III.
Wherefore if fortune should plead with thee thus in her own defence, doubtless thou wouldst not have a word to answer her. But if there be anything which thou canst allege in thy own defence, thou must utter it. We will give thee full liberty to speak." Then I said: "These things make a fair show and, being set out with pleasant rhetoric and music, delight only so long as they are heard. But those which are miserable have a deeper feeling of their miseries. Therefore, when the sound of these things is past, hidden sorrow oppresseth the mind." "It is so indeed," quoth she, "for these be not the remedies of thy disease, but certain fomentations to assuage thy grief, which as yet resisteth all cure. But when it shall be time, I will apply that which shall pierce to the quick. And yet there is no cause why thou shouldst think thyself miserable. Hast thou forgotten how many ways, and in what degree thou art happy?
I pass over with silence that, having lost thy father, thou wert provided for by men of the best sort, and, being chosen to have affinity with the chiefest of the city, thou begannest sooner to be dear unto them than to be akin, which is the most excellent kind of kindred. Who esteemed thee not most happy, having so noble a father-in-law, so chaste a wife, and so noble sons? I say nothing (for I will not speak of ordinary matters) of the dignities denied to others in their age, and granted to thee in thy youth. I desire to come to the singular top of thy felicity. If any fruit of mortal things hath any weight of happiness, can the remembrance of that light be destroyed with any cloud of miseries that can overcast thee? When thou sawst thy two sons being both Consuls together carried from their house, the Senators accompanying them, and the people rejoicing with them; when, they sitting in the Senate in their chairs of state, thou making an oration in the King's praise deservedst the glory of wit and eloquence. When in public assembly, thou, standing betwixt thy two sons, didst satisfy with thy triumphant liberality the expectation of the multitudes gathered together, I suppose thou flatteredst fortune, while she fawned thus upon thee, as her dearest friend. Thou obtainedst more at her hands than ever private man had before thee. Wilt thou then reckon with fortune? This is the first time that ever she frowned upon thee. If thou considerest the number and measure of thy joyful and sad accidents, thou canst not choose but think thyself fortunate hitherto; and if thou esteemest not thyself fortunate because those things which seemed joyful are past, there is no cause why thou shouldst think thyself miserable, since those things which thou now takest to be sorrowful do pass. Comest thou now first as a pilgrim and stranger into the theatre of this life? Supposest thou to find any constancy in human affairs, since that man himself is soon gone? For although things subject to fortune seldom keep touch in staying, yet the end of life is a certain death, even of that fortune which remaineth. Wherefore, what matter is it whether thou by dying leavest it, or it forsaketh thee by flying?