And indeed stupor is a bad remedy for the body against despair,[715] nor is he any better physician of the soul who removes its trouble and anxiety by recommending a lazy and soft life and a leaving our friends and relations and country in the lurch. In the next place, it is false that those that have little to do are easy in mind. For then women would be easier in mind than men, since they mostly stay at home in inactivity, and even now-a-days it is as Hesiod says,[716] "The North Wind comes not near a soft-skinned maiden;" yet griefs and troubles and unrest, proceeding from jealousy or superstition or ambition or vanity, inundate the women's part of the house with unceasing flow. And Laertes, though he lived for twenty years a solitary life in the country, "With an old woman to attend on him, Who duly set on board his meat and drink,"[717] and fled from his country and house and kingdom, yet had sorrow and dejection[718] as a perpetual companion with leisure. And some have been often thrown into sad unrest merely from inaction, as the following, "But fleet Achilles, Zeus-sprung, son of Peleus, Sat by the swiftly-sailing ships and fumed, Nor ever did frequent th' ennobling council, Nor ever join the war, but pined in heart, Though in his tent abiding, for the fray."[719] And full of emotion and distress at this state of things he himself says, "A useless burden to the earth I sit Beside the ships."[720] So even Epicurus thinks that those who are desirous of honour and glory should not rust in inglorious ease, but use their natural talents in public life for the benefit of the community at large, seeing that they are by nature so constituted that they would be more likely to be troubled and afflicted at inaction, if they did not get what they desired. But he is absurd in that he does not urge men of ability to take part in public life, but only the restless. But we ought not to estimate ease or unrest of mind by our many or few actions, but by their fairness or foulness. For the omission of fair actions troubles and distresses us, as I have said before, quite as much as the actual doing of foul actions. Sec. III. As for those who think that one kind of life is especially free from trouble, as some think that of farmers, others that of bachelors, others that of kings, Menander sufficiently exposes their error in the following lines: "Phania, I thought those rich who need not borrow, Nor groan at nights, nor cry out 'Woe is me,' Kicked up and down in this untoward world, But sweet and gentle sleep they may enjoy." He then goes on to remark that he saw the rich suffering the same as the poor, "Trouble and life are truly near akin. With the luxurious or the glorious life Trouble consorts, and in the life of poverty Lasts with it to the end."