Letter 30: Procopius urges philosophical endurance after a girl's bridal hopes become a funeral.

If anything painful has happened, let it be given to the winds and to the fortune of human affairs. Fortune toys with our lives, shifts them up and down, and changes them with the slightest tilt, unwilling to see anything standing firm and unmoved. The suffering, I think, is terrible; more terrible still for those who saw the sight. A girl not yet known even to all her own family was led before everyone's eyes to the tomb instead of the bridal chamber. The hopes of her bridegroom were emptied, and the marriage contract over her was torn apart. These things are dreadful - would that they had not happened. Yet fortune is not campaigning against us first. She has already snatched many others from the very middle of the wedding chamber and turned a bridal room into lamentation. How many people, luxuriating in hopes, have become a story because of her. But fortune, which wins by its vote and brings about whatever it wants, must be conquered by philosophy and judgment. Those devoted to the Muses should have this advantage: to know how to bear fortune. I admire the person who said wisely, "Since what we want does not happen, let us want what happens." She has gone, leaving the earth behind, and with it the troubles of marriage and the pains of childbirth, if those would ever have come. I pass over the dangers of raising children and the fear, even in prosperity, that one may someday lose what is present. Freed from all the evils that grow up with life, she has gone on the truly public road, the road all must travel because we too were born.

... εἰ δέ τι γέγονε τῶν ἀνιώντων, αὔραις τοῦτο δεδόσθω καὶ τῇ τύχῃ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων, ἥτις ἐντρυφῶσα τοῖς ἡμετέροις ἄνω καὶ κάτω μεταθεῖ καὶ βραχείᾳ ῥοπῇ μεταβάλλεται, μηδὲν ἐθέλουσα βλέπειν ἑστηκὸς καὶ ἀκίνητον. καὶ δεινὸν μὲν οἶμαι τὸ πάθος, δεινότερον δὲ τοῖς ἰδοῦσι τὸ θέαμα. κόρη μηδὲ τοῖς οἰκείοις ἅπασιν ἐγνωσμένη ἐν πάντων ὄψεσιν ἀντὶ παστάδος ἀγομένη πρὸς τάφον. καὶ κεναὶ μὲν ἐντεῦθεν μνηστῆρος ἐλπίδες, συγγραφὴ δὲ γαμήλιος ἐπ' αὐτῇ διερρήγνυτο. δεινὰ μὲν οἴμοι ταῦτα, καὶ οὐκ ὤφελε γενέσθαι· πλὴν οὐκ ἐφ' ἡμῶν πρώτων ἡ τύχη στρατεύεται, πολλὰς ἤδη που καὶ ἄλλας ἐκ μέσης ἥρπασε τῆς παστάδος, καὶ νυμφικὸν θάλαμον εἰς θρῆνον μετέβαλεν. ὢ πόσοι ταῖς ἐλπίσι τρυφῶντες μῦθος διὰ ταύτην ἐγένοντο. ἀλλ' ἥ γε τῇ ψήφῳ νικᾷ καὶ ἅμα τι θέλει καὶ γίνεται νικάσθω φιλοσοφίᾳ καὶ γνώμῃ, καὶ ἔστω τι πλέον τοῖς ἀνακειμένοις ταῖς Μούσαις τὸ φέρειν εἰδέναι τὰς τύχας. θαυμάζω γὰρ ἔγωγε καὶ τὸν εἰρηκότα σοφῶς "ἀλλ' ἐπειδὴ μὴ γίνεται ἃ θέλομεν, θελήσωμεν τὰ γινόμενα". οἴχεται τὴν γῆν ἀπολιποῦσα καὶ γάμου κακὰ καὶ παίδων ὠδῖνας, εἴποτε καὶ ἐγένοντο. καὶ σιωπῶ τοὺς τῆς παιδοτροφίας κινδύνους καὶ τὸν ἐν εὐτυχίᾳ φόβον μή ποτε γένοιτο τῶν παρόντων διαμαρτεῖν. τῶν δὲ συντρόφων τῷ βίῳ κακῶν γενομένη πάντων ἐλεύθερος οἴχεται λεωφόρον ὄντως ὁδὸν καὶ ἣν ὁδεῦσαι δεῖ πάντας, ἐπειδὴ καὶ γεγόναμεν.