[A] Ovid, Met. xv. 293:—­

        “Si quaeras Helicen et Burin Achaidas urbes,
        Invenies sub aquis.”

49.  Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.

Unhappy am I because this has happened to me?  Not so, but happy am I, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.  For such a thing as this might have happened to every man; but every man would not have continued free from pain on such an occasion.  Why then is that rather a misfortune than this a good fortune?  And dost thou in all cases call that a man’s misfortune which is not a deviation from man’s nature?  And does a thing seem to thee to be a deviation from man’s nature, when it is not contrary to the will of man’s nature?  Well, thou knowest the will of nature.  Will then this which has happened prevent thee from being just, magnanimous, temperate, prudent, secure against inconsiderate opinions and falsehood; will it prevent thee from having modesty, freedom, and everything else, by the presence of which man’s nature obtains all that is its own?  Remember too on every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle; not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.

50.  It is a vulgar, but still a useful help towards contempt of death, to pass in review those who have tenaciously stuck to life.  What more then have they gained than those who have died early?  Certainly they lie in their tombs somewhere at last, Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, or any one else like them, who have carried out many to be buried, and then were carried out themselves.  Altogether the interval is small [between birth and death]; and consider with how much trouble, and in company with what sort of people, and in what a feeble body, this interval is laboriously passed.  Do not then consider life a thing of any value. + For look to the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space.  In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations?[A]

[A] An allusion to Homer’s Nestor, who was living at the war of Troy among the third generation, like old Parr with his hundred and fifty-two years, and some others in modern times who have beaten Parr by twenty or thirty years if it is true; and yet they died at last.  The word is [Greek:  trigereniou] in Antoninus.  Nestor is named [Greek:  trigeron] by some writers; but here perhaps there is an allusion to Homer’s [Greek:  Gerenios hippota Nestor].

51.  Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural:  accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason.  For such a purpose frees a man from trouble,+ and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.