Proxima deinde tenent mæsti loca, qui sibi lethum
Insontes peperere manu, lucemque perosi
Proiecere animas.
Next place they lamentable hold in hell,
Whose hand their death caus’d causeless, (but not well)
And hating life did thence their souls expel. [20]
There is more constancy in using the chain that holds us than in breaking the same and more trial of steadfastness in Regulus than in Cato. [21] It is indiscretion and impatience that hasteneth our way. No accidents can force a man to turn his back from lively virtue. She seeketh out evils and sorrows as her nourishment. The threats of fell tyrants, tortures and torments, executioners and torturers do animate and quicken her.
Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus
Nigræ feraci frondis in Algido
Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso
Ducit opes animumque ferro.
As holme-trees [22] do with hard ax lopt
On hills with many holme-trees topt,
From loss, from cuttings it doth feel,
Courage and store rise ev’n from steel. [23]
And as the other sayeth,
Non est ut putas virtus, pater,
Timere vitam, sed malis ingentibus
Obstare, nec se vertere ac retro dare.
Sir, ’tis not virtue, as you understand,
To fear life, but gross mischief to withstand,
Not to retire, turn back, at any hand. [24]
Rebus in adversis facile est contemnere mortem.
Fortius ille facit, qui miser esse potest.
T’is easy in cross chance death to despise
He that can wretched be, doth stronger rise. [25]
It is the part of cowardliness and not of virtue to seek to squat itself in some hollow-lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massy tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune. She never forsakes her course, nor leaves her way, what stormy weather soever cross her.
Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidam ferient ruinæ.
If the world broken should upon him fall,
The ruins may him strike but not appall. [26]
The avoiding of other inconveniences doth most commonly drive us into this; yea, sometimes the shunning of death makes us to run into it.
Hic, rogo, non furor est, ne moriare, mori?
Madness is’t not, say I,
To die, lest you should die? [27]
As those who for fear of a downright precipice do headlong cast themselves into it.
——multos in summa pericula misit
Venturi timor ipse mali: fortissimus ille est,
Qui promptus metuenda pati, si cominus instent,
Et differre potest.
The very fear of ills to come hath sent
Many to mighty dangers: strongest they,
Who fearful things t’endure are ready bent,
If they confront them, yet can them delay. [28]
——usque adeo mortis formidine, vitæ
Percipit humanos odium, lucisque videndæ,
Ut sibi consciscant mœrenti pectore lethum,
Obliti fontem curarum hunc esse timorem.
So far the fear of death, the hate of life
And seeing-light doth men as men possess, [29]
They grieving kill themselves to end the strife,
Forgetting fear is spring of their distress. [30]
Plato, in his Laws, allots him that hath deprived his nearest and dearest friend of life (that is to say himself) and abridged him of the destiny’s course, not constrained by any public judgment, nor by any lewd and inevitable accident of fortune, nor by any intolerable shame or infamy, but through baseness of mind and weakness of a faint-fearful courage, to have a most ignominious and ever-reproachful burial.
And the opinion which disdaineth our life is ridiculous. For, in fine, [31] it is our being; it is our all in all. Things that have a nobler and richer being may accuse ours. But it is against nature we should despise and carelessly set ourselves at naught. It is a particular infirmity, and which is not seen in any other creature, to hate and disdain himself. It is of like vanity that we desire to be other than we are. The fruit of such a desire doth not concern us, forasmuch as it contradicteth and hindereth itself in itself. He that desireth to be made of a man an angel [32] doth nothing for himself. He should be nothing the better by it. And being no more, who shall rejoice or conceive any gladness of this change or amendment for him?
Debet enim misere cui forte ægreque futuram est,
Ipse quoque esse in eo tum tempore, cum male possit
Accidere.
For he, who shall perchance prove miserable,
And speed but ill, should then himself be able
To be himself, when ills may chance unstable. [33]
The security, indolence, impassibility, and privation of this life’s evils, which we purchase at the price of death, bring us no commodity at all. In vain doth he avoid war that cannot enjoy peace, and bootless doth he shun pain that hath no means to feel rest.
Amongst those of the first opinion, great questioning hath been to know what occasions are sufficiently just and lawful to make a man undertake the killing of himself. They call that...a reasonable orderly outlet. [34] For, although they say a man must often die for slight causes, since these that keep us alive are not very strong, yet is some measure required in them. There are certain fantastical and brain-sick humors which have not only provoked particular men but whole nations to defeat themselves. I have heretofore alleged some examples of them. And moreover we read of certain Milesian virgins, who upon a furious conspiracy hanged themselves one after another, until such time as the magistrate provided for it, [35] appointing that such as should be found so hanged should with their own halters [36] be dragged naked through the streets of the city.
When Threicion persuadeth Cleomenes to kill himself by reason of the bad and desperate estate his affairs stood in, and having escaped a more honourable death in the battle which he had lately lost, moveth him to accept of this other, which is second to him in honour, and give the conqueror no leisure to make him endure either another death or else a shameful life. Cleomenes with a Lacedemonian and Stoic courage refuseth this counsel as base and effeminate. “It is a receipt” [37] (saith he), “which can never fail me and whereof a man should make no use, so long as there remaineth but one inch of hope.” That to live is sometimes constancy and valour; that he will have his very death serve his country and by it show an act of honour and of virtue. Threicion then believed and killed himself. Cleomenes did afterwards as much, but not before he had tried and assayed the utmost power of fortune. All inconveniences are not so much worth that a man should die to eschew them.
Moreover, there being so many sudden changes and violent alterations in human things, it is hard to judge in what state or point we are justly at the end of our hope:
Sperat et in sæva victus gladiator arena,
——Sit licet infesto pollice turba minax.
The fencer [38] hopes, though down in lists he lie,
And people with turn’d hand threats he must die. [39]
All things, sayeth an ancient proverb, may a man hope for so long as he liveth. “Yea but,” answereth Seneca, “wherefore shall I rather have that in mind, that fortune can do all things for him that is living than this—that fortune hath no power at all over him who knoweth how to die?” [40] Joseph [41] is seen engaged in so apparent-approaching danger, with a whole nation against him that, according to human reason, there was no way for him to escape. Notwithstanding being (as he saith) counseled by a friend of his at that instant to kill himself, it fell out well for him to opiniate [42] himself yet in hope. For fortune, beyond all man’s discourse, did so turn and change that accident that, without any inconvenience at all, he saw himself delivered.
Whereas on the contrary Brutus and Cassius, by reason of the downfall and rashness wherewith before due-time and occasion they killed themselve
s, did utterly lose the relics of the Roman liberty whereof they were protectors. The Lord of Anguien in the battle of Serisolles, [43] as one desperate of the combat’s success, which on his side went to wrack, attempted twice to run himself through the throat with his rapier and thought by precipitation to bereave himself of the enjoying of so notable a victory. I have seen a hundred hares save themselves even in the greyhounds’ jaws: Aliquis carnifici suo superstes fuit. Some man hath outlived his hangman. [44]
Multa dies variusque labor mutabilis ævi
Rettulit in melius, multos alterna revisens
Lusit, et in solido rursus fortuna locavit.
Time, and of turning age the diverse strain,
Hath much to better brought, fortunes turn’d train,
Hath many mock’t, and set them fast again. [45]
Pliny sayeth there are but three sorts of sicknesses, which to avoid a man may have some colour of reason to kill himself. The sharpest of all is the stone in the bladder when the urine is there stopped. Seneca, those only which for long time disturb and distract the offices of the mind. [46]
To avoid a worse death, some are of opinion a man should take it at his own pleasure. Democritus, chief of the Ætolians, being led captive to Rome, found means to escape by night. But being pursued by his keepers, rather than he would be taken again, ran himself through with his sword.
Antinoüs and Theodotus, their city of Epirus being by the Romans reduced unto great extremity, concluded and persuaded all the people to kill themselves. But the counsel rather to yield having prevailed, they went to seek their own death and rushed amidst the thickest of their enemies, with an intention rather to strike than to ward [47] themselves. The island of Gosa, [48] being some years since surprised and overrun by the Turks, a certain Sicilian therein dwelling, having two fair daughters ready to be married, killed them both with his own hands, together with their mother, that came in to help them. That done, running out into the streets with a crossbow in one hand and a caliver [49] in the other, at two shoots slew the two first Turks that came next to his gates, then resolutely drawing his sword, ran furiously among them, by whom he was suddenly hewn in pieces. Thus did he save himself from slavish bondage, having first delivered his own from it.
The Jewish women, after they had caused their children to be circumcised, to avoid the cruelty of Antiochus, did headlong precipitate themselves and them unto death.
I have heard it credibly reported that a gentleman of good quality, being prisoner in one of our gaols [50] and his parents advertised that he should assuredly be condemned, to avoid the infamy of so reproachful a death, appointed a priest to tell him that the best remedy for his delivery was to recommend himself to such a saint, with such and such a vow, and to continue eight days without taking any sustenance, what faintness or weakness soever he should feel in himself. He believed them, and so without thinking on it, was delivered both of life and danger.
Scribonia, persuading Libo her nephew to kill himself rather than to expect the stroke of justice, told him that for a man to preserve his own life, to put it into the hands of such as three or four days after should come and seek it, was even to dispatch another man’s business and that it was no other than for one to serve his enemies to preserve his blood, therewith to make them food.
We read in the holy Bible that Nicanor the persecutor of God’s law, having sent his satellites to apprehend the good old man Rasias, for the honor of his virtue surnamed the father of the Jews. When that good man saw no other means left him, his gate being burned and his enemies ready to lay hold on him, chose—rather than to fall into the hands of such villains and be so basely abused against the honour of his place—to die nobly and so smote himself with his own sword. But by reason of his haste, having not thoroughly slain himself, he ran to throw himself down from an high wall amongst the throng of people, which making him room, he fell right upon his head. All which notwithstanding, perceiving life to remain in him, he took heart of grace again and getting up on his feet, all gored with blood and laden with strokes, making way through the prease, [51] came to a craggy and down-steepy rock where, unable to go any further, by [52] one of his wounds with both his hands he pulled out his guts, and tearing and breaking them, cast them amongst such as pursued him, calling and attesting the vengeance of God to light upon them.
Of all violences committed against conscience, the most in mine opinion to be avoided is that which is offered against the chastity of women, forsomuch as there is naturally some corporal pleasure commixed with it. And therefore the dissent cannot fully enough be joined thereunto, and it seemeth that force is in some sort intermixed with some will. [53] The ecclesiastical story hath in especial reverence sundry such examples of devout persons, who called for death to warrant them from the outrages which some tyrants prepared against their religion and consciences. Pelagia and Sophronia, both canonized; the first, together with her mother and sisters, to escape the outrageous rapes of some soldiers, threw herself into a river; the other, to shun the force of Maxentius the Emperor, slew herself.
It shall peradventure redound to our honour in future ages that a wise author of these days and namely a Parisian [54] doth labour to persuade the ladies of our times rather to hazard upon any resolution than to embrace so horrible a counsel of such desperation. I am sorry that to put amongst his discourses he knew not the good saying I learnt of a woman at Toulouse, who had passed through the hands of some soldiers: “God be praised” (said she), “that once in my life I have had my belly-full without sin.” Verily, these cruelties [55] are not worthy of the French courtesy. And God be thanked, since this good advertisement, [56] our air is infinitely purged of them. Let it suffice, that in doing it, they say, No, and take it, following the rule of Marot. [57]
The history is very full of such who a thousand ways have changed lingering-toilsome life with death.
Lucius Aruntius killed himself (as he said) to avoid what was past and eschew what was to come.
Granius Sylvanus and Statius Proximus, after they had been pardoned by Nero, killed themselves, either because they scorned to live by the favor of so wicked a man or because they would not another time be in danger of a second pardon, seeing his so easy-yielding unto suspicions and accusations against honest men.
Spargapizes, son unto Queen Tomiris, prisoner by the law of war unto Cyrus, employed the first favor that Cyrus did him by setting him free, to kill himself; as he who never pretended to reap other fruit by his liberty than to revenge the infamy of his taking [58] upon himself.
Boges, a governour for King Xerxes in the country of Ionia, being besieged by the Athenians army under the conduct of Cymon, refused the composition to return safely, together with his goods and treasure into Asia, as one impatient to survive the loss of what his master had given him in charge. And after he had stoutly, and even to the last extremity, defended the town, having no manner of victuals left him, first he cast all the gold and treasure, with whatsoever he imagined the enemy might reap any commodity by, into the river Strimon. Then, having caused a great pile of wood to be set on fire and made all women, children, concubines, and servants to be stripped and thrown into the flames, afterward ran in himself, where all were burned.
Minachetuen, [59] a lord in the East Indies, having had an inkling of the king of Portugal’s viceroy’s deliberation to dispossess him without any apparent cause of the charge he had in Malaca, for to give it unto the King of Campar, of himself resolved upon this resolution. First, he caused an high scaffold to be set up, somewhat longer than broad, under-propped with pillars, all gorgeously hanged with rich tapestry, strewed with flowers, and adorned with precious perfumes. Then, having put on a sumptuous long robe of cloth of gold, richly beset with store of precious stones of inestimable worth, he came out of the palace into the street and by certain steps ascended the scaffold, in one of the corners whereof was a pile of aromatic wood set afire. All the people of the city were flocked together to see what the meaning of such unaccusto
med preparation might tend unto. Minachetuen, with an undaunted-bold, yet seeming-discontented countenance, declared the manifold obligations which the Portugal nation was indebted unto him for; expostulated how faithfully and truly he had dealt in his charge; that having so often witnessed, armed at all assays for others; that his honour was much dearer unto him than life, he was not to forsake the care of it for himself; that fortune refusing him all means to oppose himself against the injury intended against him, his courage at the least willed him to remove the feeling thereof and not become a laughing stock unto the people and a triumph to men of less worth than himself. Which words as he was speaking, he cast himself into the fire.
Sextilia, the wife of Scaurus, and Paxea, wife unto Labeo, to encourage their husbands to avoid the dangers which pressed them, wherein they had no share (but in regard of the interest of their conjugal affection) voluntarily engaged their life [60] in this extreme necessity to serve them as an example to imitate and company to regard. What they performed for their husbands, Cocceius Nerva acted for his country, and though less profitable yet equal in true-love. That famous interpreter of the laws, abounding in riches, in reputation, in credit, and flourishing in health about the emperor, had no other cause to rid himself of life but the compassion of the miserable estate wherein he saw the Roman commonwealth.
There is nothing can be added unto the daintiness of Fulvius’s wife’s death, who was so inward with Augustus. [61] Augustus, perceiving he [62] had blabbed a certain secret of importance which he on trust had revealed unto him, one morning coming to visit him, he seemed to frown upon him for it. Whereupon as guilty he returneth home, as one full of despair and in piteous sort, told his wife that sithence [63] he was fallen into such a mischief, he was resolved to kill himself. She, as one no whit dismayed, replied unto him, “Thou shalt do but right, since having so often experienced the inconvenience [64] of my tongue, thou hast not learnt to beware of it. Yet give me leave to kill myself first.” And without more ado, ran herself through with a sword.
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