prove that what one is lamenting is by no means an evil. Others, as the
Peripatetics, prefer urging that the evil is not great. Others, with
Epicurus, seek to divert your attention from the evil to good: some
think it sufficient to show that nothing has happened but what you had
reason to expect; and this is the practice of the Cyrenaics. But
Chrysippus thinks that the main thing in comforting is, to remove the
opinion from the person who is grieving, that to grieve is his bounden
duty. There are others who bring together all these various kinds of
consolations, for people are differently affected; as I have done
myself in my book on Consolation; for as my own mind was much
disordered, I have attempted in that book to discover every method of
cure. But the proper season is as much to be attended to in the cure of
the mind as of the body; as Prometheus in Æschylus, on its being said
to him,

I think, Prometheus, you this tenet hold,
That all men's reason should their rage control?

answers,

Yes, when one reason properly applies;
Ill-timed advice will make the storm but rise.[48]

XXXII. But the principal medicine to be applied in consolation is, to
maintain either that it is no evil at all, or a very inconsiderable
one: the next best to that is, to speak of the common condition of
life, having a view, if possible, to the state of the person whom you
comfort particularly. The third is, that it is folly to wear one's self
out with grief which can avail nothing. For the comfort of Cleanthes is
suitable only for a wise man, who is in no need of any comfort at all;