I am most exempt from the casual display of this passion, and neither love nor esteem it. The world has taken upon itself to adorn it with special favor. They dress it up as wisdom, virtue, conscience: such a foolish and monstrous ornament. The Italians have, more appropriately, baptized the studied display of sorrow as malice. Performative sadness is always harmful and foolish. It is also cowardly and base, the Stoics forbid wise men to display it.
However, there are appropriate moments for sorrow. Psammenitus, King of Egypt, having been defeated and taken by Cambyses, King of Persia, saw his daughter pass before him in chains, dressed as a servant, and sent to draw water. All the king’s friends were weeping and lamenting around him, but he stood coy without saying a word, his eyes fixed on the ground. Seeing again his son led to his death, the king maintained the same expression. But when he saw one of his servants in a procession of captives, the king beat his head and displayed extreme grief.
Compare this to what happened recently to one of our princes. When in Trento, he received news of the death of his eldest brother. The support and honor of his house was maintained by this scion. Soon after, a younger brother, his second hope, also died. The prince borne these two burdens with exemplary constancy. A few days later, one of his subjects died, but this time he was carried away by the latest accident. He surrendered to grief and regret, to the point that it was obvious he had been touched by more than just this last shock. The truth was, having become full and overwhelmed with sorrow, the slightest additional burden destroyed his reserve.
The same could be said of the first story, except for this additional fact. Cambyses asked Psammenitus why, not having been moved by the misfortune of his son and daughter, he so impatiently bore that of one of his friends: “It is,” he replied, “that only this last incident can be signified by tears, the first two far surpassed any means of expression.”
An ancient painter understood this sentiment. He was asked to represent the grief of the spectators at the sacrifice of Iphigenia, according to the degree of interest that each one had in the death of this beautiful and innocent girl. Having exhausted every tool of art, when he finally reached the girl’s father, he painted him with his face covered. No expression could fully represent this grief.
This is why the poets pretend that this miserable mother Niobe, having first lost seven sons, and then as many daughters in succession, was overwhelmed by her losses and transformed into a rock,
To have directed her evils (Ovid)
to express this dreary, mute and deaf emptiness that passes through us, when accidents overwhelm us beyond our control.
Indeed, extreme displeasures astonish the whole soul, and prevent its freedom. This happens with the hot alarm of terrible news. We are seized, transfixed, and paralyzed. Then, tears and complaints succeed in disentangling us, allowing the soul to break free and return to ease.
And the path is finally loosened by the voice of pain (Virgil)
In the war that King Ferdinand waged around Buda against the widow of John, King of Hungary, the German captain Raïsciac witnessed the body of a horseman brought back, one who had become famous for his success in the melee. He lamented him with muted sorrow. Curious to see who this horseman was, he later recognized that it was his son. Amid the public tears, he alone stood without uttering a sound or lament, standing on his feet, his eyes motionless, staring at his son until the weight of sadness froze his vital spirits and collapsed him to the ground, stiff as a corpse.
Those who can tell how it burns are on a small fire (Petrarch)
say lovers who want to depict unbearable passion:
Sense snatches me away. For at once, I have looked at you, Lesbia, and there is nothing above me that I should speak madly. But the tongue is numb, thin under the limbs; Let the flame emanate, with its own sound; My ears ring, they are covered by the twin; Lights of the night. (Catullus)
Our amorous desires unfold outside of the keenest and most pungent heat. In those moments, the soul is aggravated with deep thoughts, the body is overwhelmed, languishing in love. This sometimes leads to fortuitous failure, an ice that seizes us in extreme ardor, even while engaged in its enjoyment. The passions that allow themselves to be tasted and digested are mediocre.
They speak of trivial concerns, but they are astonished by the enormous ones. (Seneca)
The surprise of unexpected pleasure astonishes us in the same way,
When he saw me coming, and Troy around saw his weapons, terrified by great monsters, He directed his gaze in the middle, the heat left his bones, He slips, and after a long time he can barely speak. (Virgil)
Here are some examples. There’s the Roman woman, who died of surprise seeing her son return from the road to Cannes. Sophocles and Dionysius the Tyrant, passed away with great joy. Talva died in Corsica reading the news of the honors that the Senate of Rome had bestowed on her. In our own century, Pope Leo X, having been informed of the capture of Milan, which he had greatly desired, was seized with such an excess of joy that he brought on a fever and died of it. And as a more notable testimony to human stupidity, the ancients remarked that Diodorus the Dialectician died of shame, in his school and before the public, for not being able to refute an argument put to him.
I am not at all prone to these violent passions. I naturally have a hard time with apprehension; and it increases and thickens every day through speech.