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Crantor 1 says that not being to blame for one's unhappy state is no
small alleviation for misfortunes ; but I should say that it surpasses all
others as a remedy for the cure of grief. But affection and love for the
departed does not consist in distressing ourselves, but in benefiting the
beloved one; and a benefit for those who have been taken away is the honour
paid to them through keeping their memory green. For no good man, after he
is dead, is deserving of lamentations, but of hymns and songs of joy ; not
of mourning, but of an honourable memory ; not of sorrowing tears, but of
offerings of sacrifice,—if the departed one is now a partaker in
some life more divine, relieved of servitude to the body, and of these
everlasting cares and misfortunes which those who have received a mortal
life as their portion are constrained to undergo until such time as they
shall complete their allotted earthly existence, which Nature has not given
to us for eternity; but she has distributed to us severally the apportioned
amount in accordance with the laws of fate.
1 Mullach, Frag. Philor. Graec. iii. p. 149.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1928. 2.
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