Discourses - Book III   

kiss your own child, or your brother or friend, never give full
license to the appearance, and allow not your pleasure to go as far as
it chooses; but check it, and curb it as those who stand behind men in
their triumphs and remind them that they are mortal. Do you also
remind yourself in like manner, that he whom you love is mortal, and
that what you love is nothing of your own: it has been given to you
for the present, not that it should not be taken from you, nor has
it been given to you for all time, but as a fig is given to you or a
bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year. But if you wish
for these things in winter, you are a fool. So if you wish for your
son or friend when it is not allowed to you, you must know that you
are wishing for a fig in winter. For such as winter is to a fig,
such is every event which happens from the universe to the things
which are taken away according to its nature. And further, at the
times when you are delighted with a thing, place before yourself the
contrary appearances. What harm is it while you are kissing your child
to say with a lisping voice, "To-morrow you will die"; and to a friend
also, "To-morrow you will go away or I shall, and never shall we see
one another again"? "But these are words of bad omen." And some
incantations also are of bad omen; but because they are useful, I
don't care for this; only let them be useful. "But do you call
things to be of bad omen except those which are significant of some
evil?" Cowardice is a word of bad omen, and meanness of spirit, and
sorrow, and grief and shamelessness. These words are of bad omen:
and yet we ought not to hesitate to utter them in order to protect
ourselves against the things. Do you tell me that a name which is
significant of any natural thing is of evil omen? say that even for
the ears of corn to be reaped is of bad omen, for it signifies the
destruction of the ears, but not of the world. Say that the falling of
the leaves also is of bad omen, and for the dried fig to take the
place of the green fig, and for raisins to be made from the grapes.
For all these things are changes from a former state into other
states; not a destruction, but a certain fixed economy and
administration. Such is going away from home and a small change:
such is death, a greater change, not from the state which now is to
that which is not, but to that which is not now. "Shall I then no
longer exist?" You will not exist, but you be something else, of which
the world now has need: for you also came into existence not when
you chose, but when the world had need of you.
Wherefore the wise and good man, remembering who he is and whence he
came, and by whom he was produced, is attentive only to this, how he
may fill his place with due regularity and obediently to God. "Dost
Thou still wish me to exist? I will continue to exist as free, as
noble in nature, as Thou hast wished me to exist: for Thou hast made
me free from hindrance in that which is my own. But hast Thou no
further need of me? I thank Thee; and so far I have remained for Thy
sake, and for the sake of no other person, and now in obedience to
Thee I depart." "How dost thou depart?" Again, I say, as Thou hast
pleased, as free, as Thy servant, as one who has known Thy commands
and Thy prohibitions. And so long as I shall stay in Thy service, whom