For uprightness is reward enough: “goodness is its own reward.” In our times the only recompense for doing well is doing well; but wickedness will eventually punish itself: “For the wicked, wickedness itself is punishment.” As the saying goes,

Those who have done well will follow their deeds; The deeds of those who have done ill will follow them.

Those who do well will have reward at last; Those who do ill will suffer for their past.

“Yes, but I am ashamed, disgraced, dishonoured, degraded and publicly hissed down. My notorious crimes and villainies have come to light—‘it is miserable to be caught.’ My filthy lust, abominable oppression and greed lie exposed; my good name is lost, my fortune gone. I have been branded, whipped at the post, tried and condemned; I am an object of public abuse. My ears have been cut off. I am hateful, accursed, abhorred by God and men.”

Be at peace: it is only a nine days’ wonder. As one sorrow drives out another, one passion another, one cloud another, so one rumour displaces another. Almost every day fresh news reaches our ears: the sun was eclipsed; meteors were seen in the sky; monstrous births and prodigies occurred; the Turks were defeated in Persia; there was an earthquake in Switzerland, Calabria, Japan or China, a flood in Holland, a great plague in Constantinople, a fire in Prague, a famine in Germany. One man is made a lord or bishop; another is hanged, deposed or pressed to death for murder, treason, rape, theft or oppression.

At first we hear all this with a kind of wonder, horror or dismay, but soon it is buried in silence. Your father has died; your brother has been robbed; your wife has gone mad; your neighbour has killed himself. At first it is grievous, ghastly, frightening news, on everyone’s lips and discussed at every table; but after a while, who speaks or thinks of it?

So it will be with you and your offence: it will be forgotten in a moment, whether theft, rape, sodomy, murder, incest, treason or anything else. You are not the first offender, and will not be the last. It is no marvel: every hour such offenders are brought to account. Nothing is more common,

Among whatever people, under whatever sky.

Take comfort: you are not the only one. If only someone guiltless himself could throw the first stone at you, and only someone faultless could accuse you, how many executioners or accusers would you have? If everyone’s sins were written on his forehead and his secret faults made known, how many thousands would equal, if not exceed, your offence?

Perhaps the judge who passed sentence, the jury that condemned you and the spectators who stared at you deserved much worse and were far guiltier than you. It is your misfortune to have been caught, made a public example of justice and a warning to the rest. Yet if everyone received his deserts, you might be a saint by comparison. “Censure persecutes the doves”: poor souls are punished, while the great do twenty thousand times worse and are not even mentioned.

The net is not spread for the hawk or the kite, Which harm us; it is spread for birds that do no harm.

We lay no net for kites or birds of prey; For harmless birds we always set our snares.

Do not be dismayed, then: “to err is human.” We are all sinners, subject to temptation every day and every hour; the best of us is a hypocrite, a grievous offender in God’s sight. Noah, Lot, David, Peter and the rest: how many mortal sins do we commit?

Shall I tell you to repent, ask forgiveness and, through the rest of your life, make amends for the foul offence you have committed? Recover your reputation by some noble achievement, as Themistocles did. He was a thoroughly debauched and vicious youth, “but erased the stains of his youth with illustrious deeds”: through brave achievements he made amends to the world. Become a new man at last, and seek to reform.

As Demosthenes said, the man who runs away in battle may fight again, and the man who falls may stand as upright as ever. “Let no one who has fallen despair of better things”: someone who has lived wickedly may reform and become an honest man.

Someone who is now hated, hissed away and exiled may be welcomed back with everyone’s favour and extraordinary applause, as Cicero was in Rome and Alcibiades in Athens.

Whatever your disgrace, then, “what has been done cannot be undone”: the past cannot be recalled. Do not distress, torment or grieve yourself any longer over abuse, disgrace or anything of the kind. There is no better course than to disregard it, scorn it, or appear indifferent and make nothing of it. “Abusive wit betrays a lack of strength.” If you are guiltless, it does not concern you.

Why heed the powerless darts of an idle tongue? Does Diana on high heed a barking dog?

Does the moon care about a dog’s barking? They disparage, mock and abuse me, says one, and bark at me on every side; but I am like the Albanian dog once given to Alexander: “I defend myself against them by contempt alone.” I lie still and sleep, defending myself merely by disregarding them.

Achilles armed and free from fear.

Like a tortoise in its shell, “I wrap myself in my virtue”; or like a hedgehog curled into a ball, “I care nothing for blows”; like a lizard in camomile, I evade their fury and remain safe.

Integrity and virtue, safe behind their own defences, Are not exposed to the bites of hostile envy.

Virtue and integrity are their own defence; They disregard envy and whatever comes from it.

Let them abuse, mock and slander, then. “The wise man is unaffected by insult”: Seneca thinks he remains unmoved because he knows that “there is no remedy against a slanderer’s bite.” There is no remedy for it. Kings and princes, wise, dignified, prudent, holy, good and godly men—all are treated alike.

“O Janus, whom no stork pecks at from behind!” Antevorta and Postvorta, Jupiter’s guardians, cannot help here; they cannot protect you.