Part 23 (1/2)
_A._ I see that plainly; but I should be glad to give up more of it.
_M._ I will endeavour to make you do so, but it is a great undertaking, and I must have a disposition on your part, which is not inclined to offer any obstacles.
_A._ You shall have such: for as I behaved yesterday, so now I will follow reason wherever she leads.
VI. _M._ First, then, I will speak of the weakness of many philosophers, and those too of various sects; the head of whom, both in authority and antiquity, was Aristippus, the pupil of Socrates, who hesitated not to say, that pain was the greatest of all evils. And after him Epicurus easily gave into this effeminate and enervated doctrine. After him Hieronymus, the Rhodian, said, that to be without pain was the chief good, so great an evil did pain appear to him to be. The rest, with the exceptions of Zeno, Aristo, Pyrrho, were pretty much of the same opinion that you were of just now, that it was indeed an evil, but that there were many worse. When then nature herself and a certain generous feeling of virtue at once prevents you from persisting in the a.s.sertion that pain is the chief evil, and when you were driven from such an opinion when disgrace was contrasted with pain, shall philosophy, the preceptress of life, cling to this idea for so many ages? What duty of life, what praise, what reputation would be of such consequence that a man should be desirous of gaining it at the expense of submitting to bodily pain, when he has persuaded himself that pain is the greatest evil? On the other side, what disgrace, what ignominy, would he not submit to, that he might avoid pain, when persuaded that it was the greatest of evils? Besides, what person, if it be only true that pain is the greatest of evils, is not miserable, not only when he actually feels pain, but also whenever he is aware that it may befal him? And who is there whom pain may not befal? so that it is clear that there is absolutely no one who can possibly be happy.
Metrodorus, indeed, thinks that man perfectly happy, whose body is free from all disorders, and who has an a.s.surance that it will always continue so; but who is there who can be a.s.sured of that?
VII. But Epicurus, indeed, says such things that it should seem that his design was only to make people laugh; for he affirms somewhere, that if a wise man were to be burned, or put to the torture,-you expect, perhaps, that he is going to say he would bear it, he would support himself under it with resolution! he would not yield to it, and that, by Hercules! would he very commendable, and worthy of that very Hercules whom I have just invoked: but even this will not satisfy Epicurus, that robust and hardy man! No; his wise man, even if he were in Phalaris's bull, would say, How sweet it is! how little do I regard it! What sweet? is it not sufficient, if it is not disagreeable? But those very men who deny pain to be an evil, are not in the habit of saying that it is agreeable to any one to be tormented; they rather say, that it is cruel, or hard to bear, afflicting, unnatural, but still not an evil: while this man who says that it is the only evil, and the very worst of all evils, yet thinks that a wise man would p.r.o.nounce it sweet. I do not require of you to speak of pain in the same words which Epicurus uses-a man, as you know, devoted to pleasure: he may make no difference, if he pleases, between Phalaris's bull, and his own bed: but I cannot allow the wise man to be so indifferent about pain.
If he bears it with courage, it is sufficient; that he should rejoice in it, I do not expect; for pain is, beyond all question, sharp, bitter, against nature, hard to submit to, and to bear. Observe Philoctetes: We may allow him to lament, for he saw Hercules himself groaning loudly through extremity of pain on mount ta: the arrows with which Hercules presented him, were then no consolation to him, when
The viper's bite, impregnating his veins With poison, rack'd him with its bitter pains.
And therefore he cries out, desiring help, and wis.h.i.+ng to die,
Oh! that some friendly hand its aid would lend, My body from this rock's vast height to send Into the briny deep! I'm all on fire, And by this fatal wound must soon expire.
It is hard to say that the man who was obliged to cry out in this manner, was not oppressed with evil, and great evil too.
VIII. 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 befel From the dire terror of thy consort, Jove; E'en stern Eurystheus' dire command above; This of thy daughter, neus, 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, whilst my fatal doom Proceeds ign.o.bly 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.
IX. a.s.sist, 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.
O what a sight is this same briny source, Unknown before, through all my labours' 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 carcase 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 a.s.sume, And my burnt entrails with its flame consume.
Crest-fallen, 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.(80)
Can we, then, despise pain, when we see Hercules himself giving vent to his expressions of agony with such impatience?
IX. Let us see what aeschylus says, who was not only a poet, but a Pythagorean philosopher, also, for that is the account which you have received of him; how doth he make Prometheus bear the pain he suffered for the Lemnian theft, when he clandestinely stole away the celestial fire, and bestowed it on men, and was severely punished by Jupiter for the theft. Fastened to mount Caucasus, he speaks thus:
Thou heav'n-born race of t.i.tans here fast bound, Behold thy brother! As the sailors sound With care the bottom, and their s.h.i.+ps confine To some safe sh.o.r.e, with anchor and with line: So, by Jove's dread decree the G.o.d of fire Confines me here the victim of Jove's ire.
With baneful art his dire machine he shapes; From such a G.o.d what mortal e'er escapes?