There is a saying that goes: "the good die young". Billy Joel did a song about it, and in the song he was trying to convince some catholic schoolgirl named Virginia to sleep with him. However, Billy Joel gets it all wrong... the good die young because it is their reward for being good.
I was reading the Goddard commentary on Shakespeare when I came across the following:
“... “Call no man happy until he is dead.” Is that the last word in pessimism, the last word in optimism, or merely a warning against pride? ... “The good die young.” Is that just a statement of fact, fierce cynicism, or profound faith in life? ... ”
(From volume one of The Meaning of Shakespeare.)
Of course my natural response was to laugh. I don't know if Goddard is the type to regularly play tricks on his readers, but since the first quote came from Ancient Greece, and was in the play Oedipus Tyrannus, it's a bit misleading to a modern eye. Happiness in this sense isn't what the modern world means. The Greek eudaimonea means much more than the English word we replace it with.
Knowing that the first quote was a bit misleading it made me see the second one in a different light. I now understand why Goddard would say 'the good die young' is a a “profound faith in life”.
The good will grow young as they age and not grow old as they age. Obviously there is a double meaning here, regarding biological and mental ages. For the good, their childhood is the winter of their lives and as they get older they move towards summer. As they age their character/goodness will grow and strengthen them. Life will get easier for the good, but not because bad things won't happen to them. Rather life will get easier because they will have the strength to deal with the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'. Their internal strength will make their burdens lighter for them. Thus the good will die with the joy often associated with youth still inside of them.
