# History of Monsters

suffocated; others are strangled by swallowing a hair in milk, nor have there been those lacking for whom an icicle, frozen solid and falling from a roof, brought sudden death. For this reason, we can say with good cause:

So much for those who stir up such great turmoils and whose greed finds this world too small. Let us highly approve of the opinion of Pindar, who called man the "shadow of a dream," since nothing emptier than a shadow or a dream can be found. Looking to this same point elsewhere, Pindar remarked that if someone possessing wealth excels others in beauty, and performing exceptionally in contests displays the greatest strength, he must remember that he is composed of mortal limbs and that the earth will be his final end.

For this reason, Saint Chrysostom called man "nothing," "earth," and "ashes." All of this is elegantly expressed in the following verses:

This relates to what the poets fabulate about mortals: namely, that everyone hangs from the threads of the Fates, and when these are cut, they fall and die. Indeed, they imagine some hang from white threads, others from dark ones; some hang high up, while others are close to the ground; yet all are hanging until inexorable Atropos snips the thread and they fall. Thus Ovid was not wrong when he sang:

Chrysologus expressed this perfectly, saying: we are but smoke living in uncertainty, and we do not know what the coming day will bring.

Hence Homer once observed that nothing is more miserable than man; and human calamity is increased by the fact that princes and peasants encounter the same lot in life, according to the saying:

And so all people, while they live, suffer a great deal of toil in their station and are always attempting difficult tasks. For this reason, we can not unfairly call this course of life a "Herculean labor."

If all things are examined for a moment in the present, they will be found confused and full of disturbances. Setting aside the sick, the captive, the exiled, and the beggars—whom we can undoubtedly call miserable—the elderly and children present themselves. The former touch the threshold of death; the latter live under the fear of the schoolmaster's rod. Young people think they have attained happiness when they are loved back by those for whom they feel immoderate affection; nevertheless, Ovid calls even them miserable:

Likewise, those believed to lead a quiet and prosperous life are still wretched, according to this couplet:

For those who lack wealth are weighed down by constant anxiety to acquire it. If, on the other hand, they are princes abounding in riches, they may have no children; moreover, wealth is subject to lawsuits, thieves, and many other dangers. Therefore Nazianzen, after having said much about the life of man, finally exclaimed: