Tusculan Disputations 3 ¶40 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 3 ¶40

Now all these things 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 anyone 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.