an, did not scruple to say,

And thou, Ulysses, long to war inured,
Thy wounds, though great, too feebly hast endured.

The wise poet understood that custom was no contemptible instructor how to
bear pain. But the same hero complains with more decency, though in great
pain,--

Assist, support me, never leave me so;
Unbind my wounds, oh! execrable woe!

He begins to give way, but instantly checks himself:--

Away, begone, but cover first the sore;
For your rude hands but make my pains the more.

Do you observe how he constrains himself; not that his bodily pains were
less, but because he checks the anguish of his mind? Therefore, in the
conclusion of the Niptrae, he blames others, even when he himself is
dying:--

Complaints of fortune may become the man,
None but a woman will thus weeping stand.

And so that soft place in his soul obeys his reason, just as an abashed
soldier does his stern commander.

XXII. The man, then, in whom absolute wisdom exists (such a man, indeed,
we have never as yet seen, but the philosophers have described in their
writings what sort of man he will be, if he should exist); such a man, or
at least that perfect and absolute reason which exists in him, will have
the same authority over the inferior part as a good parent has over his
dutiful children, he will bring it to obey his nod, without any trouble or
difficulty. He will rouse himself, prepare and arm himself to oppose pain
as he would an enemy. If you inquire what arms he will provide himself
with, they will be contention, encouragement, discourse with himself; he
will say thus to himself, Take care that you are guilty of nothing base,
languid, or unmanly. He will turn over in his mind all the different kinds
of honour. Zeno of Elea will occur to him, who suffered everything rather
than betray his confederates in the design of putting an end to the
tyranny. He will reflect on Anaxarchus, the pupil of Democritus, who
having fallen into the hands of Nicocreon king of Cyprus, without the
least entreaty for mercy, or refusal, submitted to every kind of torture.
Calanus the Indian will occur to him, an ignorant man and a barbarian,
born at the foot of Mount Caucasus, who committed himself to the flames by
his own free, voluntary act. But we, if we have the tooth-ache, or a pain
in the foot, or if the body be any ways affected, cannot bear it. For our
sentiments of pain, as well as plea