GRIEF. 275 



ever, the allies were enemies. It would seem that the 

 strong force exerted upon the mind by the working of a 

 superstitious fancy was able now and then to conquer 

 grief. Thus we are told 1 , that in the first months of his 

 misery, in 1560, in the month of May. when he was 

 grieving for his son's death, fasting, whipping himself, 

 and seeking forgetfulness in dice with his young pupil 

 Ercole Visconti, who shared with him his night watches, 

 he implored Heaven for pity; since through grief and 

 watching he must die or become mad, or resign his pro- 

 fessorship. If he gave up his chair he had no means of 

 living; if he became mad he would become a jest to all 

 men ; he begged that if need were he should die. Then 

 he fancied that a voice cried to him one night in a dream, 

 " What do you lament? the slaughter of your son?" He 

 answered, " Can you doubt it?" The voice then said, 

 " Put into your mouth the emerald that you wear hung 

 about your neck, and that will keep your son out of .your 

 memory." He followed the advice of the dream, with 

 success he says, and he was much distressed in his mind 

 when he could not have the stone between his lips, that 

 is to say, when he was eating or when he was lecturing. 



But no artificial aids against distress of mind had sub- 

 dued Jerome's grief for his son's fate. The cloud went 

 with him from Pavia to Bologna, when, in accepting a 

 1 De Vita Propria, cap. xliii. 

 T2 



