to become water, and the death of water is to become air, and the death
of air is to become fire, and reversely. And think too of him who forgets
whither the way leads, and that men quarrel with that with which they are
most constantly in communion, the reason which governs the universe; and
the things which they daily meet with seem to them strange: and consider
that we ought not to act and speak as if we were asleep, for even in
sleep we seem to act and speak; and that we ought not, like children who
learn from their parents, simply to act and speak as we have been taught.

47. If any god told thee that thou shalt die to-morrow, or certainly on
the day after to-morrow, thou wouldst not care much whether it was on the
third day or on the morrow, unless thou wast in the highest degree mean-
spirited; for how small is the difference. So think it no great thing to
die after as many years as thou canst name rather than to-morrow.

48. Think continually how many physicians are dead after often
contracting their eyebrows over the sick; and how many astrologers after
predicting with great pretensions the deaths of others; and how many
philosophers after endless discourses on death or immortality; how many
heroes after killing thousands; and how many tyrants who have used their
power over men's lives with terrible insolence, as if they were immortal;
and how many cities are entirely dead, so to speak, Helice and Pompeii
and Herculaneum, and others innumerable. Add to the reckoning all whom
thou hast known, one after another. One man after burying another has
been laid out dead, and another buries him; and all this in a short time.
To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are,
and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy or
ashes. Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature,
and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is
ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it