hat are most staid and patient, are so furiously carried headlong by
the passion of sorrow in this case, that brave discreet men otherwise,
oftentimes forget themselves, and weep like children many months together,
[2320]_as if that they to water would_, and will not be comforted. They are
gone, they are gone; what shall I do?

"Abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo,
Quis dabit in lachrymas fontem mihi? quis satis altos
Accendet gemitus, et acerbo verba dolori?
Exhaurit pietas oculos, et hiantia frangit
Pectora, nec plenos avido sinit edere questus,
Magna adeo jactura premit," &c.

"Fountains of tears who gives, who lends me groans,
Deep sighs sufficient to express my moans?
Mine eyes are dry, my breast in pieces torn,
My loss so great, I cannot enough mourn."

So Stroza Filius, that elegant Italian poet, in his Epicedium, bewails his
father's death, he could moderate his passions in other matters, (as he
confesseth) but not in this, lie yields wholly to sorrow,

"Nunc fateor do terga malis, mens illa fatiscit,
Indomitus quondam vigor et constantia mentis."

How doth [2321]Quintilian complain for the loss of his son, to despair
almost: Cardan lament his only child in his book _de libris propriis_, and
elsewhere in many of his tracts, [2322]St. Ambrose his brother's death? _an
ego possum non cogitare de te, aut sine lachrymis cogitare? O amari dies, o
flebiles noctes_, &c. "Can I ever cease to think of thee, and to think with
sorrow? O bitter days, O nights of sorrow," &c. Gregory Nazianzen, that
noble Pulcheria! _O decorem, &c. flos recens, pullulans_, &c. Alexander, a
man of most invincible courage, after Hephestion's death, as Curtius
relates, _triduum jacuit ad moriendum obstinatus_, lay three days together
upon the ground, obstinate, to die with him, and would neither eat, drink,
nor sleep. The woman that communed with Esdras (_lib. 2. cap. 10._) when
her son fell down dead. "fled into the field, and would not return into the
city, but there resolved to remain, neither to eat nor drink, but mourn and
fast until she died." "Rachel wept for her children, and would not be
comforted because they were not." Matt. ii. 18. So did Adrian the emperor
bewail his Antinous; Hercules, Hylas; Orpheus, Eurydice; David, Absalom; (O
my dear son Absalom) Austin his mother Monica, Niobe her children, insomuch
that the [2323]poets fei