Will you condemn yourself, Thyestes, and deprive yourself of life, on account of the greatness of another's crime? What do you think of that son of Phœbus? do you not look upon him as unworthy of his own father's light?
Hollow his eyes, his body worn away,
His furrow'd cheeks his frequent tears betray;
His beard neglected, and his hoary hairs
Rough and uncomb'd, bespeak his bitter cares.
O foolish Æetes, these are evils which you yourself have been the cause of, and are not occasioned by any accidents with which chance has visited you; and you behaved as you did, even after you had been inured to your distress, and after the first swelling of the mind had subsided! whereas grief consists (as I shall show) in the notion of some recent evil; but your grief, it is very plain, proceeded from the loss of your kingdom, not of your daughter, for you hated her, and perhaps with reason, but you could not calmly bear to part with your kingdom. But surely it is an impudent grief which preys upon a man for not being able to command those that are free. Dionysius, it is true, the tyrant of Syracuse, when driven from his country taught a school at Corinth; so incapable was he of living without some authority. But what could be more impudent than Tarquin? who made war upon those who could not bear his tyranny; and when he could not recover his kingdom by the aid of the forces of the Veientians and the Latins, is said to have betaken himself to Cuma, and to have died in that city, of old age and grief!
XIII. Do you, then, think that it can befal a wise man to [pg 375] be oppressed with grief, that is to say, with misery? for, as all perturbation is misery, grief is the rack itself. Lust is attended with heat, exulting joy with levity, fear with meanness, but grief with something greater than these; it consumes, torments, afflicts, and disgraces a man; it tears him, preys upon his mind, and utterly destroys him: if we do not so divest ourselves of it as to throw it completely off, we cannot be free from misery. And it is clear that there must be grief where anything has the appearance of a present sore and oppressing evil. Epicurus is of opinion, that grief arises naturally from the imagination of any evil; so that whosoever is eye-witness of any great misfortune, if he conceives that the like may possibly befal himself, becomes sad instantly from such an idea. The Cyrenaics think that grief is not engendered by every kind of evil, but only by unexpected, unforeseen evil; and that circumstance is, indeed, of no small effect on the heightening of grief; for whatsoever comes of a sudden appears more formidable. Hence these lines are deservedly commended—
I knew my son, when first he drew his breath,
Destined by fate to an untimely death;
And when I sent him to defend the Greeks,