then straightway weeping. But fidelity and modesty and justice and truth
are fled

Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.
HESIOD, _Works, etc_. V. 197.

What then is there which still detains thee here, if the objects of sense
are easily changed and never stand still, and the organs of perception
are dull and easily receive false impressions, and the poor soul itself
is an exhalation from blood? But to have good repute amid such a world as
this is an empty thing. Why then dost thou not wait in tranquillity for
thy end, whether it is extinction or removal to another state? And until
that time comes, what is sufficient? Why, what else than to venerate the
gods and bless them, and to do good to men, and to practice tolerance and
self-restraint; but as to everything which is beyond the limits of the
poor flesh and breath, to remember that this is neither thine nor in thy
power.

34. Thou canst pass thy life in an equable flow of happiness, if thou
canst go by the right way, and think and act in the right way. These two
things are common both to the soul of God and to the soul of man, and to
the soul of every rational being: not to be hindered by another; and to
hold good to consist in the disposition to justice and the practice of
it, and in this to let thy desire find its termination.

35. If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness,
and the common weal is not injured, why am I troubled about it, and what
is the harm to the common weal?

36. Do not be carried along inconsiderately by the appearance of things,