Plutarch's Morals, Ethical Essays (eBook)

CONSOLATORY LETTER TO HIS WIFE.

 Sec. I. Plutarch to his wife sends greeting. The messenger that you sent to me to announce the death of our little girl seems to have missed his way en route for Athens; but when I got to Tanagra I heard the news from my niece. I suppose the funeral has already taken place, and I hope everything went off so as to give you least sorrow both now and hereafter. But if you left undone anything you wished to do, waiting for my opinion, and thinking your grief would then be lighter, be it without ceremoniousness or superstition, both which things are indeed foreign to your character.

Sec. II. Only, my dear wife, let us both be patient at this calamity. I know and can see very clearly how great it is, but should I find your grief too excessive, it would trouble me even more than the event itself. And yet I have not a heart hard as heart of oak or flintstone, as you yourself know very well, who have shared with me in the bringing up of so many children, as they have all been educated at home by ourselves. And this one I know was more especially beloved by you, as she was the first daughter after four sons, when you longed for a daughter, and so I gave her your name.[191] And as you are very fond of children your grief must have a peculiar bitterness when you call to mind her pure and simple gaiety, which was without a tincture of passion or querulousness. For she had from nature a wonderful contentedness of mind and meekness, and her affectionateness and winning ways not only pleased one but also afforded a means of observing her kindliness of heart, for she used to bid her nurse[192] give the teat not only to other children but even to her favourite playthings, and so invited them as it were to her table in kindliness of heart, and gave them a share of her good things, and provided the best entertainment for those that pleased her.

Sec. III. But I see no reason, my dear wife, why these and similar traits in her character, that gave us delight in her lifetime, should now, when recalled to the memory, grieve and trouble us. Though, on the other hand, I fear that if we cease to grieve we may also cease to remember her, like Clymene, who says in the Play[193]--

  "I hate the supple bow of cornel-wood,    And would put down athletics,"

because she ever avoided and trembled at anything that reminded her of her son, for it brought grief with it, and it is natural to avoid everything that gives us pain. But as she gave us the greatest pleasure in embracing her and even in seeing and hearing her, so ought her memory living and dwelling with us to give us more, aye, many times more, joy than grief, since those arguments that we have often used to others ought to be profitable to us in the present conjuncture, nor should we sit down and rail against fortune, opposing to those joys many more griefs.

Sec. IV. Those who were present at the funeral tell me with evident surprise that you put on no mourning, and that you bedizened up neither yourself nor your maids with the trappings of woe, and that there was no ostentatious expenditure of money at the funeral, but that everything was done orderly and silently in the presence of our relations. I am not myself surprised that you, who never made a display either at the theatre or on any other public occasion, and thought extravagance useless even in the case of pleasure, should have been frugal in your grief. For not only ought the chaste woman to remain uncorrupt in Bacchanalian revels,[194] but she ought to consider her self-control not a whit less necessary in the surges of sorrow and emotion of grief, contending not (as most people think) against natural affection, but against the extravagant wishes of the soul. For we are indulgent to natural affection in the regret, and honour, and memory that it pays to the dead: but the insatiable desire for a passionate display of funeral grief, coming to the climax in coronachs and beatings of the breast, is not less unseemly than intemperance in pleasure and is unreasonably[195] forgiven only because pain and grief instead of delight are elements in the unseemly exhibition. For what is more unreasonable than to curtail excessive laughter or any other demonstration of joy, and to allow a free vent to copious lamentation and wailing that come from the same source? And how unreasonable is it, as some husbands do, to quarrel with their wives about perfume and purple robes, while they allow them to shear their heads in mourning, and to dress in black, and to sit in idle grief, and to lie down in weariness! And what is worst of all, how unreasonable is it for husbands to interfere if their wives chastise the domestics and maids immoderately or without sufficient cause, yet allow them to ill-treat themselves cruelly in cases and conjunctures that require repose and kindness!

Sec. V. But between us, my dear wife, there never was any occasion for such a contest, nor do I think there ever will be. For as to your economy in dress and simple way of living, there is no philosopher with whom you are acquainted whom you did not amaze, nor is there any citizen who has not observed[196] how plainly you dressed at sacred rites, and sacrifices, and theatres. You have also already on similar painful occasions exhibited great fortitude, as when you lost your eldest son, and again when our handsome Chaeron died. For when I was informed of his death, I well remember some guests from the sea were coming home with me to my house as well as some others, but when they saw the great quiet and tranquillity of the household, they thought, as they afterwards told some other people, that no such disaster had really happened, but that the news was untrue. So well had you ordered everything in the house, at a time when there would have been great excuse for disorder. And yet you had suckled that son, though your breast had had to be lanced owing to a contusion. This was noble conduct and showed your great natural affection.

Sec. VI. But most mothers we see, when their children are brought to them clean and tidy, take them into their hands as playthings, and when they die burst out into idle and unthankful grief, not so much out of affection--for affection is thoughtful and noble--but a great yearning for vain glory[197] mixed with a little natural affection makes their grief fierce and vehement and hard to appease. And this does not seem to have escaped AEsop's notice, for he says that when Zeus assigned their honours to various gods, Grief also claimed his. And Zeus granted his wish, with this limitation that only those who chose and wished need pay him honour.[198] It is thus with grief at the outset, everyone welcomes it at first, but after it has got by process of time settled, and become an inmate of the house, it is with difficulty dislodged again, however much people may wish to dislodge it. Wherefore we ought to keep it out of doors, and not let it approach the garrison by wearing mourning or shearing the hair, or by any similar outward sign of sorrow. For these things occurring daily and being importunate make the mind little, and narrow, and unsocial, and harsh, and timid, so that, being besieged and taken in hand by grief, it can no longer laugh, and shuns daylight, and avoids society. This evil will be followed by neglect of the body, and dislike to anointing and the bath and the other usual modes of life: whereas the very opposite ought to be the case, for the mind ill at ease especially requires that the body should be in a sound and healthy condition. For much of grief is blunted and relaxed when the body is permeated by calm, like the sea in fine weather. But if the body get into a dry and parched condition from a low diet, and gives no proper nutriment to the soul, but only feeds it with sorrow and grief, as it were with bitter and injurious exhalations, it cannot easily recover its tone however people may wish it should. Such is the state of the soul that has been so ill-treated.

Sec. VII. Moreover, I should not hesitate to assert[199] that the most formidable peril in connection with this is "the visits of bad women,"[200] and their chatter, and joint lamentation, all which things fan the fire of sorrow and aggravate it, and suffer it not to be extinguished either by others or by itself. I am not ignorant what a time of it you had lately, when you went to the aid of Theon's sister, and fought against the women who came on a visit of condolence and rushed up with lamentation and wailing, adding fuel as it were to her fire of grief in their simplicity. For when people see their friends' houses on fire they put it out as quickly and energetically as they can, but when their souls are on fire they themselves bring fuel. And if anybody has anything the matter with his eyes they will not let him put his hands to them, however much he wish, nor do they themselves touch the inflamed part; but a person in grief sits down and gives himself up to every chance comer, like a river [that all make use of], to stir up and aggravate the sore, so that from a little tickling and discomfort it grows into a great and terrible disease. However, as to all this I know you will be on your guard.

Sec. VIII. Try also often to carry yourself back in memory to that time when, this little girl not having been then born, we had nothing to charge Fortune with, and to compare that time and this together, as if our circumstances had gone back to what they were then. Otherwise, my dear wife, we shall seem discontented at the birth of our little daughter, if we consider our position before her birth as more perfect. But we ought not to erase from our memory the two years of her...