and meanness, which are full of fear and confusion. For if a man should
transfer caution to those things in which the will may be exercised and
the acts of the will, he will immediately by willing to be cautious have
also the power of avoiding what he chooses; but if he transfer it to the
things which are not in his power and will, and attempt to avoid the
things which are in the power of others, he will of necessity fear, he
will be unstable, he will be disturbed; for death or pain is not
formidable, but the fear of pain or death. For this reason we commend
the poet, who said:

"Not death is evil, but a shameful death."

Confidence (courage) then ought to be employed against death, and
caution against the fear of death. But now we do the contrary, and
employ against death the attempt to escape; and to our opinion about it
we employ carelessness, rashness, and indifference. These things
Socrates properly used to call tragic masks; for as to children masks
appear terrible and fearful from inexperience, we also are affected in
like manner by events (the things which happen in life) for no other
reason than children are by masks. For what is a child? Ignorance. What
is a child? Want of knowledge. For when a child knows these things, he
is in no way inferior to us. What is death? A tragic mask. Turn it and
examine it. See, it does not bite. The poor body must be separated from
the spirit either now or later as it was separated from it before. Why
then are you troubled if it be separated now? for if it is not separated
now, it will be separated afterwards. Why? That the period of the
universe may be completed, for it has need of the present, and of the
future, and of the past. What is pain? A mask. Turn it and examine it.
The poor flesh is moved roughly, then on the contrary smoothly. If this
does not satisfy (please) you, the door is open; if it does, bear (with