Has no escape beyond the hoary main.1Yea, she presently evaporates, disperses, and perishes, even before the body itself; so that it seems her great and excessive rejoicing must be only for having learned this one sage and divine maxim, that all her misfortunes will at last determine in her own destruction, dissolution, and annihilation.
Very amiable things must those be that come to us
from the Gods; but when these very things come by the
Gods too, this is what occasions vast satisfaction and unspeakable assurance, a sublimity of mind and a joy that,
like a smiling brightness, doth as it were gild over our
good things with a glory. But now those that are persuaded otherwise obstruct the very sweetest part of their
prosperity, and leave themselves nothing to turn to in their
adversity; but when they are in distress, look only to this
one refuge and port, dissolution and insensibility; just as
if in a storm or tempest at sea, some one should, to hearten
the rest, stand up and say to them: Gentlemen, the ship
hath never a pilot in it, nor will Castor and Pollux come
themselves to assuage the violence of the beating waves or
to lay the swift careers of the winds; yet I can assure you
there is nothing at all to be dreaded in all this, for the
vessel will be immediately swallowed up by the sea, or else
will very quickly fall off and be dashed in pieces against
the rocks. For this is Epicurus's way of discourse to persons under grievous distempers and excessive pains. Dost
thou hope for any good from the Gods for thy piety ? It
is thy vanity; for the blessed and incorruptible Being is
not constrained by either angers or kindnesses. Dost thou
[p. 195]
fancy something better after this life than what thou hast
here? Thou dost but deceive thyself; for what is dissolved
hath no sense, and that which hath no sense is nothing to
us. Aye; but how comes it then, my good friend, that
you bid me eat and be merry ? Why, by Jove, because he
that is in a great storm cannot be far off a shipwreck ; and
your extreme peril will soon land you upon Death's strand.
Though yet a passenger at sea, when he is got off from a
shattered ship, will still buoy himself up with some little
hope that he may drive his body to some shore and get out
by swimming; but now the poor soul, according to these
men's philosophy,
1 Odyss. V. 410.
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