The Stream of Time
What is there cruel or so very distressing in being dead? For what wonder if the separable be separated, if the combustible be consumed, and the corruptible be corrupted? For at what time is death not existent in our very selves? As Heraclitus says: “Living and dead are potentially the same thing, and so too waking and sleeping, and young and old. For the latter revert to the former, and the former in turn to the latter.”
For as one is able from the same clay to model figures of living things, so Nature, using the same material, a long time ago raised up our forefathers, and then ourselves, and later will create others in a never-ending cycle. The stream of generation, thus flowing onward perpetually, will never stop, and so likewise its counterpart, flowing in the opposite direction — which is the stream of destruction, whether it be designated by the poets as Acheron or as Cocytus.
Life is a Debt to Destiny
Life is a debt to destiny, for the loan which our forefathers contracted is to be repaid by us. This debt we ought to discharge cheerfully and without bemoaning whenever the lender asks for payment; for in this way we should show ourselves to be most honourable men.
For the bankers, when demand is made upon them for the return of deposits, do not chafe at the repayment. Quite parallel is the lot of all mortals. For we hold our life on deposit from the gods, who have compelled us to accept the account, and set no fixed time for its return.[1]
The Nature of Grief
Do those who mourn for the dead, mourn on their own account or on account of the departed? If on their own account, because they have been cut off from some gratification or profit or comfort in old age, then their grieving is wholly selfish; for they mourn, not for the departed, but for their services; if they mourn on account of the dead, the dead are in no evil state, they will get rid of grief.
When Zeus was distributing honours to the deities, he gave Mourning that honour which is paid in the case of those who have died — tears and grief. Just as the other deities are fond of those by whom they are honoured, so also is Mourning. Therefore, if you treat her with disrespect, she will not come near you; but if you constantly honour her with grief and lamentation, she will love you and will be ever with you. Men are carried away by sorrow into useless and barbarian mourning, consequently they terminate their own lives in misery.
Affection and love for the departed does not consist in distressing ourselves, but in benefiting the beloved one. A benefit for those who have been taken away is the honour paid to them through keeping their memory green. For no good man, after he is dead, is deserving of lamentations, but of hymns and songs of joy; not of mourning, but of an honourable memory [2]; not of sorrowing tears, but of offerings of sacrifice, — if the departed one is now a partaker in some life more divine.
Notes:
1^. cf. The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25
2^. cf. Cicero, Philippics, “The life of the dead is set in the memory of the living.”