Consolatio ad Apollonium

Aeschylus also doth justly reprimand those who think death to be an evil, declaring after this manner:—

1. Some as a thing injurious death do fly;
2. But of all mischiefs ’tis the remedy.

And he who spoke thus very nicely imitated him:—

1. Come, with impatience I expect thee, Death;
2. And stop with thy obliging hand my breath:
3. To thee as a physician all resort,
4. And we through tempests sail into thy port.

And it is great to speak this sentence with courage:—

1. Where is the slave who never fears to die?From Euripides.

Or this:—

1. And shadows never scare me, thanks to hell.

But what is it at length in death, that is so grievous and troublesome? For I know not how it comes to pass that, when it is so familiar and as it were related to us, it should seem so terrible. How can it be rational to wonder, if that cleaves asunder which is divisible, if that melts whose nature is liquefaction, if that burns which is combustible, and so, by a parity of reason, if that perisheth which by nature is perishable? For when is it that death is not in us? For, as Heraclitus saith, it is the same thing to be dead and alive, asleep and awake, a young man and decrepit; for these alternately are changed one into another. For as a potter can form the shape of an animal out of his clay and then as easily deface it, and can repeat this backwards and forwards as often as he pleaseth, so Nature too out of the same materials fashioned first our grandfathers, next our fathers, then us, and in process of time will engender others, and again others upon these. For as the flood of our generation glides on without any intermission and will never stop, so in the other direction the stream of our corruption flows eternally on, whether it be called Acheron or Cocytus by the poets. So that the same cause which first showed us the light of the sun carries us down to infernal darkness. And in my mind, the air which encompasseth us seems to be a lively image of the thing; for it brings on the vicissitudes of night and day, life and death, sleeping and waking. For this cause it is that life is called a fatal debt, which our fathers contracted and we are bound to pay; which is to be done calmly and without any complaint, when the creditor demands it; and by this means we shall show ourselves men of sedate passions.