Preface to the

which it is better for you not to know. For a life ignorant of its own fortune and misery has less pain. For humans, not to be born is by far the best of all; the second is to die as quickly as possible once born.

And from this comes the custom, as Valerius Maximus (Book 2) indicates, that the Thracians had, that when a human was born, they wept over it, but when someone died, they were cheerful and in good spirits. As there is a beautiful Greek epigram about this, which Alciatus translated thus:

Who would not praise the Thracians, who, when an infant comes
into the light from the womb, wet their faces with tears,
Because they bless those whom they see leaving the world,
and whom cruel death, the minister of the Fates, snatches away.
For the living are always tossed about in a varied whirlwind:
He who dies has found the end of evil.

There were once two old philosophers, as is also mentioned in the little book, one of whom, Heraclitus, always wept over human life, while the other, Democritus, laughed at it incessantly, about which there is also a beautiful Greek epigram, the translation of which has been done by several, especially by Alciatus, Ursino Velius, and Bartholomaeo Simoneta. Since these are not unknown, I will pass over them here.