The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [60]
26. ‘Accordingly, do not be bowed down; on the contrary, plant your feet firmly, and, upset only at first by the din, support whatever burden may fall.
27. ‘Nothing endures the chances and changes of life as a firm resolve.’
28. After this he directed her to the son who was still alive, he directed her to the children of the son she had lost.
29. It was your trouble, Marcia, that was dealt with there, it was at your side that Areus sat; change the role: it was you that he sought to comfort.
Chapter 10
1. But suppose, Marcia, more was snatched from you than any mother has ever lost – I am not trying to soothe you or to minimise your calamity.
2. If tears can bring back the past, let us summon tears;
3. Let every day be passed in grief, let every night be sleepless and consumed with sorrow;
4. Let hands rain blows on a bleeding breast, nor spare even the face from their assault;
5. If sorrow will help, let us vent it in every kind of cruelty on ourselves.
6. But if no wailing can recall the dead, if no distress can alter what is immutable and fixed for ever,
7. And if death holds fast whatever it has once carried off, then let grief, which is futile, cease.
8. Therefore let us steer our own ship, and not allow this power to sweep us from the course!
9. He is a sorry steersman who lets the waves tear the helm from his hands, who has left the sails to the mercy of the winds, and abandoned the ship to the storm;
10. But he deserves praise, even amid shipwreck, whom the sea overwhelms while still gripping the rudder, unyielding and firm.
11. ‘But,’ you say, ‘nature bids us grieve for our dear ones.’ Who denies it, so long as grief is tempered?
12. For not only the loss of those who are dearest to us, but a mere parting, brings an inevitable pang and wrings even the stoutest heart.
13. But false opinion has added something more to our grief than nature has prescribed.
14. Observe how passionate and yet how brief is the sorrow of dumb animals. The lowing of cows is heard, for one or two days only,
15. And that wild and frantic running about of mares lasts no longer;
16. Wild beasts, after following the tracks of their stolen cubs, after wandering through the forests and returning over and over to their plundered lairs,
17. Within a short space of time quench their agony;
18. Birds, making a great outcry, rage about their empty nests, yet in a trice become quiet and resume their ordinary flight;
19. Nor does any creature sorrow long for its offspring except mankind.
20. He nurses his grief, and the measure of his affliction is not what he feels, but what he wills to feel.
21. Moreover, in order that you may know that it is not by nature that we are crushed by sorrow,
22. First, observe that poverty, grief and ambition are felt differently by different people according as their minds are predisposed,
23. And a false presumption, which arouses a fear of things that are not to be feared, makes a man weak and unresisting.
24. In the second place, note that whatever proceeds from nature is not diminished by its continuance.
25. But grief is effaced by the passing of time. However stubborn it may be, mounting higher every day and bursting forth in spite of efforts to allay it,
26. Yet the most powerful agent to calm its fierceness is time; time will weaken it.
Chapter 11
1. There remains with you even now, Marcia, an immense sorrow; it seems already to have grown obdurate – no longer the passionate sorrow it was at first, but still persistent and stubborn;
2. Yet this also, little by little, time will remove. Whenever you engage in something else, your mind will be relieved.
3. As it is now, you keep watch on yourself; but there is a wide difference between permitting and commanding yourself to mourn.
4. How much better would it accord with the distinction of your character to form, and not merely to foresee, an end to your grief,
5. And not to wait for that distant day on which, even against your will, your