Francis Bacon - The Essays 1601
OF DEATH
Men fear death,
as children fear to
go in the dark;
and as that natural
fear in children,
is increased with tales,
so is the other. Certainly,
the
contemplation of death,
as the wages of sin,
and passage to another world,
is holy and religious;
but the fear of it,
as a tribute due unto nature,
is weak.
Yet in religious meditations,
there is sometimes mixture of
vanity, and of superstition. You shall read,
in some of the friars'
books
of mortification,
that a man should think with himself,
what the pain is,
if he have but his finger's end pressed, or tortured, and thereby imagine,
what the pains of death are,
when the whole body is corrupted, and
dissolved;
when many times death passeth,
with less pain than
the torture
of a limb;
for the most vital parts,
are not the quickest of sense.
And by
him that
spake only as a philosopher, and natural man,
it was well said,
Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa. Groans, and convulsions,
and a
discolored face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies,
and the
like, show death terrible.
It is worthy the observing,
that there is no
passion in the mind of man, so weak, but it mates, and masters,
the fear
of death; and therefore,
death is no such terrible enemy,
when a man hath
so many attendants about him,
that can win the combat of him.
Revenge
triumphs over death; love slights it;
honor aspireth to it;
grief flieth
to it; fear preoccupateth it; nay, we read,
after Otho the emperor
had
slain himself, pity (which
is the tenderest of affections)
provoked many
to die,
out of mere compassion to their sovereign,
and as the truest
sort
of followers. Nay,
Seneca adds niceness and satiety:
Cogita quamdiu eadem
feceris; mori velle,
non tantum fortis aut miser,
sed etiam fastidiosus
potest.
A man would die,
though he were neither valiant, nor miserable,
only upon a weariness
to do the same thing so oft, over and over.
It is no
less worthy, to observe,
how little alteration in good spirits,
the
approaches of death make;
for they appear to
be the same men,
till the
last instant.
Augustus Caesar died in a compliment; Livia,
conjugii nostri
memor, vive et vale. Tiberius in dissimulation;
as Tacitus saith of him,
Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant.
Vespasian in a
jest,
sitting upon the stool;
Ut puto deus fio.
Galba with a sentence;
Feri,
si ex re sit populi Romani;
holding forth his neck.
Septimius
Severus in despatch;
Adeste si quid mihi restat agendum. And the like.
Certainly the Stoics bestowed
too much cost upon death,
and by their great
preparations,
made it appear more fearful.
Better saith he qui
finem vitae
extremum inter munera ponat naturae.
It is as natural to die,
as to be
born;
and to a little infant, perhaps,
the one is as painful,
as the
other.
He that dies in an earnest pursuit,
is like one that
is wounded in
hot blood; who, for the time,
scarce feels the hurt;
and therefore a mind
fixed,
and bent upon somewhat that is good,
doth avert the dolors of
death. But, above all, believe it,
the sweetest canticle is, Nunc
dimittis;
when a man hath obtained worthy ends, and expectations.
Death
hath this also;
that it openeth the
gate to good fame,
and extinguisheth
envy. -Extinctus amabitur idem.
- Impressum
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