efore, this ruminating beforehand upon future evils which you see
at a distance, makes their approach more tolerable; and on this account,
what Euripides makes Theseus say, is much commended. You will give me
leave to translate them, as is usual with me--

I treasured up what some learn'd sage did tell,
And on my future misery did dwell;
I thought of bitter death, of being drove
Far from my home by exile, and I strove
With every evil to possess my mind,
That, when they came, I the less care might find.(87)

But Euripides says that of himself, which Theseus said he had heard from
some learned man, for the poet had been a pupil of Anaxagoras, who, as
they relate, on hearing of the death of his son, said, "I knew that my son
was mortal;" which speech seems to intimate that such things afflict those
men who have not thought on them before. Therefore, there is no doubt but
that all those things which are considered evils are the heavier from not
being foreseen. Though, notwithstanding this is not the only circumstance
which occasions the greatest grief, still, as the mind, by foreseeing and
preparing for it, has great power to make all grief the less, a man should
at all times consider all the events that may befal him in this life; and
certainly the excellence and divine nature of wisdom consists in taking a
near view of, and gaining a thorough acquaintance with, all human affairs,
in not being surprised when anything happens, and in thinking, before the
event, that there is nothing but what may come to pass.

Wherefore ev'ry man,
When his affairs go on most swimmingly,
E'en then it most behoves to arm himself
Against the coming storm: loss, danger, exile,
Returning ever, let him look to meet;
His son in fault, wife dead, or daughter sick:
All common accidents, and may have happen'd,
That nothing shall seem new or strange. But if
Aught has fall'n out beyond his hopes, all that
Let him account clear gain.(88)

XV. Therefore, as Terence has so well expressed what he borrowed from
philosophy, shall not we, from whose fountains he drew it, say the same
thing in a better manner, and abide by it with more steadiness? Hence came
that steady countenance, which, according to Xantippe, her husband
Socrates always had; so that she said that she never observed any
difference in his looks when he went out, and when he came home. Yet the
look of that o