this calamity has befallen unexpectedly. So that some persons, under
the oppression of grief, are said to have borne it actually worse for
hearing of this common condition of man, that we are born under such
conditions as render it impossible for a man to be exempt from all
evil.

XXV. For this reason Carneades, as I see our friend Antiochus writes,
used to blame Chrysippus for commending these verses of Euripides:

Man, doom'd to care, to pain, disease, and strife,
Walks his short journey thro' the vale of life:
Watchful attends the cradle and the grave,
And passing generations longs to save:
Last, dies himself: yet wherefore should we mourn?
For man must to his kindred dust return;
Submit to the destroying hand of fate,
As ripen'd ears the harvest-sickle wait.[41]

He would not allow a speech of this kind to avail at all to the cure of
our grief, for he said it was a lamentable case itself that we were
fallen into the hands of such a cruel fate; and that a speech like
that, preaching up comfort from the misfortunes of another, was a
comfort adapted only to those of a malevolent disposition. But to me it
appears far otherwise; for the necessity of bearing what is the common
condition of humanity forbids your resisting the will of the Gods, and
reminds you that you are a man, which reflection greatly alleviates
grief; and the enumeration of these examples is not produced with a
view to please those of a malevolent disposition, but in order that any
one in affliction may be induced to bear what he observes many others
have previously borne with tranquillity and moderation. For they who