<h3><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77" />VII.</h3>
<p>Then said I: 'Thou knowest thyself that ambition for worldly success
hath but little swayed me. Yet I have desired opportunity for action,
lest virtue, in default of exercise, should languish away.'</p>
<p>Then she: 'This is that "last infirmity" which is able to allure minds
which, though of noble quality, have not yet been moulded to any
exquisite refinement by the perfecting of the virtues—I mean, the love
of glory—and fame for high services rendered to the commonweal. And yet
consider with me how poor and unsubstantial a thing this glory is! The
whole of this earth's globe, as thou hast learnt from the demonstration
of astronomy, compared with the expanse of heaven, is found no bigger
than a point; that is to say, if measured by the vastness of heaven's
sphere, it is held to occupy absolutely no space at all. Now, of this so
insignificant <SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78" />portion of the universe, it is about a fourth part, as
Ptolemy's proofs have taught us, which is inhabited by living creatures
known to us. If from this fourth part you take away in thought all that
is usurped by seas and marshes, or lies a vast waste of waterless
desert, barely is an exceeding narrow area left for human habitation.
You, then, who are shut in and prisoned in this merest fraction of a
point's space, do ye take thought for the blazoning of your fame, for
the spreading abroad of your renown? Why, what amplitude or magnificence
has glory when confined to such narrow and petty limits?</p>
<p>'Besides, the straitened bounds of this scant dwelling-place are
inhabited by many nations differing widely in speech, in usages, in mode
of life; to many of these, from the difficulty of travel, from
diversities of speech, from want of commercial intercourse, the fame not
only of individual men, but even of cities, is unable to reach. Why, in
Cicero's days, as he himself somewhere points out, the fame of the Roman
Republic had not yet crossed the Caucasus, and yet by that time her
<SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79" />name had grown formidable to the Parthians and other nations of those
parts. Seest thou, then, how narrow, how confined, is the glory ye take
pains to spread abroad and extend! Can the fame of a single Roman
penetrate where the glory of the Roman name fails to pass? Moreover, the
customs and institutions of different races agree not together, so that
what is deemed praise worthy in one country is thought punishable in
another. Wherefore, if any love the applause of fame, it shall not
profit him to publish his name among many peoples. Then, each must be
content to have the range of his glory limited to his own people; the
splendid immortality of fame must be confined within the bounds of a
single race.</p>
<p>'Once more, how many of high renown in their own times have been lost in
oblivion for want of a record! Indeed, of what avail are written records
even, which, with their authors, are overtaken by the dimness of age
after a somewhat longer time? But ye, when ye think on future fame,
fancy it an immortality that ye are begetting for yourselves. Why, if
<SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80" />thou scannest the infinite spaces of eternity, what room hast thou left
for rejoicing in the durability of thy name? Verily, if a single
moment's space be compared with ten thousand years, it has a certain
relative duration, however little, since each period is definite. But
this same number of years—ay, and a number many times as great—cannot
even be compared with endless duration; for, indeed, finite periods may
in a sort be compared one with another, but a finite and an infinite
never. So it comes to pass that fame, though it extend to ever so wide a
space of years, if it be compared to never-lessening eternity, seems not
short-lived merely, but altogether nothing. But as for you, ye know not
how to act aright, unless it be to court the popular breeze, and win the
empty applause of the multitude—nay, ye abandon the superlative worth
of conscience and virtue, and ask a recompense from the poor words of
others. Let me tell thee how wittily one did mock the shallowness of
this sort of arrogance. A certain man assailed one who had put on the
name of philosopher as a cloak to pride and vain-glory, not for <SPAN name="Page_81" id="Page_81" />the
practice of real virtue, and added: "Now shall I know if thou art a
philosopher if thou bearest reproaches calmly and patiently." The other
for awhile affected to be patient, and, having endured to be abused,
cried out derisively: "<em>Now</em>, do you see that I am a philosopher?" The
other, with biting sarcasm, retorted: "I should have hadst thou held thy
peace." Moreover, what concern have choice spirits—for it is of such
men we speak, men who seek glory by virtue—what concern, I say, have
these with fame after the dissolution of the body in death's last hour?
For if men die wholly—which our reasonings forbid us to believe—there
is no such thing as glory at all, since he to whom the glory is said to
belong is altogether non-existent. But if the mind, conscious of its own
rectitude, is released from its earthly prison, and seeks heaven in free
flight, doth it not despise all earthly things when it rejoices in its
deliverance from earthly bonds, and enters upon the joys of heaven?'<SPAN name="Page_82" id="Page_82" /></p>
<h3>SONG VII.<br/>Glory may not last.</h3>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span>Oh, let him, who pants for glory's guerdon,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Deeming glory all in all,<br/></span>
<span>Look and see how wide the heaven expandeth,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Earth's enclosing bounds how small!<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span>Shame it is, if your proud-swelling glory<br/></span>
<span class="i2">May not fill this narrow room!<br/></span>
<span>Why, then, strive so vainly, oh, ye proud ones!<br/></span>
<span class="i2">To escape your mortal doom?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span>Though your name, to distant regions bruited,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">O'er the earth be widely spread,<br/></span>
<span>Though full many a lofty-sounding title<br/></span>
<span class="i2">On your house its lustre shed,<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span>Death at all this pomp and glory spurneth<br/></span>
<span class="i2">When his hour draweth nigh,<br/></span>
<span>Shrouds alike th' exalted and the humble,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Levels lowest and most high.<br/></span><SPAN name="Page_83" id="Page_83" /></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span>Where are now the bones of stanch Fabricius?<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Brutus, Cato—where are they?<br/></span>
<span>Lingering fame, with a few graven letters,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Doth their empty name display.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span>But to know the great dead is not given<br/></span>
<span class="i2">From a gilded name alone;<br/></span>
<span>Nay, ye all alike must lie forgotten,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">'Tis not <em>you</em> that fame makes known.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span>Fondly do ye deem life's little hour<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Lengthened by fame's mortal breath;<br/></span>
<span>There but waits you—when this, too, is taken—<br/></span>
<span class="i2">At the last a second death.<br/></span></div>
</div>
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