was; and he seemed to die content, having extorted that promise and having provided according to his desire for the arrangement and order of his parade. I have rarely known such persistent inanity. The other opposite crotchet (of which I am not lacking in examples near home) seems to me akin to this — namely, the taking great pains and being excited about this last matter to be arranged, — one’s funeral train, — and reducing it to some peculiar and unaccustomed degree of parsimony, to one servant and a lantern. I hear people praise this whim, and the injunction of Marcus Æmilius Lepidus,[1] who forbade his heirs to go through the ceremonial which was customary on such occasions. Is it, indeed, moderation and frugality to avoid expense and luxury, the use and knowledge of which are beyond our ken? An easy reform that, and not costly. (c) If there were need to make rules about this matter, I should be of opinion that in this, as in all the acts of our lives, each man should make the rule correspond to the amount of his fortune. The philosopher Lycon wisely instructed his friends to put his body where they should think best, and, as to his obsequies, to let them be neither superfluous nor mean.[2] I would leave it simply to custom to regulate this ceremonial,[3] (b) and I shall trust myself to the discretion of any one into whose hands I shall fall in charge. (c) Totus hic locus est contemnendus in nobis, non negligendus in nostris.[4] And, as was said like a saint by a saint: Curatio funeris, conditio sepulturæ, pompa exequiarum, magis sunt vivarum solatia quam subsidia mortuorum.[5] Thus, when Crito asked Socrates, in his last hour, how he wished to be buried, Socrates answered: “As you please.”’[6] (b) If I had to occupy myself more about
- ↑ See Livy, Epitome of book XLVIII.
- ↑ See Diogenes Laertius, Life of Lycon.
- ↑ Cf. Cicero, Tusc. Disp., I, 45. The following clause of 1588 is omitted: et sauf les choses requises au service de ma religion si c’est en lieu où il soit besoing de l’enjoindre.
- ↑ All this matter is to be entirely disregarded for ourselves, but not to be neglected for those dear to us. — Cicero, Tusc. Disp., I, 45.
- ↑ The ordering of a funeral, the nature of the burial-place, and the procession are more for the solace of the living than for the succour of the dead. — St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, I, 12.
- ↑ See Plato, Phædo; Cicero, Tusc. Disp., I, 43.
