What and how many things do disturb constancy. That outward good and evil things do it. Evils are of two sorts, public and private. Of these two, public evils seem more grievous and dangerous.
Langius having uttered these words with a more earnest voice and countenance than accustomed, I was somewhat inflamed with a spark of this good fire.
"And then, my Father," I said, "let me rightly without dissimulation call you so, lead me and learn me as you list: direct and correct me; I am your patient prepared to admit any kind of curing, be it by razor or fire, to cut or sear."
"I must use both those means," said Langius, "for that one while the stubble of false opinions is to be burned away, and another while the tender slips of affections to be off by the root.
"But tell me whether had you rather walk or sit? Sitting would please me best, say I, for I begin to be hot."
So then Langius commanded stools to be brought into the porch, and I sitting close by him, he turned himself toward me and began his talk in this manner.
"Hitherto, Lipsius, have I laid the foundation whereupon I might erect the building of my future communication. Now, if it please you, I will come nearer the matter, and inquire the causes of your sorrow, for I must touch the sore with my hand.
"There are two things that do assault this castle of constancy in us: false goods, and false evils. I define them both to be such things as are not in us but about us, and which properly do not help nor hurt the inner man, that is, the mind.
"Wherefore I may not call those things good or evil simply in subject and in definition: but I confess they are such in opinion, and by the judgment of the common people. In the first rank of false goods I place riches, honor, authority, health, long life. In the second rank of false evils, poverty, infamy, lack of promotion, sickness, death. And to comprehend all in one word, whatsoever else is accidental and happens outwardly."
"From these two roots do spring four principal affections which do greatly disquiet the life of man: desire and joy, fear and sorrow. The first two have respect to some supposed or imagined good, the two latter unto some supposed or imagined evil. All of them do hurt and distemper the mind, and without timely prevention do bring it out of all order, yet not each of them in like sort. For whereas the quietness and constancy of the mind rests, as it were, in an even balance, these affections do hinder this upright poise and evenness; some of them by puffing up the mind, others by pressing it down too much.
"But here I will let pass to speak of false goods, which lift up the mind above measure (because your diseases proceeds from another humor) and will come to false evils, which are of two sorts, public and private. Public are those, the sense and feeling whereof touches many persons at one time. Private do touch some private men. Of the first kind are war, pestilence, famine, tyranny, slaughters, and such like. Of the second are sorrow, poverty, infamy, death and whatsoever else of like nature that may befall any one man.
"I take it there is good cause for me thus to distinguish them, because we sorrow after another sort at the misery of our country, the banishment and a destruction of a multitude, than of one person alone. Besides that, the griefs that grow of public and private adversities are different, but yet the first sort are more heavy and take deeper root in us. For we are all subject to those common calamities, either for that they come together in heaps, and so with the multitude oppress such as oppose themselves against them, or rather because they beguile us by subtlety, in that we perceive not how our mind is diseased by the apprehension of them.
"Behold if a man is overcome with any private grief, he must confess therein his frailty and infirmity, especially if he reclaim not himself, then is he without excuse. Contrarily, we are so far from confessing a fault in being disquieted at public calamities, that some will boast thereof, and account it for a praise: for they term it piety and compassion. So that this common contagion is now reckoned among the catalog of virtues, yea and almost honored as a God.
"Poets and orators do everywhere extol to the skies a fervent affection to our country; neither do I disallow it, but hold and maintain that it ought to be tempered with moderation: otherwise it is a vice, a note of intemperance, a deposing of the mind from his right seat. On the other side I confess it to be a grievous malady, and of great force to move a man, because the sorrow that proceeds thereto is manifold, in respect of yourself and of others.
"And to make the matter more plain by example: see how your country of Flanders is afflicted with sundry calamities, and swung on every side with the scorching flame of civil wars: the fields are wasted and spoiled, towns are overthrown and burned, men taken captive and murdered, women defiled, virgins deflowered, with such other like miseries as follow after wars.
"Are you not grieved herewith? Yes I am sure, and grieved diversely, for yourself, for your countrymen, and for your country. Your own losses trouble you; the misery and slaughter of your neighbors; the calamity and overthrow of your country. One where you may cry out with the poet, 'O unhappy wretch, that I am.' Another while, 'O my father, O my country!' And who is not so moved with these matters, nor oppressed with the multitude of so many and manifold miseries must either be very stayed and wise, or else very hardhearted."
IMAGE: Anonymous Dutch, The Spanish Fury in Antwerp (c. 1585)
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