Letters 1 part 6/7

And often saying, "Hear me, Poseidon, holder of the earth," I begged him to grant you a favorable sea, and I counted the days of your voyage upon my fingers, and I was so wholly given over to you that, when trying to call someone by name, I would often unwittingly address him as Dorotheus.

And he would laugh, while I, having erred, was vexed with myself.

But you, perhaps, did not know how great a charm you had implanted within us.

Often, too, having caught sight from afar of someone approaching, I thought — by the gods — that I was seeing you, my eyes being easily deceived in accordance with the desire of my mind.

But from this delusion I have at last, though scarcely, been freed, having received a letter from you, and having thereby tended to my longing.

To Diodorus. I have received your fine dried figs, better, I think, than the Attic ones, on whose account they say the great war was stirred up, when the Persian king advanced, casting land into the sea and cutting a mountain through into the sea.

I have also received sandals, and very fine ones indeed.

Yet still, the dog-rose is not to be compared with roses, nor the anemone.

For long raisins, tempering their inborn sweetness with a measured tartness, are they not far superior to any Attic figs, or to any honey-cakes, toward which you are forever stretching out your tongue? I have also sent you sparrows preserved in brine, a comfort for a gluttonous belly.

Are not my gifts far better? Every gourmand, I think, sitting as judge, would say so.

Except perhaps you will speak of the sandals still to come.

As for me, I confess I am gaping eagerly for them —

but I do not wish to say more, since indeed I shall also try my hand at jesting.

To Stephanus. Your Illustrious Excellency is proclaimed by whatever knows how to recognize good men,

but as the testimony of those who have had experience of you shows, report is defeated by deeds, and seems to lag behind the reality.

Having always held your zealous care for me in the greatest wonder, I do so now not least of all, seeing that it persuaded so eminent a man to set out on so very short a stretch of road for my sake — so that, even had he made use of but a plain, unadorned letter, I could not have refused to obey his command.

So heavy a burden did he lay upon me, as I stood in awe of his coming, of the virtue of his whole life, and of all that report, going before him, proclaims — now confirmed by experience — that I very nearly followed him just as I was, without even bidding my household farewell.

But a certain thought scarcely held me back as I was rushing forth, reflecting that I ought not to slight my fatherland at all, in which I first beheld the sun, and how it is better to keep faith with her just claims than to possess great store of gold, and that I ought not to overlook the many guests present here on my account.

To Peter. The excellent Epiphanius, bringing with him the utmost goodwill through your letters, was thus commended to me, and displayed every rhetorical diligence, exhibiting nothing of what youth commonly brings, but giving himself wholly to his studies and persevering steadfastly in practice.

which indeed seems to be proof that the accusation has been fabricated, and that what was long ago noised abroad is somewhere false.

for such things belong to the idle, and to a mind that, through unreasoning leisure, is carried toward what it ought not —

whereas whoever heeds Isocrates, and spends the leisure of his life in the loving pursuit of learning, gives the slanderer no ground to claim that he accuses with good reason.

For even should he himself remain silent, his manner of life suffices as his defense.

And may it be that the young man, all the more for this, does not fail of his hope.

To Zacharias and Philip, brothers. The admirable Timothy, who carries this letter, is at present the very occasion of our writing to one another; and being the son of a fair and thoroughly unassuming father, he carries his begetter about within himself, displaying upon his own countenance the nobility of his character.

At any rate, he blushes readily, whether someone praises him or merely wishes to look upon him.

For whatever reason he has now reached the imperial city, he stands in need of your influence, that it may afford him, in whatever matters lie within your power, assistance free of any distress.

And in doing this, you will win the favor of upright men — than which nothing is greater to those who have resolved to honor virtue.

He will convey from us frequent requests — yet just ones, and bearing a praiseworthy motive — for the sake of which a grateful man, one Greek in character, would take more delight in granting a favor than in receiving one from others.

Such, indeed, is the nature of the present need.

Nilus, the most learned, having devoted his life to God, dwells in the city, his mother being troubled with anxiety on his account, tending at once her old age and the infirmity that comes with it; yet he is known for piety no less, perhaps, than many who dwell in solitude.

But possessing a house with an adjoining vacant plot, he came to suffer from a wicked neighbor, who, having recently made certain window-openings overlooking the vacant land not belonging to him, at the time acknowledged that these would be no obstacle should he wish to build there.

But now that the matter has come to actual work, he puts forward the windows as an obstacle, as though demanding satisfaction on the ground that he had earlier overlooked the innovation being made.

But seeing himself thrust out on every side by the claims of justice, he devises for himself some stealthy access through the influence of a man in power — and this against, what is most outrageous, a man who has always resolved to delight in what is just.

For he pushes his way toward that mighty Nestorius, taking courage from the fact that the man is not present.

For having made use of Nestorius's own connections as allies, he fabricated, for the purpose of wrongdoing, some claim of purchase against him, under the fair-sounding name of justice, and having taken this as material for injustice, he is now attempting also to discredit the praises everywhere bestowed upon him.

But when he learns of these things through you, he — a man who honors justice — will restrain the wrongdoer with threats.

To Dorotheus. So it seems that, for those who long for someone, spring is not the changing of the season, nor the brightness of the time of year, nor the swallows singing, nor the earth adorned with flowers, but rather the voice of one's beloved, changing into a fair calm the winter of silence that troubles the soul of lovers.

Such indeed you have shown yourself to be, having granted me, in your letter, a joy surpassing every pleasure.

So that the winter now past, harsh though it truly was by nature, seemed, while you kept silent, all the more grievous.

To Orion. Your uncle thinks he will be conferring some great favor on your education, if only he can procure a letter from me — and it is doubtless in saying this that he is led on to write.

For my part, I have admired the man for his goodwill toward you, sparing not even the smallest things by which he knows he may please you; but as for myself, I was content with silence, blushing at my own want of anything wise to write.

For as Plato the wisest himself holds, one cannot truly know what virtue is unless one is impelled by deeds toward virtue.

And what one cannot know, I would blush even to speak of, and to behave as though I did — just as if someone who had never known music, even in a dream, should then claim to be some Orpheus, taming wild beasts with his lyre.

But should he actually have to touch the strings, the boast at once turns to laughter, and everything is easily exposed.

How then have I come to be regarded by your uncle as something I am not by nature? You spoke to him often on my behalf, exalting me, to be sure, by the law of friendship; but he, giving no thought to the affection that prompted you, and supposing instead that words spring from deeds, now demands that I actually become the man your words fashioned me to be — and I am being called to account this very moment for your falsehood, and I refute your own words, since I am in no position to become a teacher of virtue. Yet, since it is to you that I am writing, pretend once more to admire me, lest you convict yourself of having lied.

To Diodorus. With two obols' worth of Euripides' rags you have filled my house, having sent misshapen little trinkets — 'Adonis-gifts,' as it pleases you to call them — and graceless slippers and 'Iphicratids,' over which the general Iphicrates himself would surely groan aloud, since they bear no token whatsoever of Attic workmanship.

For indeed they afford no charm, no taste of the Hymettian bee, nor do they proclaim Attica by their appearance — that Attica in which are Marathon and Salamis, and men who were lovers of freedom and high-mindedness, by no means, by Zeus, initiated into the Muse that dwells among you.

But let fair words prevail — lest, without noticing, I say something I ought not.

[To Cyriacus.] Such, then, are your gifts;

but as for mine, you yourself would praise them, so indulgent are you toward your belly.

For being something of a gourmand, and having made the filling of your belly a study, and measuring supreme happiness by dishes of food, whenever you should hunt down something sweet, you at once thrust forward your tongue, just as some Ajax his great shield.

And witness to this is the occasion on which you snatched the cake away from others, sending it whole, straightway, to your mouth.

To Cyriacus. How much gratitude children owe their fathers cannot be known in due measure, unless one is himself also a father of children.

For only then, from the affection he himself has toward his own children, will he assuredly know what manner of affection those who begot him once had toward him.

Save that those who are devoted to the Muses discern the truth by reason, even in advance of experience.

Wherefore it befits you to become such toward your own parents, who perhaps more than any others have laid up a store of goodwill toward you.

This is why they have moved me also to write the present letter, asking of you, as a father's due reward, that you not bring shame upon them — by becoming just such a man as they themselves desire, and as God may bring to fulfilment.

For then even death will be easier for them, knowing what manner of heir they have left behind to carry on their line.

To Zacharias and Philip, brothers. He who bears this letter to you is by birth the son of a father, Agathus — a man who honours what is upright, and is known in all matters for his justice.

Having come to study under me, this young man showed both strength of natural ability and the most tireless eagerness.

And now he has gone up to the emperor's city, wishing to add to his studies the laws as well, so that he may come forward as an advocate, bearing a public career in his person, and putting forward eloquence upon his tongue.

It would surely not be right to pass over his arrival before you in silence, since you, who regard those I have trained as, in a manner, your own children, will show toward this man too no ordinary goodwill.

To Orion. Experience knows better how to test good friends when they are absent.

For the proof of goodwill is not to honour what is present;

for this even someone might do at times, just as, on the stage, one who wears the mask of a good man plays the part of what he is not by nature.

But if someone, though parted from another in place, still comes together with him into one, and is joined to him in mind through zeal — this is the man who knows how to keep the law of friendship.

Such you have proved yourself to us, surpassing in virtue, by what came after, what went before.

And if children indeed are images of their fathers, then it is fitting that fame too should carry me aloft, making, through a good child, a small father seem greater, and, as you said, conveying him everywhere among the cities.

But do continue, for my sake, to cherish that same virtue which you showed me in letters, by displaying toward the laws the same zeal and natural gift.

To Eudaemon. The most learned Hierius, who among us has been put forward for [proficiency in] the Latin tongue, and who is adorned by good character rather more than by learning, I did not think it right, as he journeys to you, to send him off in silence.

For it would indeed be good always to enjoy your presence;

but they say the second-best voyage, for those who are absent, is to converse by letters.

Yet truly blessed indeed are those for whom you administer justice, hanging as it were upon your voice as upon some oracle's tripod, and beholding a truly novel spectacle — Justice returned to them, [Justice] which time had before now dimmed.

It is superfluous to say that you will do well in whatever this letter's bearer may have need of from you.

For one whose very life is letters — how will he not honour the fathers of letters when he sees them? Let him come, then, reporting what we pray to hear: that you surpass your own reputation by actual performance, and give more than those who receive could wish.

To Nephalius. You lament your poverty amid an abundance of wealth, while I look with disdain upon money and the wealthy, though I myself am gripped by a truly remarkable poverty.

Thus, it seems, it is one's disposition that makes for poverty or wealth, and not money wandering here and there at the whim of fortune.

Therefore cease your small-minded lamenting before us, and account nothing great, save whatever may conduce to virtue.

For whatever does not conduce to this is alien [to us], and draws one toward deception.

Wherefore those who know how to think rightly, having shaken off these things like some drunken folly, and having left the earth to earth, roam the heavens with a mind aloft — having, as it were, swum across the senses and matter and the region of error, as across some harsh and stormy sea.

To Musaeus. I have received the book, which has become the more longed-for to me, because, having been taken up by your hands, it has, I think, drawn to itself something of the Muses' inspiration as well — so that, I believe, whoever henceforth makes use of it will perceive with a keener understanding, no less than Socrates did when he sat beside the Ilissus, where there was both a shrine of the Nymphs and a dwelling-place of Pan.

...ever to perceive a still more divine inspiration.

To Epiphanius. Well indeed did the proverb understand the passion of lovers:

even should they wish to break their oath, it promises them pardon from the gods.

For behold, I have written to you, though I had promised not to write.

So am I led on by longing, and I become a liar in love.

But do write often, and give at least the imprint of an image, in place of [your actual] presence, to those who love you.

To John. I have envied you your offspring, if indeed you know how to beget such things;

for you render the children of blessed fathers blessed in turn, wisely bringing forth divine things with a kind of musical stream.

Such a one has come to us — the most learned Musēlius — whom, though I wish to praise him and yet am unable to name his many merits, I judge that silence alone suffices as praise.

But if you would heed me in this, I shall adapt to you the words of Agamemnon: 'Shoot thus, dear Teucer,' and do not spare your speech.

To Nestorius. Are you still silent? Are you still weighing upon us more heavily than fortune herself? For fortune has, up to now, deprived us of your presence, but you have begrudged us even a few syllables, not even imitating that common custom among friends.

But as for me, I long for you even in your absence, and rejoice in remembering you; and now, having found the occasion, I know not how to honour silence any longer, seeing it is fitting that I should now address you.

But you — if this too is something you have not enjoyed from your homeland, namely, not to remain in those pursuits in which I formerly instructed you — then above all, present yourself to those who long for you.

But if not, then imitate [our] meeting by letters, and you will persuade [us] that the abyss of that region has by no means overcome my teaching.

Thus am I lifted up toward this man, clinging fast to a teacher's proud spirit.

To Sozomenus. No ordinary pleasure did the wise Caesarius afford us, recounting to us your diligence.

For, being a good man, one nurtured together with letters, he gave us praise of you that was free from envy and pure, at once smiling and rejoicing with me over [my] offspring [in learning].

And I congratulated you on the praises, him on his good disposition, and myself on my good fortune — that a good man should bear witness that those who study with me enjoy a good reputation.

But do go forward toward virtue, adorned with self-restraint, and give to those who report of you occasion for still greater praise.

To Pancratius. Do you thus disregard those who long for you? Do you thus stem the streams of your tongue? But for me, longing paints a picture of your presence, and now I have learned to dream while my body lies awake.

But do give yourself to us, at least to the extent of a letter;

for to those who long, it is a consolation to see even some small token of those they love.

Remember, too, those words of yours, in which there were promises either to come to us more quickly, or by frequent letters to make our absence from one another go unfelt.

But now I am in danger of having to enrol you before the Muses as one who — the wise Pancratius — was clever at saying what he had no intention of doing.

To Zosimus and Macarius. Those who arrived in the company of the most wise Babylas eagerly related to me the very things I pray to hear, though I already knew them before they spoke.

For from the fact that, while studying with me, you adorned your zeal for letters with soberness of character and the rest of the virtues, it was surely evident that, even in departing for the sake of the laws, you would remain the same men, and would somewhere become even more eager in rivalry to press on toward what is better.

And if these things afford me such pleasure, what need is there to speak — let it be said, God willing — of that time when, with the courts set before you, and pouring forth good order with a sober tongue, you win over by proof those who are present, and by report those who are far away? For while these deeds are on every tongue, Polycrates will seem to me but a small matter in point of good fortune, and Croesus, with all his many talents, will seem to me nothing at all.

To brother Zacharias. Who they are that bring this letter, I do not know; but that they admire you, I take as proof that they are exceedingly close to us.

For these men, upon seeing me, and coming to perceive a family likeness [between us], divined that very truth which indeed it was; and, having said something to one another, and having made each other judges of the matter, [concluded] that I stand as brother to their dearest [friend].

In any case, they were clearly eager to say more than they were able to convey, showing that their regard for you was greater than their tongue [could express].

And I, being crowned by them with many praises — for I took the praises spoken of you as my own — gave them, in payment for what they asked, this present letter.

To Orion. I should never have thought to endure such a charge from you, nor to be held accountable for silence concerning men unknown to me, as to where in the world, by land or sea, they had gone.

But, it seems, fleeing the accusation that was soon to fall upon yourself, you chose rather to accuse me than to render me an account.

For you ought to have been the first to report that you had left the city of the Berytians, that you had traversed a vast expanse of sea, that, sailing past the islands, you beheld the Hellespont, escorted by the marvels of either continent, and that, having passed through the Propontis, you had arrived at the Bosphorus itself.

There I saw a city that meets those sailing in with a marvel to behold.

For lying upon the neck of the land, it looks across to Asia set over against Europe, and marking off the Pontus from the rest of the sea, it transmits its wonders — and all that those who have beheld the place there are wont, in want of taste, to prattle of — astounding our hearing.

If, when you wrote such things, we had kept silent, then we should justly have lain open to accusations.

But now, though you yourself kept silence and disregarded the custom that sailors observe, you take your start in the art from me, plying your tongue in the manner of the law-courts.

Even if you write accusations, we shall bear them.

To John. Truly wise, I think, was he who uttered this saying — that indeed the wise man...

...though he dwell far off in the land, though I never behold him with my eyes, I count him a friend.

Some such feeling, my excellent friend, has taken hold of me — not knowing your appearance, yet terribly possessed by longing for you.

But well done, Report, through which even things set apart are joined together, and things far off seem somehow to be present.

For through this report I have often seen you, and, embracing with naked thought your blessed zeal for the higher things, and joined to you by a bodiless love, I have no great need of bodily tokens; indeed, on receiving your letter sent from Alexandria, I thought I possessed you yourselves.

For the character of your discourse, and your judgment that it would be a grievous thing not to reckon the things of God a proof of your friendship toward me, did not belie the report I had already received, but showed you to be exactly such as I had expected to find — and this though your profession keeps you occupied with the law-courts, and though amid the intoxication of business you are able to remain thus sober.

But may you also come to the fulfillment of what you hoped to obtain.

For this is the goal for men of right judgment: the return to one's own origin.

For it is a hard thing, once we have dismissed the mob within us, to return well to that from which we wretchedly flowed away.

To Sosianus. The most pious So-and-so has come to us, having suffered very much at the hands of a most wicked brother, and reckoning it but a modest measure of justice if he should be able, with difficulty, to obtain what he has been robbed of.

Whence through me he takes refuge in your influence, which is able both to commend him to the judge and to furnish him with men of great power as allies, and to cut down the expenses arising from the court.

For it is scarcely enough, even from the contributions of friends, to provide for his own sustenance.

But do also arrange that a swift verdict be brought for him.

For his request is simple: that his adversary should settle by oath the charges concerning the matters alleged.

To this end bring to bear your great zeal and most gracious tongue, which flows upon just causes with unhindered course, as an alliance sufficient in place of any contribution — an aid dear to God, gratifying to petitioners, and sufficient for the needy.

To John. He who brings this letter, being a good man, laments his hardship arising from the injustice of his brother.

Wherefore he betakes himself to Caesarea, should he be able, to recover what is rightly his.

But deign to lend your aid, preparing for him sufficient alliance from among the powerful men in your parts.

For he has but one hope of consolation: to obtain the help of the laws — a help of which he has already been deprived for far too long a time, since he has a most wicked brother, ever devising newer evasions.

Whence, console his hardship, cutting down as far as possible the expenses of the courts.

As for the playthings of Fortune — since she is ever transforming our affairs according to her whim, and suffers nothing to remain fixed in its form — these things I will pass over in silence before a man who long ago condemned the things of earth, and who conquers Fortune by the very means by which he disdains her, wishing to admire nothing that is hers.

But this much only will I recall to mind: that nothing is so truly ours as we ourselves are our own.

But what are we? Surely not this flowing body, nor the nonsense of riches, nor whatever it is that supplies Fortune with her power — but a rational soul, fettered to the body for reasons known only to God.

Wherefore those who have resolved to think as they ought cast off everything beside this soul as an alien burden, judging that these things pertain in no way to their own true being, and let nothing become an obstacle to their resolve — neither bodily torment, nor loss of money, nor hardship of circumstance — but, taking refuge in themselves, were free, and guarded against one loss alone: falling away from virtue, and, through desire for money and sparing of the body, being ranked in the manner of a slave, unworthily subjecting the better part to the worse, and admiring insolent men who are rich in everything except themselves.

Whence one man, treating his body as a thing not his own, uttered that free saying: 'Pound on, pound the sack of Anaxarchus — for Anaxarchus himself you shall never pound.'

And another — Crates, who made a voluntary casting-away of his possessions — used to say, 'Crates sets Crates free.'

These things, and others like them, belong to a truly noble soul — one that tramples its own pleasures underfoot, and knows not how to shift with the changing times.

Remember, then, as Epictetus teaches, that you are an actor in a play of whatever kind the playwright wishes.

And Plato too, somewhere, holds that the wise man is happy even though everything that does not depend on him should go ill.

For when the things within our power go well, there is, I think, little concern for what lies outside us.

For those things are borne along by another current altogether.

To Philip, my brother. The bearer of this letter to you I longed for on other accounts too, but not least because, being one who always keeps you in kindly remembrance, he has in the end become for me the very cause of this letter to you, declaring it would be a shocking thing if he should present himself to you without any letter of mine.

Do you, then, at least send us back one letter in return, and, like the Pythagoreans, break your silence in this fifth year.

For we have become like the bronze gong of Dodona, so eager are we to stir you to speech.

To Evagrius. Your letter is that of one who longs exceedingly, and who has resolved to crown his beloved with victory over all rivals.

For in your letters I was victorious not only over the men of today, but also — a thing hardly proper to say — Demosthenes himself was worsted, Thucydides took second place, and sweet Herodotus was ranked along with them. Since, then, I was made out to be such in your account, I smiled to myself and said: nothing is more powerful than the sovereignty of Love.

For my dearest friend, possessed as he is by goodwill toward me, has lost sight of the truth of my case, and suffers something akin to what a man would suffer who declared the pointed-headed fellow in Homer — and who else is that but Thersites — to be first of the Greeks in beauty, superior perhaps even to Nireus himself, who came to Ilium the fairest of men.

Yet it is the greatest praise for me if I appear even to have known those authors whom, with you as my judge, I am said to have surpassed.

Wherefore, marveling at your goodwill, I attributed your words to the Loves themselves, begging the pardon of the followers of the Paeanian if desire persuades men to say whatever they wish to say — above all, those who take pride in the power of their eloquence.

But I shall turn instead to a prayer — and a modest one at that — saying: 'Mayest thou prosper, dearest friend, and mayest thou win as many victories in the courts of law as thou hast won in eloquence.'

To Neilos. You are, it seems, clever indeed at making small things great, and at displaying an invincible tongue in whatever matters you wish.

For you fabricated such praises of me, and delivered them so effortlessly, as no one setting out from truth could easily have spoken.

And you seem to me to have let your tongue pour forth so freely, wishing perhaps to reveal the sort of man you had all along been, unbeknownst to us.

For perhaps you suppose that, while you were among us, it went unnoticed how great a Muse you had reared, taking your start from the rhetoricians.

...to check a course that ever presses on to something greater and hastens toward its full flower.

But now I have taken great delight in your letter — not fixing my gaze upon its praises (for indeed I was borne aloft, flying everywhere upon your words) — but because we have had the good fortune to call you a child of the Muses.

For moving your tongue so freely toward falsehoods, how could you ever be one who has taken hold of the truth? Yet I was delighted also that you mocked yourself, for, loving money insatiably, you have extended your trade even to my own writings.

But fill your right hand, most fortunate friend, and I shall bear it with equanimity to see my writings put up for sale.

Only take care that you do not also suffer a penalty for having first collected payment in advance, on the ground that you have dared to publish unseemly offspring of mine.

To Kledonios. Well done, the grace in your letters, and your tongue flowing unimpeded, able to say whatever it wishes!

For seeing that you raised me — small as I am in eloquence, and possessing the art only so far as its outward semblance — so very high, that I was left wondering whether, in fact, you had been writing to someone else and then, through forgetfulness, addressed the letter to me — what would you not readily say, were you so minded? And you seem to me to have plied your tongue to such a pitch precisely in order to show that you will require of me that your little child be made able to speak in just this fashion.

Wherefore you have brought upon me such an ordeal that I very nearly retracted my promise to teach him — had not this thought occurred to me: that the young man, having inherited his father's nature, will in all likelihood surpass my instruction, supplying from his own household whatever it may lack.

So it is high time you cease to look to me for everything, lest I find myself at a loss before your reckonings and be reduced to silence.

But the goodwill I pledge toward him shall be as great as you yourself would have shown, had you happened to be his teacher.

For the young man himself draws me on to this goodwill, matching his natural gift with an equal diligence.

To Gessios. Against my impulse to write, my excellent friend, there has appeared until now — to speak in the manner of Socrates — a kind of divine hindrance, wrapping us about with one illness after another, such as it befalls us to experience in this present life.

For a countless throng of evils has, somehow, fallen by lot upon the life of man.

One man is harassed by poverty, another is racked by afflictions of the soul; another's body is in evil case; another laments that he has no child, while another grieves over the children he has.

And why need I speak of the loss of wives and children — a thing which experience has, all too fittingly, taught you to know by experience? And it would be a long matter for my discourse to range over all that lies open to view, and that life shows us in its very workings — God thus directing our affairs, as it seems to me, so that, falling upon a multitude of things we would not wish for, we should on no account cling to the things of this earth, which possess nothing fixed or unmoving, but, leaving behind the region of misfortunes, should hasten toward another life, soaring in mind to heaven itself, even though the body still constrains us to remain here — and that we should not mourn him who has departed, who has shown himself, though scarcely, free at last from the bonds of this place.

For I commend him who first spoke this saying — whoever was the father of that maxim — that it is best for those on earth never to have been born at all, but, being born, to pass through the gates of Hades as swiftly as possible.

This the tragic stage, seizing upon in its own turn, declares: that we ought, gathering together in assembly, to lament the newborn child for all the evils into which he is entering.