Dispelling Sorrow

Al-Kindī, Philosophical Works of al-Kindī, tr. Peter Adamson and Peter Pormann, (Oxford, 2012), sect. 4, Ethics, Letter on the Method of how to Dispel Sorrows, pp. 254-5:

We should not content ourselves with being the most ignorant, most boorish, and most unjust people. Even if sadness were something necessary, then there would be sufficient sadness caused when the reason for sadness occurs. We ought not to anticipate it before it occurs. To experience it before it occurs is a kind of evil and malignancy. (6) Also, it is necessary not to experience it when it occurs before it is repelled. For it is harmful, as we [said] before. Therefore it is absolutely necessary to repel it, when it occurs. Whatever causes sadness is necessarily repelled by consolation after a while, if the sad person does not perish together with the sadness or shortly after the onset of sadness [i.e. if he does not die before being consoled]. (7) It is in the nature of sadness to disappear, for all things subject to coming-to-be also pass away and do not remain in [their] individual parts. We therefore ought to make every effort to alleviate and shorten the duration of the sorrow. If we shorten it <...while if we do not shorten it>, we shorten in others the repelling of the affliction that we can repel from ourselves. (8) This is characteristic for someone ignorant, wretched, boorish and unjust, for unjust is he who remains afflicted, and the most wretched is he who makes no effort to repel affliction from himself as best he can. We should not content ourselves with being wretched while we can be happy.

(1) A nice method for this is to remember the things which made us sad in the past, and from which we were consoled, as well as the things which made other people sad, whose sadness and consolation we have witnessed; and to see in our [present] state of sadness one of the saddening things of the past or one of the saddening thing which we perceived in other people, and the consolation which was brought about in the end. This gives us a great ability to console ourselves, as it did for instance in the case of Alexander, son of Philip, king of Macedonia, who persuaded his mother to be steadfast when he was on his death-bed. (2) Among his writings we find the following letter to her: «O mother of Alexander, always bear in mind that everything subject to coming-to-be and passing-away is going to be obliterated, and that your son does not content himself with the manners of minor kings, nor should you be content for yourself, when he dies, with the manners of minor mothers of kings. Order a great city to be built when you receive the message about the death of Alexander, and send word that all the people of Libya, Europe and Asia should throng to you on a set day; and that on that day, they will gather in that city to eat, drink and be merry. Order it to be announced to them that no one should come to you who has been afflicted by a misfortune, in order that Alexander's funeral be celebrated joyfully and differently from the funerals of other people which take place in sadness.» (3) After she had given orders accordingly, nobody came to her at the appointed time. Then she said: «why do people stay away from us, even though we have previously [sent for them]?» It was said to her: «You ordered that no-one come to you who has [in the past] suffered from a misfortune, yet all people have suffered from misfortunes, therefore no one has come to you.« She said: «O Alexander, how similar are your last deeds to your first. You wanted to make me completely steadfast against my loss of you; for I am not the first to suffer from misfortunes, nor are they specific to any one human being.»