Tusculan Disputations 3 ¶26 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 3 ¶26

Therefore, 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. 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 befall 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.