The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master. The small and great are there - All sorts and conditions of men are equally blended in the grave, and ultimately reduced to one common dust; and between the bond and free there is no difference. The grave is
"The appointed place of rendezvous, where all These travelers meet."
Equality is absolute among the sons of men in their entrance into and exit from the world: all the intermediate state is disparity. All men begin and end life alike; and there is no difference between the king and the cottager.
A contemplation of this should equally humble the great and the small.
The saying is trite, but it is true: -
Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,
Regumque turres.
Hor. Odar. lib. i., Od. iv., ver. 13.
"With equal pace impartial Fate
Knocks at the palace as the cottage gate."
Death is that state,"Where they an equal honor shareWho buried or unburied are.Where Agamemnon knows no moreThan Irus he contemn'd before.Where fair Achilles and Thersites lie,Equally naked, poor, and dry."
And why do not the living lay these things to heart?
There is a fine saying in Seneca ad Marciam, cap. 20, on this subject, which may serve as a comment on this place: Mors-servitutem invito domino remittit; haec captivorum catenas levat; haec e carcere eduxit, quos exire imperium impotens vetuerat. Haec est in quo nemo humilitatem suam sensit; haec quae nulli paruit; haec quae nihil quicquam alieno fecit arbitrio. Haec, ubi res communes fortuna male divisit, et aequo jure genitos alium alii donavit, exaequat omnia. - "Death, in spite of the master, manumits the slave. It loosens the chains of the prisoners. It brings out of the dungeon those whom impotent authority had forbidden to go at large. This is the state in which none is sensible of his humiliation. Death obeys no man. It does nothing according to the will of another. It reduces, by a just law, to a state of equality, all who in their families and circumstances had unequal lots in life."