But with what eloquence, with what fluency, does he attack him! what sentiments does he collect! what words does he hurl against him! You may see by this that an orator may do anything; but nobody would approve of such license if it were not that we have an idea innate in our minds that every good man ought to lament the loss of a relation as bitterly as possible.

And it is owing to this that some men, when in sorrow, betake themselves to deserts, as Homer says of Bellerophon: Distracted in his mind, Forsook by heaven, forsaking human kind, Wide o'er the Aleian field he chose to stray, A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way![43] And thus Niobe is feigned to have been turned into stone, from her never speaking, I suppose, in her grief.

But they imagine Hecuba to have been converted into a bitch, from her rage and bitterness of mind.
There are others who love to converse with solitude itself when in grief, as the nurse in Ennius, Fain would I to the heavens find earth relate Medea's ceaseless woes and cruel fate.[44] XXVII.

Now all these things are done in grief, from a persuasion of their truth and propriety and necessity; and it is plain that those who behave thus do so from a conviction of its being their duty; for should these mourners by chance drop their grief, and either act or speak for a moment in a more calm or cheerful manner, they presently check themselves and return to their lamentations again, and blame themselves for having been guilty of any intermissions from their grief; and parents and masters generally correct children not by words only, but by blows, if they show any levity by either word or deed when the family is under affliction, and, as it were, oblige them to be sorrowful.

What! does it not appear, when you have ceased to mourn, and have discovered that your grief has been ineffectual, that the whole of that mourning was voluntary on your part?
What does that man say in Terence who punishes himself, the Self-tormentor?
I think I do my son less harm, O Chremes, As long as I myself am miserable.
He determines to be miserable: and can any one determine on anything against his will?
I well might think that I deserved all evil.
He would think he deserved any misfortune were he otherwise than miserable! Therefore, you see, the evil is in opinion, not in nature.
How is it when some things do of themselves prevent your grieving at them?
as in Homer, so many died and were buried daily that they had not leisure to grieve: where you find these lines-- The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall, And endless were the grief to weep for all.
Eternal sorrows what avails to shed?
Greece honors not with solemn fasts the dead: Enough when death demands the brave to pay The tribute of a melancholy day.
One chief with patience to the grave resign'd, Our care devolves on others left behind.[45] Therefore it is in our own power to lay aside grief upon occasion; and is there any opportunity (seeing the thing is in our own power) that we should let slip of getting rid of care and grief?
It was plain that the friends of Cnaeus Pompeius, when they saw him fainting under his wounds, at the very moment of that most miserable and bitter sight were under great uneasiness how they themselves, surrounded by the enemy as they were, should escape, and were employed in nothing but encouraging the rowers and aiding their escape; but when they reached Tyre, they began to grieve and lament over him.