We ought not, therefore, to lament those who die young on the ground that
they have been deprived of those things which in a long life are accounted
good ; for this is uncertain, as we have often said—whether the
things of which they have been deprived are good or evil; for the evils are
much the more numerous. And whereas we acquire the good things only with
difficulty and at the expense of many anxieties, the evils we acquire very
easily. For they say that the latter are compact and conjoined, and are
brought together by many influences, while the good things are disjoined,
and hardly manage to unite towards the very end of life. We therefore
resemble men who have forgotten, not merely, as Euripides
1 says, that
Mortals are not the owners of their wealth,
but also that they do not own a single one of human possessions. Wherefore
we must say in regard to all things that
We keep
and care for that which is the gods', And when they will they take it
back again.2
We
ought not, therefore, to bear it with bad grace if the gods make demand upon
us for what they have loaned us for a short time.
3
For even the bankers, as we are in the habit of saying frequently, when
demand is made upon them for the return of deposits, do not chafe at the
repayment, if they be honourable men. To those who do not make repayment
with good grace one might fairly say, ‘Have you forgotten that you
accepted this on condition that you should return it ?’ Quite
parallel is the lot of all mortals. For we hold our life, as it were, on
deposit from the gods, who have compelled us to accept the account, and
there is no fixed time for
[p. 183] its return, just as with the
bankers and their deposits, but it is uncertain when the depositor will
demand payment. If a man, therefore, is exceedingly indignant, either when
he himself is about to die, or when his children have died, must he not
manifestly have forgotten that he is but human and the father of children
who are mortal ? For it is not characteristic of a man of sense to be
unaware of the fact that man is a mortal creature, and that he is born to
die. At any rate, if Niobe of the fable had had this conception ready at
hand, that even the woman who,
Laden with the happy
burden Of sweet life and growing children, Looks upon the pleasant
sunlight,4
must die, she would not have been so resentful
as to wish to abandon life on account of the magnitude of her misfortune,
and to implore the gods that she herself might be hurried to the most awful
perdition.
There are two of the inscriptions at Delphi
5 which
are most indispensable to living. These are : ‘Know thyself’
and ‘Avoid extremes,’ for on these two commandments hang all
the rest. These two are in harmony and agreement with each other, and the
one seems to be made as clear as possible through the other. For in
self-knowledge is included the avoidance of extremes, and in the latter is
included self-knowledge. Therefore Ion
6 speaks of the former
as follows :
Not much to say is “Know
thyself” ; to do This, Zeus alone of gods doth
understand.
[p. 185] And, of the other, Pindar
7 says :
The
wise have landed with exceeding praise the words “Avoid
extremes.”
