Sec. XI. "And so, if nothing happens to the soul after death, but that
event is the end of all enjoyment or punishment, one would be rather
inclined to say that the deity was lax and indulgent in quickly
punishing the wicked and depriving them of life. For even if we were to
say that the wicked had no other trouble in a long life, yet, when their
wrong-doing was proved to bring them no profit or enjoyment, no good or
adequate return for their many and great anxieties, the consciousness of
that would be quite enough to throw[832] their mind off its balance. So
they record of Lysimachus that he was so overcome by thirst that he
surrendered himself and his forces to the Getae for some drink, but after
he had drunk and bethought him that he was now a captive, he said,
"Alas! How guilty am I for so brief a gratification to lose so great a
kingdom!" And yet it is very difficult to resist a necessity of nature.
But when a man, either for the love of money, or for political place or
power, or carried away by some amorous propensity, does some lawless and
dreadful deed, and, after his eager desire is satisfied, sees in process
of time that only the base and terrible elements of his crime remain,
while nothing useful, or necessary, or advantageous has flowed from it,
is it not likely that the idea would often present itself to him that,
moved by vain-glory, or for some illiberal and unlovely pleasure, he had
violated the greatest and noblest rights of mankind, and had filled his
life with shame and trouble? For as Simonides used to say playfully that
he always found his money-chest full but his gratitude-chest empty,[833]
so the wicked contemplating their own vice soon find out that their
gratification is joyless and hopeless,[834] and ever attended by fears
and griefs and gloomy memories, and suspicions about the future, and
distrust about the present. Thus we hear Ino, repenting for what she had
done, saying on the stage,
"Dear women, would that I could now inhabit
For the first time the house of Athamas,
Guiltless of any of my awful deeds!"[835]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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