.Od. i. 28.1.

Plato is supposed to have learned some of his views from him, and Aristotle to have borrowed from him every idea of the Categories.

10

This was not Timæus the historian, but a native of Locri, who is said also in the De Finibus (c. 29) to have been a teacher of Plato. There is a treatise extant bearing his name, which is, however, probably spurious, and only an abridgment of Plato’s dialogue Timæus.

11

Dicæarchus was a native of Messana, in Sicily, though he lived chiefly in Greece. He was one of the later disciples of Aristotle. He was a great geographer, politician, historian, and philosopher, and died about 285 b.c.

12

Aristoxenus was a native of Tarentum, and also a pupil of Aristotle. We know nothing of his opinions except that he held the soul to be a harmony of the body; a doctrine which had been already discussed by Plato in the Phædo, and combated by Aristotle. He was a great musician, and the chief portions of his works which have come down to us are fragments of some musical treatises.—Smith’s Dict. Gr. and Rom. Biog.; to which source I must acknowledge my obligation for nearly the whole of these biographical notes.

13

The Simonides here meant is the celebrated poet of Ceos, the perfecter of elegiac poetry among the Greeks. He flourished about the time of the Persian war. Besides his poetry, he is said to have been the inventor of some method of aiding the memory. He died at the court of Hiero, 467 b.c.

14

Theodectes was a native of Phaselis, in Pamphylia, a distinguished rhetorician and tragic poet, and flourished in the time of Philip of Macedon. He was a pupil of Isocrates, and lived at Athens, and died there at the age of forty-one.

15

Cineas was a Thessalian, and (as is said in the text) came to Rome as ambassador from Pyrrhus after the battle of Heraclea, 280 b.c., and his memory is said to have been so great that on the day after his arrival he was able to address all the senators and knights by name. He probably died before Pyrrhus returned to Italy, 276 b.c.

16

Charmadas, called also Charmides, was a fellow-pupil with Philo, the Larissæan of Clitomachus, the Carthaginian. He is said by some authors to have founded a fourth academy.

17

Metrodorus was a minister of Mithridates the Great; and employed by him as supreme judge in Pontus, and afterward as an ambassador. Cicero speaks of him in other places (De Orat. ii. 88) as a man of wonderful memory.