[3820] “Vel nos in mare proximum,
        Gemmas et lapides, aurum et inutile,
        Summi materiam mali
        Mittamus, scelerum si hene poenitet.”

Zeno the philosopher lost all his goods by shipwreck, [3821]he might like of it, fortune had done him a good turn:  Opes a me, animum auferre non potest:  she can take away my means, but not my mind.  He set her at defiance ever after, for she could not rob him that had nought to lose:  for he was able to contemn more than they could possess or desire.  Alexander sent a hundred talents of gold to Phocion of Athens for a present, because he heard he was a good man:  but Phocion returned his talents back again with a permitte me in posterum virum bonum esse to be a good man still; let me be as I am:  Non mi aurum posco, nec mi precium[3822]—­That Theban Crates flung of his own accord his money into the sea, abite nummi, ego vos mergam, ne mergar, a vobis, I had rather drown you, than you should drown me.  Can stoics and epicures thus contemn wealth, and shall not we that are Christians?  It was mascula vox et praeclara, a generous speech of Cotta in [3823]Sallust, “Many miseries have happened unto me at home, and in the wars abroad, of which by the help of God some I have endured, some I have repelled, and by mine own valour overcome:  courage was never wanting to my designs, nor industry to my intents:  prosperity or adversity could never alter my disposition.”  A wise man’s mind, as Seneca holds, [3824] “is like the state of the world above the moon, ever serene.”  Come then what can come, befall what may befall, infractum invictumque [3825] animum opponas:  Rebus angustis animosus atque fortis appare. (Hor. Od. 11. lib. 2.) Hope and patience are two sovereign remedies for all, the surest reposals, the softest cushions to lean on in adversity: 

[3826] “Durum sed levius fit patientia,
        Quicquid corrigere est nefas.”

       “What can’t be cured must be endured.”

If it cannot be helped, or amended, [3827]make the best of it; [3828] necessitati qui se accommodat, sapit, he is wise that suits himself to the time.  As at a game at tables, so do by all such inevitable accidents.

[3829] “Ita vita est hominum quasi cum ludas tesseris,
        Si illud quod est maxime opus jactu non cadit,
        Illud quod cecidit forte, id arte ut corrigas;”

If thou canst not fling what thou wouldst, play thy cast as well as thou canst.  Everything, saith [3830]Epictetus, hath two handles, the one to be held by, the other not:  ’tis in our choice to take and leave whether we will (all which Simplicius’s Commentator hath illustrated by many examples), and ’tis in our power, as they say, to make or mar ourselves.  Conform thyself then to thy present fortune, and cut thy coat according to thy cloth, [3831]_Ut quimus (quod aiunt) quando quod volumus non licet_, “Be contented with thy loss, state, and calling, whatsoever it is, and rest as well satisfied with thy present condition in this life:”