Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/201

Rh to our hope and expectation is that which altogether and wholly doth breed sorrow and grief.

The kingdom of the Macedonians was not an handful to the Roman empire and dominion; and yet King Perseus, when he had lost Macedonia, did not only himself lament his own fortune most piteously, but in the eyes also of the whole world he was reputed a most unfortunate and miserable man. But behold Paulus Æmelius, whose hap it was to vanquish the said Perseus, when he departed out of that province, and made over into the hands of another his whole army, with so great comnand both of land and sea, was crowned with a chaplet of flowers, and so did sacrifice unto the gods with joy and thanksgiving in the judgment of all men, worthily extolled and reputed as happy. For why? when he received first that high commission and mighty power withal, he knew full well that he was to give it over and resign it up when his time was expired; whereas Perseus, on the contrary side, lost that which he never made account to lose. Certes, even the poet Homer hath given us very well to understand how forcible that is which happeneth besides hope and unlooked for, when he bringeth in Ulysses upon his return, weeping for the death of his dog; but when he sate by his own wife, who shed tears plentifully, wept not at all; nor that he had long before at his leisure against this coming home of his, prevented and brought into subjection (as it were), by the rule of reason, that passion which otherwise he knew well enough would have broken out; whereas, looking for nothing less than the death of his dog, he fell suddenly into it, as having had no time before to repress the same. In sum, of all those accidents which light upon us contrary to our will, some grieve and vex us by the course and instinct of nature; others (and those be the greater part) we are wont to be offended and discontented with, upon a corrupt opinion and abolish custom that we have taken: and therefore we should do very well, against such temptations as these, to be ready with that sentence of Menander:

And how (quoth he) can it concern thee?

As for example, the base parentage and birth of thy father; the adultery of thy wife; the loss or repulse of any honour, dignity