How Would Epicurus Analyze The Faulkner Quotation: "Between Grief And Nothing, I'll Take Grief"

...when she became not then half of memory became not and if I become not then all of remembering will cease to be.—Yes, he thought, between grief and nothing I will take grief. Harry Wilbourne, in (Ch. 9) "Wild Palms"; p. 324 (Faulkner's italics)

The full context appears to be about forgetting someone you care about. The grief is better than the nothing, than the absence of the person's memory. I could easily think of contexts that Epicurus might lean toward that sentiment.

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Plutarch, That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible, 28, p. 1105D: If then, "the memory of a dead friend is pleasant on every count" as Epicurus said, we need no more to make us see the great delight that they renounce when, although they suppose that they can receive and capture the apparitions and likenesses of dead companions {in dreams?} – images that have neither mind nor feeling – they do not think they will ever again meet those friends themselves, or ever again see a dear father or dear mother or perhaps a gentle wife, and have not even the hope of such company.

Cf. Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 63.7: Thinking of departed friends is to me something sweet and mellow.

Here is Tennyson on the same theme. The question is somewhat lacking in definition; what is the context of the pain? And what is meant be nothing?

In the broadest terms, 'nothing' must mean death. This is because there is no neutral or middle ground between pleasure and pain; if you aren't experiencing pain, then you are either experiencing pleasure or not experiencing anything.

In Tennyson's case, we can regard the pain as transactional; 'The pleasure I had in spending time with you is worth the cost of the pain I'm now feeling over your loss.' I would hope (contra Plutarch) that the study of philosophy would help one to manage that grief and reduce that pain. Either way, in this transactional sense, 'nothing' doesn't actually mean nothing; it simply means the loss of something or someone.

So there are actually two questions;

1.) Would Epicurus choose a life of pain over death?

• Accounts differ. Principal doctrine 4 suggests that pain is mostly manageable. As it says elsewhere, 'there is more reason for joy than for vexation.' However, Torquatus complicates things in this passage:

  "It is schooled to encounter pain by recollecting that pains of great severity are ended by death, and slight ones have frequent intervals of respite; while those of medium intensity lie within our own control: we can bear them if they are endurable, or if they are not, we may serenely quit life's theater, when the play has ceased to please us."

2.) Would Epicurus support the view that it is "better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all"?

• Yes! Not because he wants to live with the pain, but because a major focus of his work was in managing and reducing mental pain. The death of his closest friend Metrodorus must have been a hardship to him, but he did not for that reason denounce friendship; it was just the opposite. He praised friendship as an 'immortal good'.

  Principal Doctrine 27: "Of all the means which are procured by wisdom to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends."

Quote from Cassius

I'm still not clear at all as to the original intent of the statement - as to how broadly it was to be applied.

Only way to find that out is to read Faulkner's Wild Palms (also published as If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem)

If I forget thee, Jerusalem : the wild palms | WorldCat.org

'Between grief and nothing I will take grief'. In New Orleans in 1937, a man and woman embark on a headlong flight into the wilderness of illicit passion,…

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Quote from Publisher's description

Summary:'Between grief and nothing I will take grief'. In New Orleans in 1937, a man and woman embark on a headlong flight into the wilderness of illicit passion, fleeing her husband and the temptations of respectability. In Mississippi ten years earlier, a convict sets forth across a flooded river, risking his one chance at freedom to rescue a pregnant woman. From these separate stories Faulkner composes a symphony of deliverance and damnation, survival and self-sacrifice, a novel in which elemental danger is juxtaposed with fatal injuries of the spirit.-Publisher's description

See also...

If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem - Wikipedia

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