Tusculan Disputations 2 ¶23 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 2 ¶23

But let us observe Hercules himself, who was subdued by pain at the very time when he was on the point of attaining immortality by death. What words does Sophocles here put in his mouth, in his Trachiniae? who, when Deianira had put upon him a tunic dyed in the centaur’s blood, and it stuck to his entrails, says, What tortures I endure no words can tell, Far greater these, than those which erst befell From the dire terror of thy consort, Jove; E’en stern Eurystheus’ dire command above; This of thy daughter, Oeneus, is the fruit, Beguiling me with her envenom’d suit, Whose close embrace doth on my entrails prey, Consuming life; my lungs forbid to play; The blood forsakes my veins; my manly heart Forgets to beat; enervated, each part Neglects its office, while my fatal doom Proceeds ignobly from the weaver’s loom. The hand of foe ne’er hurt me, nor the fierce Giant issuing from his parent earth. Ne’er could the Centaur such a blow enforce, No barbarous foe, nor all the Grecian force; This arm no savage people could withstand, Whose realms I traversed to reform the land. Thus, though I ever bore a manly heart, I fall a victim to a woman’s art. Assist, my son, if thou that name dost hear, My groans preferring to thy mother’s tear; Convey her here, if, in thy pious heart, Thy mother shares not an unequal part: Proceed, be bold, thy father’s fate bemoan, Nations will join, you will not weep alone. Oh, what a sight is this same briny source, Unknown before, through all my labors’ course! That virtue, which could brave each toil but late, With woman’s weakness now bewails its fate. Approach, my son; behold thy father laid, A wither’d carcass that implores thy aid; Let all behold: and thou, imperious Jove, On me direct thy lightning from above: Now all its force the poison doth assume, And my burnt entrails with its flame consume. Crestfallen, unembraced, I now let fall Listless, those hands that lately conquer’d all; When the Nemaean lion own’d their force, And he indignant fell a breathless corse; The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake, As did the Hydra of its force partake: By this, too, fell the Erymanthian boar: E’en Cerberus did his weak strength deplore. This sinewy arm did overcome with ease That dragon, guardian of the golden fleece. My many conquests let some others trace; It’s mine to say, I never knew disgrace. Can we then, despise pain, when we see Hercules himself giving vent to his expressions of agony with such impatience?