Tusculan Disputations by Cicero (reading books for 7 year olds .txt) 📕

to grief of mind, but properly, as is also the case with sickness of the body, so too sickness of mind has no name separated from pain. And therefore I must explain the origin of this pain, that is to say, the cause that occasions this grief in the mind, as if it were a sickness of the body. For as physicians think they have found out the cure when they have discovered the cause of the distemper, so we shall discover the method of curing melancholy when the cause of it is found out.

The whole cause, then, is in opinion. And this observation applies not to this grief alone, but to every other disorder of the mind, which are of four sorts but consisting of many parts. For as every disorder or perturbation is a motion of the mind, either devoid of reason, or in despite of reason, or in disobedience to reason, and as that motion is excited by an opinion of either good or evil; these four perturbations are divided equally into two parts: for two of them proceed from an opinion of good, one of which is an exulting pleasure, that is to say a joy elated beyond measure, arising from an opinion of some present great good; the other is a desire which may fairly be called even a lust, and is an immoderate inclination after some conceived great good without any obedience to reason. Therefore these two kinds, the exulting pleasure and the lust, have their rise from an opinion of good, as the other two, fear and grief, have from an opinion of evil. For fear is an opinion of some great evil impending over us, and grief is an opinion of some great evil present; and, indeed, it is a freshly conceived opinion of an evil so great that to grieve at it seems right: it is of that kind that he who is uneasy at it thinks he has good reason to be so. Now we should exert our utmost efforts to oppose these perturbations⁠—which are, as it were, so many furies let loose upon us and urged on by folly⁠—if we are desirous to pass this share of life that is allotted to us with ease and satisfaction. But of the other feelings I shall speak elsewhere: our business at present is to drive away grief if we can, for that shall be the object of our present discussion, since you have said that it was your opinion that a wise man might be subject to grief, which I can by no means allow of; for it is a frightful, miserable, and detestable thing, which we should fly from with our utmost efforts⁠—with all our sails and oars, as I may say.

That descendant of Tantalus, how does he appear to you⁠—he who sprung from Pelops, who formerly stole Hippodamia from her father-in-law, King Oenomaus, and married her by force?⁠—he who was descended from Jupiter himself, how brokenhearted and dispirited does he not seem!

Stand off, my friends, nor come within my shade,
That no pollutions your sound hearts pervade,
So foul a stain my body doth partake.

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 Phoebus? 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 Aeëtes! 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!

Do you, then, think that it can befall a wise man to 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 eyewitness of any great misfortune, if he conceives that the like may possibly befall 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:

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