1
Even before this time, Apollonius, I felt for you in your sorrow and trouble, when I heard of the untimely passing from life of your son, who was very dear to us all—a youth who was altogether decorous and modest, and unusually observant of the demands of religion and justice both toward the gods and toward his parents and friends. In those days, close upon the time of his death, to visit you and urge you to bear your present lot as a mortal man should would have been unsuitable, when you were prostrated in both body and soul by the unexpected calamity; and, besides, I could not help sharing in your feeling. For even the best of physicians do not at once apply the remedy of medicines against acute attacks of suppurating humours, but allow the painfulness of the inflammation, without the application of external medicaments, to attain some assuagement of itself. Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 29 (63), and Pliny, Letters, v. 16.
2
Now since time, which is wont to assuage all things, has intervened since the calamity, and your present condition seems to demand the aid of your friends, I have conceived it to be proper to communicate to you some words that can give comfort, for the mitigation of grief and the termination of mournful and vain lamentations. For Words are physicians for an ailing mind, When at the fitting time one soothes the heart.Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 379. Since, according to the wise Euripides,Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 962. The last two lines are cited supra 69 D. For divers ills are remedies diverse: The kindly speech of friends for one in grief, And admonitions when one plays the fool. Indeed, though there are many emotions that aifect the soul, yet grief, from its nature, is the most cruel of all. They say: To many there doth come because of grief Insanity and ills incurable, And some for grief have ended their own life.From Philemon; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. ii. p. 512, Philemon, No. 106, where additional lines are given.
