Book 4
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Does any one who has these things before his eyes lie sleepless, and shift from side to side? What would he have, or what needs he,—Patroclus,This whole paragraph refers to the lament of Achilles over Patroclus. Iliad, xix. 315, etc.—H. or Antilochus, or Menelaus? Why, did he ever think any one of his friends immortal? When was it not obvious that on the morrow, or the next day, he himself or that friend might die? Ay, very true, he says; but I reckoned that he would survive me, and bring up my son. Because you were a fool, and reckoned upon uncertainties. Why, then, do you not blame yourself, instead of sitting in tears, like a girl? But he used to set my dinner before me. Because he was alive, foolish man; but now he cannot. But Automedon will set it before you; and if he should die, you will find somebody else. What if the vessel in which your meat used to be cooked should happen to be broken; must you die with hunger because you have not your old vessel? Do you not send and buy a new one? What greater evil could afflict my breast? Is this your evil, then? And, instead of removing it, do you accuse your mother, that she did not foretell it to you, that you might have spent your whole life in grieving from that time forward?
10
Do you not think now that Homer composed all this on purpose to show us that the noblest, the strongest, the richest, the handsomest of men may nevertheless be the most unfortunate and wretched, if they have not the principles they need?
Of purity.
