erable," so that some judgment
may be made whether it is true or false, or you say nothing at all.

_A._ Well, then, I now own that the dead are not miserable, since you
have drawn from me a concession that they who do not exist at all can
not be miserable. What then? We that are alive, are we not wretched,
seeing we must die? for what is there agreeable in life, when we must
night and day reflect that, at some time or other, we must die?

VIII. _M._ Do you not, then, perceive how great is the evil from which
you have delivered human nature?

_A._ By what means?

_M._ Because, if to die were miserable to the dead, to live would be a
kind of infinite and eternal misery. Now, however, I see a goal, and
when I have reached it, there is nothing more to be feared; but you
seem to me to follow the opinion of Epicharmus,[7] a man of some
discernment, and sharp enough for a Sicilian.

_A._ What opinion? for I do not recollect it.

_M._ I will tell you if I can in Latin; for you know I am no more used
to bring in Latin sentences in a Greek discourse than Greek in a Latin
one.

_A._ And that is right enough. But what is that opinion of Epicharmus?

_M._
I would not die, but yet
Am not concerned that I shall be dead.

_A._ I now recollect the Greek; but since you have obliged me to grant
that the dead are not miserable, proceed to convince me that it is not
miserable to be under a necessity of dying.

_M._ That is easy enough; but I have greater things in hand.

_A._ How comes that to be so easy? And what are those things of more
consequence?

_M._ Thus: because, if there is no evil after death, then even death
itself can be none; for that which immediately succeeds that is a state
where you grant that there is no evil: so that even to be obliged to
die can be no evil, for that is only the being obliged to arrive at a
place where we allow that no evil is.

_A._ I beg you will be more explicit on this point, for these subtle
arguments force me sooner to admissions than to conviction. But what
are those more important things about which you say that you are
occupied?

_M._ To teach you, if I can, that death is not only no evil, but a
good.

_A._ I do not insist on that, but should be glad to hear you argue it,
for even though you should not prove your point, yet you will prove
that death is no evil. But I will not interrupt you; I would rather
hear a continued discourse.

_M._ What, if I should ask you