BOOK I. XXVII. 3-9
we should try to hunt up the reinforcements with which to oppose that. What reinforcements, then, is it possible to find with which to oppose habit? Why, the contrary habit. 5You hear the common folk saying, "That poor man! He is dead; his father perished, and his mother; he was cut off, yes, and before his time, and in a foreign land." Listen to the arguments on the other side, tear yourself away from these expressions, set over against one habit the contrary habit. To meet sophistic arguments we must have the processes of logic and the exercise and the familiarity with these; against the plausibilities of things we must have our preconceptions clear, polished like weapons, and ready at hand.
When death appears to be an evil, we must have ready at hand the argument that it is our duty to avoid evils, and that death is an inevitable thing.[1] For what can I do? Where shall I go to escape it? Suppose that I am Sarpedon the son of Zeus, in order that I may nobly say, as he did: "Seeing that I have left my home for the war, I wish either to win the prize of valour myself, or else to give someone else the chance to win it; if I am unable to succeed in something myself, I shall not begrudge another the achievement of some noble deed."[2] Granted that such an act as Sarpedon's is beyond us, does not the other alternative fall within the compass of our powers?[3] And where can I go to escape death? Show me the country, show me the people to whom I may go, upon whom death does not come; show me a magic charm against it. If
- ↑ And therefore not an evil.
- ↑ A paraphrase of Homer, Iliad, XII. 328.
- ↑ i.e., if we cannot act as nobly as Sarpedon, we can at least think rationally about death, counting it no evil.
