speaks thus, a little lower down: "I have often inquired of those
who have been called wise men, what would be the remaining good if they
should exclude from consideration all these pleasures, unless they meant
to give us nothing but words? I could never learn anything from them; and
unless they choose that all virtue and wisdom should vanish and come to
nothing, they must say with me, that the only road to happiness lies
through those pleasures which I mentioned above." What follows is much the
same, and his whole book on the chief good everywhere abounds with the
same opinions. Will you, then, invite Telamon to this kind of life to ease
his grief? and should you observe any one of your friends under
affliction, would you rather prescribe him a sturgeon than a treatise of
Socrates? or advise him to listen to the music of a water-organ rather
than to Plato? or lay before him the beauty and variety of some garden,
put a nosegay to his nose, burn perfumes before him, and bid him crown
himself with a garland of roses and woodbines? Should you add one thing
more, you would certainly wipe out all his grief.

XIX. Epicurus must admit these arguments; or he must take out of his book
what I just now said was a literal translation; or rather he must destroy
his whole book, for it is crammed full of pleasures. We must inquire,
then, how we can ease him of his grief, who speaks in this manner:--

My present state proceeds from fortune's stings;
By birth I boast of a descent from kings;
Hence may you see from what a noble height
I'm sunk by fortune to this abject plight.

What! to ease his grief, must we mix him a cup of sweet wine, or something
of that kind? Lo! the same poet presents us with another sentiment
somewhere else:--

I, Hector, once so great, now claim your aid.

We should assist her, for she looks out for help.

Where shall I now apply, where seek support?
Where hence betake me, or to whom resort?
No means remain of comfort or of joy,
In flames my palace, and in ruins Troy;
Each wall, so late superb, deformed nods,
And not an altar's left t' appease the gods.

You know what should follow, and particularly this:--

Of father, country, and of friends bereft,
Not one of all these sumptuous temples left;
Which, whilst the fortune of our house did stand,
With rich-wrought ceilings spoke the artist's hand.

O excellent poet! though desp