s are done in grief, from a persuasion of
their truth and propriety and necessity; and it is plain that those who
behave thus do so from a conviction of its being their duty; for should
these mourners by chance drop their grief, and either act or speak for
a moment in a more calm or cheerful manner, they presently check
themselves and return to their lamentations again, and blame themselves
for having been guilty of any intermissions from their grief; and
parents and masters generally correct children not by words only, but
by blows, if they show any levity by either word or deed when the
family is under affliction, and, as it were, oblige them to be
sorrowful. What! does it not appear, when you have ceased to mourn, and
have discovered that your grief has been ineffectual, that the whole of
that mourning was voluntary on your part? What does that man say in
Terence who punishes himself, the Self-tormentor?

I think I do my son less harm, O Chremes,
As long as I myself am miserable.

He determines to be miserable: and can any one determine on anything
against his will?

I well might think that I deserved all evil.

He would think he deserved any misfortune were he otherwise than
miserable! Therefore, you see, the evil is in opinion, not in nature.
How is it when some things do of themselves prevent your grieving at
them? as in Homer, so many died and were buried daily that they had not
leisure to grieve: where you find these lines--

The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall,
And endless were the grief to weep for all.
Eternal sorrows what avails to shed?
Greece honors not with solemn fasts the dead:
Enough when death demands the brave to pay
The tribute of a melancholy day.
One chief with patience to the grave resign'd,
Our care devolves on others left behind.[45]

Therefore it is in our own power to lay aside grief upon occasion; and
is there any opportunity (seeing the thing is in our own power) that we
should let slip of getting rid of care and grief? It was plain that the
friends of Cnaeus Pompeius, when they saw him fainting under his wounds,
at the very moment of that most miserable and bitter sight were under
great uneasiness how they themselves, surrounded by the enemy as they
were, should escape, and were employed in nothing but encouraging the
rowers and aiding their escape; but when they reached Tyre, they began
to grieve and lament over him. Therefore,