But I dare say that, in answer to this, some may assert their belief that
there need not be mourning for every death, but only for untimely deaths,
because of the failure of the dead to gain what are commonly held to be the
advantages of life, such as marriage, education, manhood, citizenship, or
public office (for these are the considerations, they say, which most cause
grief to those who suffer misfortune through untimely deaths, since they are
robbed of their hope out of due time) ; but they do not realize that the
untimely death shows no disparity if it be considered with reference to the
1
[p. 169] common lot of man. For just as when it has been decided
to migrate to a new fatherland, and the journey is compulsory for all, and
none by entreaty can escape it, some go on ahead and others follow after,
but all come to the same place; in the same manner, of all who are
journeying toward Destiny those who come more tardily have no advantage over
those who arrive earlier. If it be true that untimely death is an evil, the
most untimely would be that of infants and children, and still more that of
the newly born. But such deaths we bear easily and cheerfully, but the
deaths of those who have already lived some time with distress and mourning
because of our fanciful notion, born of vain hopes, since we have come to
feel quite assured of the continued tarrying with us of persons who have
lived so long. But if the years of man's life were but twenty, we should
feel that he who passed away at fifteen had not died untimely, but that he
had already attained an adequate measure of age, while the man who had
completed the prescribed period of twenty years, or who had come close to
the count of twenty years, we should assuredly deem happy as having lived
through a most blessed and perfect life. But if the length of life were two
hundred years, we should certainly feel that he who came to his end at one
hundred was cut off untimely, and we should betake ours elves to wailing and
lamentation.
1 Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 743, Ion, No. 54.