Of course, the last day is always A man’s day to be awaited, and to be called blessed; No one should die before death, and the last funeral should be held. (Ovid)
Children will know the story of King Croesus in this regard: who, having been captured by Cyrus and condemned to death, at the point of execution, exclaimed: “O Solon, Solon!” This was reported to Cyrus, and having inquired what it meant, he made him understand that he was then verifying at his own expense the admonition that Solon had once given him, that men, no matter how beautiful a face fortune may give them, cannot call themselves happy until they have seen the last day of their life, because of the uncertainty and variety of human things, which from a slight movement change from one state to another, entirely different.
And yet Agesilaus, to someone who said the King of Persia was happy, because he had come to such a powerful state at a very young age. “Yes, but,” he said, “Priam was not unhappy at that age.” Of the kings of Macedonia, successors of the great Alexander, some become carpenters and clerks in Rome; of the tyrants of Sicily, pedants in Corinth. A conqueror of half the world and emperor of so many armies became a miserable supplicant to the belittled officers of a king of Egypt: such was the cost to the great Pompey of prolonging his life by five or six months. And, in the time of our fathers, Ludovico Sforza, tenth Duke of Milan, under whom all Italy had been in turmoil for so long, was seen to die a prisoner in Loches; but after having lived there for ten years, which is the worst part of his deal. The most beautiful Queen, widow of the greatest King of Christendom, did she not die at the hands of an executioner? And a thousand such examples. For it seems that, as storms and tempests rage against the pride and haughtiness of our buildings, there are also spirits up there envious of the greatness of this world,
To such an extent does a certain hidden power obliterate human affairs, and trample upon beautiful bundles and savage axes and seem to regard them as a mockery. (Lucretius)
And it seems that fortune sometimes waits in ambush on the last day of our life, to show its power to reverse in an instant what it has built up over many years; and makes us cry out after Laberius:
Surely, on this one day I lived more than I should have lived. (Macrobius)
Thus this good advice of Solon can be rightly taken. But all the more so because he is a philosopher, to whom the favors and misfortunes of fortune are of neither good nor bad; and greatness and power are accidents of more or less indifferent quality: I find it likely that he looked further, and wanted to say that this very happiness of our life, which depends on the tranquillity and contentment of a well-born spirit, and on the resolution and assurance of a well-balanced soul, should never be attributed to man until he has been seen to play the last act of his comedy, and undoubtedly the most difficult.
In everything else there may be a mask: either these fine discourses of Philosophy are in us only by way of pretence; or the accidents, not trying us to the quick, give us the leisure to keep up our stale face. But in this final role of death and of us, there is nothing left to pretend; we must speak French, we must show what is good and pure at the bottom of the pot,
For true words are then finally ejected from the depths of the heart, and the person is snatched away, the thing remains. (Lucretius)
This is why we must touch and test all the other actions of our life in this last stroke. This is the master day, the day that judges all the others: this is the day, as an ancient said, that must judge all my past years. I leave the test of the fruit of my studies to death. We will see there if my words come from my mouth or from my heart.
I have seen many give their reputation for good or bad for their whole life through their death. Scipio, the good father of Pompey, mocked the bad opinion that had been held of him until then by dying well. Epaminondas, when asked which of the three he esteemed the most, Chabrias, Iphicrates, or himself, replied, “We must see them die before we can decide.” Indeed, much would be taken away from the latter, who would be diminished without the honor and grandeur of his end.
God willed it as he pleased: but in my time three of the most execrable people whom I knew in all the abomination of life, and the most infamous, had their lives regulated and in all circumstances composed to perfection.
There are brave and fortunate deaths. I saw him [Etienne de la Boetie] cut short the thread of a marvelous progress, and in the flower of his youth, to someone, of such a splendid end, that in my opinion his ambitious and courageous designs were nothing so lofty as was their interruption. He arrived without getting where he intended: more greatly and gloriously than his desire and hope held out. And through his fall he overtook the power and name he aspired to through his race.
In judging other people’s lives, I always look at how the end turned out; and of the main studies of my own, it is that it turned out well, that is to say quietly and soundly.