Perhaps he died before his time, before reaching the prime of life; yet was he not mortal? Hear that divine Epictetus: “If you wish your wife, friends and children to live for ever, you are a fool.”

He was a fine child indeed, “worthy of Apollo’s tears”: a sweet, loving, beautiful, intelligent child of great promise, another Eteoneus, whom the poet Pindar and the orator Aristides so deeply lament. But who can tell whether he would have become an upright man? He might have turned out a thief, a scoundrel, a spendthrift or a disobedient son, and have vexed and hurt you more than all the rest of the world. He might have quarrelled with you, or with his brothers like Eteocles and Polynices, and broken your heart.

Now he has passed into eternity like another Ganymede in the flower of youth, as though, says Plutarch, he had risen midway through a feast before becoming drunk. The longer he had lived, the worse he would have become; “and the longer the life,” Ambrose thinks, “the more numerous the sins”: he would have been more sinful, with more to answer for.

If he was bad, you may be glad that he is gone; if good, be glad that you had such a son. Or are you certain that he was good? Perhaps he was a hypocrite, as many are; however pleasantly he spoke to you, perhaps he prayed with the others whom Icaromenippus heard at Jupiter’s whispering place in Lucian, asking for his father’s death because his father kept him short of money, and he would inherit much property and many fine estates when he died.

Or suppose he was very good: grant the best case. May not your dead son remonstrate with you, as the son does in the same Lucian? “Why do you lament my death, or call me miserable when I am much happier than you? What misfortune has befallen me? Is it because I am not bald, bent, old and decayed, as you are? What have I lost? Some of your good food, fine clothes, music, singing, dancing, kissing, merry gatherings and pleasures of the marriage bed—is that it?”

“Is it not much better never to be hungry than to eat; never to be thirsty than to drink to quench thirst; never to be cold than to put on clothes to drive away the cold? You have more reason to rejoice that I am free from diseases, fevers, cares, anxieties, spite, love, greed, hatred, envy and malice, and no longer fear thieves, tyrants and enemies as you do.”

Do you think the ashes and buried spirits care about that?

Do such things concern us at all, do you think, once we are dead? Do not, then, mourn others excessively; neither wish for nor fear your own death.

Neither wish for your last day nor fear it.

It serves no purpose.

I left life’s troubles readily and willingly, So that I should not henceforth see things worse than death itself.

I left this burdensome life with all my heart, Lest something worse than death should fall to my lot.

Cardinal Brundusinus had this epitaph inscribed on his tomb in Rome, to show his willingness to die and to rebuke those so reluctant to depart. Weep and howl no more, then: it serves little purpose. As Cicero advises in a similar case, “Let us consider not whom we have lost, but how much mourning is fitting”: consider what we are doing, not whom we have lost. David did so, in 2 Samuel 22: “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; but now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back? I shall go to him, but he cannot return to me.”

Anyone who acts otherwise is uncontrolled, weak, foolish and lacking in judgement. Although Aristotle denies that intemperance has anything to do with sorrow, I agree with Seneca: whoever is wise is temperate; whoever is temperate is steadfast and free from passion; and such a person is without sorrow, as all wise people should be.

The Thracians always wept when a child was born, and feasted and rejoiced when anyone was buried. So we too should be glad for those who die well, since they have been so happily freed from this life’s miseries. When that noble young Greek Eteoneus was universally lamented by his friends, the poet Pindar imagines a god saying, “Be silent, mortals, for he is not unhappy,” and so on: quiet, good people; this young man is not as miserable as you think. He has gone neither to Styx nor to Acheron; “but a glorious hero, untouched by old age,” he lives for ever in the Elysian fields. He now enjoys the happiness your great kings seek so earnestly, and wears the garland for which you compete.

If our present weakness prevents us from moderating our emotions in this matter, we must use every means to turn them aside: do something else, think about another subject. Italians mostly sleep away care and grief if it seizes them at an inconvenient time; Danes, Dutchmen, Poles and Bohemians drink it down; our countrymen go to plays. Do something, whatever it may be; do not let grief unhinge you. Or make such misfortunes familiar by thinking of them beforehand, like Ulysses, who wept for his dog but not for his wife, “because he was prepared, his mind made firm” (Plutarch, On Tranquillity of Mind). Accustom and harden yourself beforehand by seeing others’ calamities and applying them to your own situation: “An evil is lighter when it has been foreseen.”

I shall conclude with Epictetus: “If you love a pot, remember that it is only a pot you love, and you will not be troubled when it breaks. If you love a son or wife, remember that they are mortal, and you will not be so unable to bear the loss.” As for groundless fears and all other accidental troubles, misfortunes and calamities, our best course is to resist and prepare ourselves, without losing heart. “It is foolish to fear what cannot be avoided”: foolish to fear the inevitable, or to be discouraged at all.

For whoever trembles with fear or desire Has thrown away his shield and, driven from his ground, Forges the chain by which he can be dragged away.

For whoever thus loses heart or gives way to fear, surrendering to his passion, throws away his own weapons, makes a cord to bind himself, and pulls a beam down upon his own head.