The Last Words of Epicurus

Taken from The Inheritance by Genevra Catalano (2022)

"He died from urinary blockage caused by a stone, as Hermarchus as well says in his Letters, fourteen days after his illness began. At the end, says Hermippus, he climbed into a bronze tub filled with hot water, asked for some wine neat, gulped it down, and after exhorting his friends to remember the doctrines, died. We have the following for his:

'Fare ye well and remember the doctrines.' So Epicurus
Said to his friends at the end, dying before his time.
Hot was the bath into which he had clibed, and neat the wine he
Drained; then down to frigid Hades he was drawn."

That is the man'e life, and such his death." (Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.155-165; trans. White)