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MEMBER 5 Against sorrow over the death of friends or other causes, groundless fear, and so on.
Death and the departure of friends are generally grievous things. “Of everything that happens in human life, bereavement and death are the bitterest”: the harshest and most bitter events that can befall anyone in this life. “To say farewell for ever,” to part for ever, to leave the world and all our friends: this is “the ultimate terror,” the last and greatest terror, most distressing and troubling to us. “A person dies as often as he loses those dear to him.”
Although we hope for a better life, eternal happiness after these painful and miserable days, we cannot bring ourselves to die willingly. The thought of it is most grievous to us, especially to the fortunate and rich: they shy at the name of death like a horse at a rotten post. Say what you will about that other world: with Montezuma, that Indian prince, they say, “It is good to be here,” and would rather stay here.
Indeed, many noble spirits, people otherwise grave and composed, are so sensitive in this matter that, when they lose a dear friend, they cry out, roar and tear their hair, lamenting for months afterwards. They howl “O hone,” like those Irish women and Greeks at their graves, behave in many unseemly ways, and almost lose their minds. “My dear father, my sweet husband, my only brother is dead: to whom can I cry out? Oh, wretched me!”
Who will give a fountain for tears, and so on?
What shall I do?
But my brother’s death has taken all this pursuit from me in grief. Alas, my brother, taken from wretched me!
My brother’s death has put an end to my study. Woe is me! Alas, my brother is gone!
Mezentius would not live after his son:
Yet I live, and still do not leave humankind and the light; But I will leave them.
And Pompey’s wife cried out at the news of her husband’s death:
It is shameful that, after you, I cannot die of grief alone.
“Violent in grief and unable to endure it,” as Tacitus says of Agrippina: unable to govern her emotions. So, when she heard that her son had been killed, she abruptly broke off her work, her expression and colour changed, she tore her hair, and burst into howling:
Suddenly the colour left her wretched frame; The shuttles fell from her hands, her work unravelled. The unhappy woman rushes out, with a woman’s wailing, Her hair torn.
Another was determined to rush onto the sword’s point after Euryalus’s death:
Pierce me, if there is any mercy; hurl all your weapons At me, O Rutulians.
Oh, let me die; let some good man put an end to me. How Achilles raged over Patroclus’s death! A black cloud of sorrow overshadowed him, says Homer. Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, mourned his son for a long time, and could not be comforted. He insisted that he would go down to his son in the grave: Genesis 37:37.
Many years afterwards, the memory of such friends and such events remains most grievous to us. Even seeing or hearing of them is painful, though they concern others rather than ourselves. Scaliger says that he never read of Socrates’ death in Plato’s Phaedo without weeping. Augustine shed tears when he read of the destruction of Troy. Yet, however violent and bitter this sorrow may be, and however commonly it seizes the wise, courageous and prudent, it can surely be resisted and turned aside. For what is there in this life that should make it so dear to us, or make us lament a friend’s departure so much? Its greatest pleasures are companionship, enjoying one another’s presence, feasting, hawking, hunting, streams, woods, hills, music, dancing and the rest. All this is merely vanity and wasted time, as I have sufficiently explained.
While we drink, while we call for garlands, perfumes and girls, Old age creeps upon us unnoticed.
While we drink, dress ourselves up and dally with women, Old age attacks us unawares.
As alchemists spend what little they have in pursuit of gold and never find it, we lose and neglect eternity for a little momentary pleasure which we cannot enjoy and will never attain in this life. We abhor death, pain and grief, yet do nothing that would free us from them; instead, we willingly thrust ourselves upon them. The lustful man prefers his prostitute to his life or well-being; the angry man, his revenge; the parasite, his belly; the ambitious, honours; the covetous, wealth; the thief, his booty; the soldier, his spoils. We abhor diseases, yet bring them upon ourselves.
We are never better or freer from cares than when we sleep. Yet death, which we so greatly shun and lament, is only a perpetual sleep. Why, as Epicurus argues, should it frighten us so much? “When we exist, death is absent; but when death is present, we no longer exist.” Life is tedious and troublesome even for the person who lives best. “It is misery to be born, pain to live, anguish to die.” Death ends our miseries, yet we cannot bear to think about it.
A little before Socrates drank his draught of hemlock, he cheerfully said farewell to the citizens of Athens and ended his speech with this short sentence: “My time has now come to depart: I to my death, you to live on. Which of these is better, God alone knows.”
For there is no pleasure here without sorrow attached to it and regret following it. “If I eat freely, I am likely to fall ill or overeat; if I live sparingly, my hunger and thirst remain unsatisfied. I am well neither full nor fasting. If I live chastely, I burn with desire.” If I indulge myself, I exhaust and waste myself, harming both body and soul. “From so little merriment, how much sorrow! After so little pleasure, how great the misery!” Both sides trouble me: getting up and going to bed, eating and providing my food. Cares and quarrels attend me all day long, fears and suspicions all my life. I am discontented: why should I be so eager to live? But a happy death will end all our woes and miseries.