When we come across the stories of Antigonus being very angry with his son for presenting him with the head of King Pyrrhus, his enemy, who had just been killed fighting against him, and that, having seen it, he began to cry very loudly; and that Duke René of Lorraine also mourned the death of Duke Charles of Burgundy whom he had just defeated, and wore mourning at his funeral; and that, in the battle of Auroy that the Count of Montfort won against Charles of Blois, his rival for the Duchy of Brittany, the victor, encountering the body of his deceased enemy, wore mourning for him, one should not suddenly exclaim:
And so it is that the soul, Its passion under the opposite cloak; Reclothes, with the sight now clear now dark. (Petrarch)
When Caesar was presented with Pompey’s head, history tells us that he averted his gaze as if from an ugly and unpleasant sight. There had been between them such a long understanding and partnership in the handling of public affairs, such a community of fortunes, such mutual offices and alliances, that one should not believe that this countenance was all fierce and counterfeit, as this other esteems it:
And he thought it safe that he was now a good father-in-law; he shed tears that did not fall of their own accord and expressed them with a joyful heart. (Lucan)
For, although, in truth, most of our actions are only masks and make-up, and it can sometimes be true,
The heir’s tears are under the guise of laughter. (Publilius Syrus)
It is because, in the judgment of these accidents, we must consider how our souls are often agitated by various passions. And just as in our bodies they say that there is an assembly of various humors, of which that one is the mistress who most commonly commands in us, according to our complexions: also, in our souls, although there are various movements that agitate it, there must be one to whom the field remains. But it is not with such complete advantage that, due to the volubility and suppleness of our soul, the weakest by chance do not regain the space and make a short charge in their turn.
Hence we see not only children, who go so naively after nature, often crying and laughing about the same thing; but none of us can boast, no matter what journey he makes at his wish, that even when leaving his family and friends he does not feel his courage shivering; and, if tears do not escape him altogether, at least he sets foot in the doorway with a gloomy and sorrowful face. And, whatever kind of flame warms the hearts of well-born girls, they are still torn from the necks of their mothers to be given in marriage, whatever this good fellow may say:
Is it not that the newlyweds are hated by the bride, or are the parents’ frustrated by false joys, which they lavishly pour within the thresholds of the chamber? No, so the gods, the true ones, help me. (Catullus)
Thus it is not strange to pity the dead, that one would not want to be alive at all. When I scold with my valet, I scold with all the courage I have, these are true and unfeigned imprecations; but, once the smoke has cleared, if he has need of me, I will gladly do him good: I turn the page instantly. When I call him a joker, a calf, I do not undertake to sew these titles on him forever; nor do I think of retracting in order to call him an honest man. No quality embraces us purely and universally. If it were not for the folly of speaking alone, there is not a day that passes when I am not heard scolding myself and against myself..
And if they do not hear it, let it be my definition. Whoever sees in me a face that is sometimes cold, sometimes loving towards my wife, and thinks that either one or the other is feigned, is a fool. Neron, taking leave of his mother whom he sent to be drowned, nevertheless felt the emotion of this maternal farewell, and felt horror and pity for it. It is said that the light of the Sun is not a continuous piece, but that it constantly hurls new rays at us so fast one after the other that we cannot see the space between them:
For the abundant fountain of liquid light, the ethereal sun, Continuously waters the sky with fresh brightness, And promptly supplies light with new light. (Lucretius)
Thus our soul soars imperceptibly in different directions. Artabanus outdid Xerxes, his nephew, and rebuked him for the sudden change in his demeanor. He was considering the excessive magnitude of his forces as they passed through the Hellespont on their way to undertake the conquest of Greece. He was first overcome with a thrill of pleasure at seeing so many thousands of men at his service, and showed it in the joy and festivity of his face. And, all at once, in the same instant, his thought suggesting to him how so many lives were to perish at the farthest point in a century, he frowned, and was saddened to tears.
We pursued with resolute will the revenge of an insult, and felt a singular satisfaction in the victory, yet we weep for it; it is not for that that we weep; nothing has changed, but our soul looks at the thing with different eyes, and sees it with a different face: for everything has many aspects and many lustrums. Relationships, old acquaintances and friendships seize our imagination and excite it for the moment, according to their condition; but the outline is so abrupt that it escapes us.
Nothing seems to happen so quickly, As if the mind proposes to do something and begins it itself. Therefore the mind will realize itself more quickly than any thing, Before the eyes of those in readiness which nature seems to see. (Lucretius)
And, for this reason, wanting to continue a body from this whole sequence, we are mistaken. When Timoleon mourns the murder he had committed with such a grave and generous deliberation, he does not mourn the freedom given to his homeland, he does not mourn the tyrant, but he mourns his brother. He has fulfilled one part of his duty, let us leave him to fulfill the other.