Fable XXXVII Joy and Sorrow
Joy and Sorrow, two twin-sisters, once quarrelled vehemently who should have the preference; and being unable to decide the matter, left it to Minos to determine. He tried all means to make them agree and go hand in hand together, as loving sisters ought; but finding his counsel had no effect upon them, he decreed that they should be linked together in a chain; and each of them in turn should be perpetually treading upon the heel of the other; and not a pin matter then, says he, which goes foremost.
Morals
No man is to presume in prosperity, or despair in adversity; for good and ill fortune do as naturally succeed one another, as day and night.
The Gods one time, as poets feign,
Would pleasure intermix with pain;
And perfectly incorporate so,
As one from t’other none might know;
That mortals might alike partake
The Good and Evil which they make.
In mighty bowl they put these twain,
And stirr’d and stirr’d, but all in vain:
Pleasure would sometimes float aloft,
And pain keep pleasure down as oft:
Yet still from one another fly,
Detesting either’s company.
The Gods, who saw they sooner might
Mix fire and water, day and night,
Unanimously then decreed
They should alternately succeed;
Each other’s motions still pursue,
And a perpetual round renew:
Yet still divided should remain,
Tho’ link’d together with a chain.
Thence comes it that we never see
A perfect bliss or misery;
Each happiness has some alloy;
And grief succeeded is by joy.
The happiest mortal needs must own
He has a time of sorrow known:
Nor can the poorest wretch deny
But in his life he felt a joy.
Reflection
It is the lot of mankind to be happy and miserable by turns. The wisdom of Providence will have it so; and it is exceedingly for our advantage that so it should be. There is nothing pure and unmixed under the heavens; and if there were, such an abstracted simplicity would be neither nourishing nor profitable to us. By the mediation of this mixture, we have the comfort of Hope to support us in our distresses, and the apprehensions of a change to keep a check upon us in the very pride of our greatness: so that by this vicissitude of good and evil we are kept steady in our philosophy and in our religion. The one minds us of God’s omnipotence and justice; the other, of His goodness and mercy: the one tells us, there is no trusting to our own strength; the other preaches faith and resignation in the prospect of an overruling Providence that takes care of us. What is it but sickness that gives us a taste of health? bondage, the relish of liberty? and what but the experience of want that enhances the value of plenty? that which we call ease is only an indolence or a freedom from pain; and there is no such thing as felicity or misery but by comparison. It is very true, that hopes and fears are the snares of life in some respects, but they are the reliefs of it in others. Now for fear of the worst, however, on either hand every man has it in his power, by the force of natural reason, to avoid the danger of falling either into presumption or despair.