_Ternissa._ It would pain me to die, if it were only at the idea that any one I love would grieve too much for me. _Epicurus._ Let the loss of our friends be our only grief, and the apprehension of displeasing them our only fear. _Leontion._ No apostrophes! no interjections! Your argument was unsound; your means futile. _Epicurus._ Tell me, then, whether the horse of a rider on the road should not be spurred forward if he started at a shadow. _Leontion._ Yes. _Epicurus._ I thought so: it would, however, be better to guide him quietly up to it, and to show him that it was one. Death is less than a shadow: it represents nothing, even imperfectly. _Leontion._ Then at the best what is it? why care about it, think about it, or remind us that it must befall us? Would you take the same trouble, when you see my hair entwined with ivy, to make me remember that, although the leaves are green and pliable, the stem is fragile and rough, and that before I go to bed I shall have many knots and entanglements to extricate? Let me have them; but let me not hear of them until the time is come. _Epicurus._ I would never think of death as an embarrassment, but as a blessing. _Ternissa._ How? a blessing? _Epicurus._ What, if it makes our enemies cease to hate us? what, if it makes our friends love us the more? _Leontion._ Us? According to your doctrine we shall not exist at all. _Epicurus._ I spoke of that which is consolatory while we are here, and of that which in plain reason ought to render us contented to stay no longer. You, Leontion, would make others better; and better they certainly will be, when their hostilities languish in an empty field, and their rancour is tired with treading upon dust. The generous affections stir about us at the dreary hour of death, as the blossoms of the Median apple swell and diffuse their fragrance in the cold. _Ternissa._ I cannot bear to think of passing the Styx, lest Charon should touch me; he is so old and wilful, so cross and ugly. _Epicurus._ Ternissa! Ternissa! I would accompany you thither, and stand between. Would you not too, Leontion? _Leontion._ I don't know. _Ternissa._ Oh, that we could go together! _Leontion._ Indeed! _Ternissa._ All three, I mean--I said--or was going to say it. How ill-natured you are, Leontion, to misinterpret me; I could almost cry. _Leontion._ Do not, do not, Ternissa! Should that tear drop from your eyelash you would look less beautiful. _Epicurus._ If it is well to conquer a world, it is better to conquer two. _Ternissa._ That is what Alexander of Macedon wept because he could not accomplish. _Epicurus._ Ternissa! we three can accomplish it; or any one of us. _Ternissa._ How? pray! _Epicurus._ We can conquer this world and the next; for you will have another, and nothing should be refused you. _Ternissa._ The next by piety: but this, in what manner?