Letter 125: Repeated bereavement must be met by tragedy's lessons, Anaxagoras, and the counsel to know oneself.

How bitter Fortune's designs against us are, enough to furnish the plot of a dreadful tragedy. We had not yet ceased from the most pitiable burial of children, and suddenly she dragged after them the woman who bore them. Perhaps she did what pleased her, if she joined her dearest children; but for us she fastened suffering to suffering and made burial heavier by burial. Alas, she deprived still little children, still dependent on their mother's breast, of their mother. These are truly tears and sufferings beyond the stage, the kind that would confirm the myth that an unhappy woman became stone from human form. She was, it seems, Phrygian and foreign, and her soul had not been fortified against Fortune's drink by the medicines of philosophy. But story says the great Anaxagoras, when someone announced his son's untimely death, immediately said, long prepared and not struck hard by the news, "I knew that I had begotten a mortal." Judging from that, I think if someone had announced that his wife lay dead after the child, he would certainly have added, "I knew I was living with a mortal too." For this reason I praise the first inventors of tragedy: they understood that Fortune tosses human affairs up and down, and devised the stage for us, forestalling our own disasters through the disasters of others. What dreadful thing is there in us that time has not already shown? What new thing could happen that cannot be referred to a similar image? If we want to appear stronger than Fortune, we must run to the harbor of our usual philosophy, considering who we are, where we have come from, what the reasons for our affairs are, and how those bound must certainly be released whenever it seems good to the one who bound them, and must put off the mask that the poet of the great drama has placed around us. This is truly the counsel "know yourself." This is your work, wisest friend: you who, I think, constantly unroll the arguments of providence and offer yourself as an example of endurance to those uninitiated in wisdom. Let us return to ourselves, saying, "But what could I do?" and "God brings all things to their end." Looking to these things, you will act worthily of yourself and prepare the divine to look someday with kindly eyes on our affairs.

Γεσσίωι ἰατροσοφιστῆι Ὡς πικρὰ τὰ καθ' ἡμῶν τῆς τύχης βουλεύματα καὶ πρὸς δεινῆς ἀρκοῦντα τραγῳδίας ὑπόθεσιν. οὔπω παίδων οἰκτίστου τάφου πεπαύμεθα, καὶ τὴν τεκοῦσαν ἐξαίφνης ἐφέλκεταιἐκείνῃ μὲν ἴσως δρῶσα καθ' ἡδονήν, εἰ παισὶ φιλτάτοις προσέθηκεν, ἡμῖν δὲ πάθη συνάπτουσα πάθεσι καὶ τάφῳ τάφον ἐργαζομένη βαρύτερονκαὶ τῆς μητρὸς ἀπεστέρησεν, οἴμοι, παιδάρια ἔτι τῆς μητρῴας ἐξηρτημένα θηλῆς. δακρύων ὄντως ταῦτα καὶ σκηνῆς ἐπέκεινα πάθη, καὶ οἷα βεβαιῶσαι μῦθον ὡς γυνὴ δυστυχὴς ἐξ ἀνθρώπου λίθος ἐγένετο. ἦν γάρ, ὡς ἔοικε, Φρυγία καὶ βάρβαρος, καὶ πρὸς τὸ τῆς τύχης πῶμα τοῖς ἐκ φιλοσοφίας φαρμάκοις οὐ προκατείληπτο τὴν ψυχήν. οἷα δὴ τὸν μέγαν ἐκεῖνον Ἀναξαγόραν λόγος, προσαγγείλαντος αὐτῷ τινὸς τοῦ παιδὸς τὴν ἄωρον τελευτήν, εἰπεῖν εὐθέως ὡς δὴ παρεσκευασμένον ἐκ πολλοῦ καὶ μηδὲν μέγα παθόντα πρὸς τῆς ἀκοῆς, ὡς "ᾔδειν κἀγὼ θνητὸν γεννήσας". καὶ οἶμαί γε τοῖς εἰρημένοις τεκμαιρόμενος, ὡς, εἰ καὶ τὸ γύναιόν τις ἀπήγγειλεν ἐπὶ τῷ παιδὶ κεῖσθαι, πάντως ἂν προσέθηκεν ὡς "ᾔδειν καὶ θνητῇ συνοικῶν". ὅθεν ἐπαινῶ τοὺς πρώτους τραγῳδίαν εὑρόντας, ὅτι καταμαθόντες τὴν τύχην ἄνω καὶ κάτω κυκᾶν τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων πράγματα. τὴν σκηνὴν ἡμῖν ἐπενόησαν, ἀλλοτρίοις εὖ μάλα κακοῖς τὰς τῶν οἰκείων προκαταλαμβάνοντες συμφοράς. τί γὰρ δεινὸν ἐν ἡμῖν, ὃ μὴ φθάσας ὁ χρόνος ἀπέδειξε; τί δ' ἂν γένοιτο καινόν, ὃ μὴ πρὸς εἰκόνα παραπλησίαν ἀνάγεται; ἀλλ' εἴ γε φίλον ἡμῖν τῆς τύχης ὀφθῆναι κρείττοσι, πρὸς τὸν τῆς συνήθους φιλοσοφίας ὅρμον ὑποδραμούμεθα, τίνες τέ ἐσμεν σκοποῦντες καὶ πόθεν ἀφίγμεθα, καὶ τίνες ἄρα τῶν καθ' ἡμᾶς πραγμάτων οἱ λόγοι, καὶ ὡς δεθέντας λυθῆναι δεῖ πάντως, ὁπηνίκα δόξει τῷ δήσαντι, καὶ ἀποθέσθαι τὸ προσωπεῖον, ὅπερ ἡμῖν ὁ τοῦ μεγάλου δράματος περιτέθεικε ποιητής. τοῦτο γὰρ ὄντως ἡ τοῦ σαυτὸν γνῶθι παραίνεσις. τοῦτο σὸν ἔργον, ὦ σοφώτατε, καὶ τοὺς τῆς προνοίας ὡς οἶμαι λόγους συνεχῶς ἀνελίττοντος καὶ τοῖς σοφίας ἀμυήτοις καρτερίας σαυτὸν παρεχομένου παράδειγμα. ὅθεν εἰς ἑαυτοὺς ἐπανέλθωμεν, τὸ "ἀλλὰ τί κεν ῥέξαιμι" λέγοντες, καὶ τὸ "θεὸς διὰ πάντα τελευτᾷ". ταῦτα γὰρ σκοπῶν σαυτοῦ τε δράσεις ἄξια καὶ τὸ θεῖον παρασκευάσεις εὐμενέσι ποτὲ τὰ καθ' ἡμᾶς ἰδεῖν ὀφθαλμοῖς.