2. Let us therefore, when we are alone, question with ourselves concerning the things that have befallen us, considering them as heavy loads. The body, we know, is under pressure by a burden lying upon it; but the soul oft-times adds a further weight of her own to things. A stone is hard and ice is cold by nature, not by any thing from without happening to make such qualities and impressions upon them. But as for banishment and disgraces and loss of honors (and so for their contraries, crowns, chief rule, and precedency of place), our opinion prescribing the measure of our joys or sorrows and not the nature of the things themselves, every man makes them to himself light or heavy, easy to be borne or grievous. You may hear Polynices’s answer to this question, JOCAST. But say, is’t so deplorable a case To live in exile from one’s native place? POLYN. It’s sad indeed; and whatsoe’er you guess, ’Tis worse to endure than any can express.[6] But you may hear Alcman in quite another strain, as the epigrammatist has brought him in saying: Sardis, my ancient fatherland, Hadst thou, by Fate’s supreme command, My helpless childhood nourished, I must have begg’d my daily bread, Or else, a beardless priest become, Have toss’d Cybele frantic down. Now Alcman I am call’d—a name Inscribed in Sparta’s lists of fame, Whose many tripods record bear Of solemn wreaths and tripods rare, Achieved in worship at the shrine Of Heliconian maids divine, By whose great aid I’m mounted higher Than Gyges or his wealthy sire.[7] Thus one man’s opinion makes the same thing commodious, like current money, and another man’s unserviceable and hurtful. 3. But let us grant (as many say and sing) that it is a grievous thing to be banished. So there are also many things that we eat, of a bitter, sharp, and biting taste, which yet by a mixture of other things more mild and sweet have all their unpleasantness taken off. There are also some colors troublesome to look upon, which bear so hard and strike so piercingly upon the sight, that they confound and dazzle it; if now by mixing shadows with them, or by turning our eyes upon some green and pleasant color, we remedy this inconvenience, thou mayst also do the same to the afflictions that befall thee, considering them with a mixture of those advantages and benefits thou still enjoyest, as wealth, friends, vacancy from business, and a supply of all things necessary to human life. For I think there are few Sardians but would desire to be in your condition, though banished, and would choose to live as you may do, though in a strange country, rather than—like snails that grow to their shells—enjoy no other good, saving only what they have at home without trouble.