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Is he not convinced that, whatever he suffers, it is Zeus who is exercising him? Hercules when he was exercised by Eurystheus did not think that he was wretched, but without hesitation he attempted to execute all that he had in hand. And is he who is trained to the contest and exercised by Zeus going to call out and to... |
Hear what Diogenes says to the passers-by when he is in a fever, "Miserable wretches, will you not stay? but are you going so long a journey to Olympia to see the destruction or the fight of athletes; and will you not choose to see the combat between a fever and a man?" Would such a man accuse God who sent him down as ... |
For what shall he accuse him of? because he maintains a decency of behavior, because he displays his virtue more conspicuously? Well, and what does he say of poverty, about death, about pain? |
How did he compare his own happiness with that of the Great King? or rather he thought that there was no comparison between them. For where there are perturbations, and griefs, and fears, and desires not satisfied, and aversions of things which you cannot avoid, and envies and jealousies, how is there a road to happine... |
But where there are corrupt principles, there these things must of necessity be. When the young man asked, if when a Cynic is sick, and a friend asks him to come to his house and be taken care of in his sickness, shall the Cynic accept the invitation, he replied: And where shall you find, I ask, a Cynic's friend? For t... |
He ought to be a partner in the Cynic's sceptre and his royalty, and a worthy minister, if he intends to be considered worthy of a Cynic's friendship, as Diogenes was a friend of Antisthenes, as Crates was a friend of Diogenes. Do you think that, if a man comes to a Cynic and salutes him, he is the Cynic's friend, and ... |
But you seem to me to wish to go into some man's house and to be well fed there for a time. Why then do you think of attempting so great a thing? "But," said the young man, "shall marriage and the procreation of children as a chief duty be undertaken by the Cynic?" |
If you grant me a community of wise men, Epictetus replies, perhaps no man will readily apply himself to the Cynic practice. For on whose account should he undertake this manner of life? However if we suppose that he does, nothing will prevent him from marrying and begetting children; for his wife will be another like ... |
But in the present state of things which is like that of an army placed in battle order, is it not fit that the Cynic should without any distraction be employed only on the administration of God, able to go about among men, not tied down to the common duties of mankind, nor entangled in the ordinary relations of life, ... |
He is also excluded by being a Cynic from looking after the sickness of his own family, and from providing for their support. And, to say nothing of the rest, he must have a vessel for heating water for the child that he may wash it in the bath; wool for his wife when she is delivered of a child, oil, a bed, a cup: so ... |
Where, then, now is that king, he who devotes himself to the public interests, The people's guardian and so full of cares. whose duty it is to look after others, the married and those who have children; to see who uses his wife well, who uses her badly; who quarrels; what family is well administered, what is not; going... |
How can he have time for this who is tied to the duties of common life? is it not his duty to supply clothing to his children, and to send them to the schoolmaster with writing tablets, and styles. Besides, must he not supply them with beds? |
for they cannot be genuine Cynics as soon as they are born. If he does not do this, it would be better to expose the children as soon as they are born than to kill them in this way. Consider what we are bringing the Cynic down to, how we are taking his royalty from him. |
"Yes, but Crates took a wife." You are speaking of a circumstance which arose from love and of a woman who was another Crates. But we are inquiring about ordinary marriages and those which are free from distractions, and making this inquiry we do not find the affair of marriage in this state of the world a thing which ... |
"How, then, shall a man maintain the existence of society?" In the name of God, are those men greater benefactors to society who introduce into the world to occupy their own places two or three grunting children, or those who superintend as far as they can all mankind, and see what they do, how they live, what they att... |
And did Priamus, who begat fifty worthless sons, or Danaus or AEolus contribute more to the community than Homer? then shall the duty of a general or the business of a writer exclude a man from marriage or the begetting of children, and such a man shall not be judged to have accepted the condition of childlessness for ... |
For such matters would not have moved us at all nor should we have wondered if a Cynic should not marry or beget children. Man, the Cynic is the father of all men; the men are his sons, the women are his daughters: he so carefully visits all, so well does he care for all. Do you think that it is from idle impertinence ... |
He does it as a father, as a brother, and as the minister of the father of all, the minister of Zeus. If you please, ask me also if a Cynic shall engage in the administration of the state. Fool, do you seek a greater form of administration than that in which he is engaged? |
Do you ask if he shall appear among the Athenians and say something about the revenues and the supplies, he who must talk with all men, alike with Athenians, alike with Corinthians, alike with Romans, not about supplies, nor yet about revenues, nor about peace or war, but about happiness and unhappiness, about good for... |
It is necessary also for such a man to have a certain habit of body: for if he appears to be consumptive, thin and pale, his testimony has not then the same weight. For he must not only by showing the qualities of the soul prove to the vulgar that it is in his power independent of the things which they admire to be a g... |
So Diogenes used to do, for he used to go about fresh-looking, and he attracted the notice of the many by his personal appearance. But if a Cynic is an object of compassion, he seems to a beggar: all persons turn away from him, all are offended with him; for neither ought he to appear dirty so that he shall not also in... |
So Diogenes replied to one who said, "Are you the Diogenes who does not believe that there are gods?" "And, how," replied Diogenes, "can this be when I think that you are odious to the gods?" On another occasion in reply to Alexander, who stood by him when he was sleeping, and quoted Homer's line, A man a councilor sho... |
But before all the Cynic's ruling faculty must be purer than the sun; and, if it is not, he must be a cunning knave and a fellow of no principle, since while he himself is entangled in some vice he will reprove others. For see how the matter stands: to these kings and tyrants their guards and arms give the power of rep... |
For this reason he is neither overcurious nor a busybody when he is in this state of mind: for he is not a meddler with the affairs of others when he is superintending human affairs, but he is looking after his own affairs. If that is not so, you may also say that the general is a busybody, when he inspects his soldier... |
For who are you? are you the bull of the herd, or the queen of the bees? Show me the tokens of your supremacy, such as they have from nature. |
But if you are a drone claiming the sovereignty over the bees, do you not suppose that your fellow citizens will put you down as the bees do the drones? The Cynic also ought to have such power of endurance as to seem insensible to the common sort and a stone: no man reviles him, no man strikes him, no man insults him, ... |
He never then descends into such a contest in which he can be overpowered; but he immediately withdraws from things which belong to others, he claims not the things which are servile. where there is will and the use of appearances, there you will see how many eyes he has so that you may say, "Argus was blind compared w... |
To these he directs all his attention and energy; but as to everything else he snores supine. All is peace; there is no robber who takes away his will, no tyrant. But what say you as to his body? |
I say there is. And as to magistracies and honours? What does he care for them? |
When then any person would frighten him through them, he says to him, "Begone, look for children: masks are formidable to them; but I know that they are made of shell, and they have nothing inside." About such a matter as this you are deliberating. Therefore, if you please, I urge you in God's name, defer the matter, a... |
For see what Hector says to Andromache, "Retire rather," he says, "into the house and weave: War is the work of men Of all indeed, but specially 'tis mine. So he was conscious of his own qualification, and knew her weakness. To those who read and discuss for the sake of ostentation First say to yourself, who you wish ... |
Those who follow athletic exercises first determine what they wish to be, then do accordingly what follows. If a man is a runner in the long course, there is a certain kind of diet, of walking, rubbing and exercise: if a man is a runner in the stadium, all these things are different; if he is a Pentathlete, they are st... |
If you are a carpenter, you will have such and such things: if a worker in metal, such things. For everything that we do, if we refer it to no end, we shall do it to no purpose; and if we refer it to the wrong end, we shall miss the mark. Further, there is a general end or purpose, and a particular purpose. |
First of all, we must act as a man. What is comprehended in this? We must not be like a sheep, though gentle, nor mischievous, like a wild beast. |
But the particular cud has reference to each person's mode of life and his will. The lute-player acts as a lute-player, the carpenter as a carpenter, the philosopher as a philosopher, the rhetorician as a rhetorician. When then you say, "Come and hear me read to you": take care first of all that you are not doing this ... |
Do you wish to do good or to be praised? Immediately you hear him saying, "To me what is the value of praise from the many?" and he says well, for it is of no value to a musician, so far as he is a musician, nor to a geometrician. |
Do you then wish to be useful? in what? tell us that we may run to your audience-room. |
Now can a man do anything useful to others, who has not received something useful himself? No, for neither can a man do anything useful in the carpenter's art, unless he is a carpenter; nor in the shoemaker's art, unless he is a shoemaker. Do you wish to know then if you have received any advantage? |
Produce your opinions, philosopher. What is the thing which desire promises? Not to fall in the object. |
What does aversion promise? Not to fall into that which you would avoid. Well; do we fulfill their promise? |
Tell me the truth; but if you lie, I will tell you. Lately when your hearers came together rather coldly, and did not give you applause, you went away humbled. Lately again when you had been praised, you went about and said to all, "What did you think of me?" |
"Wonderful, master, I swear by all that is dear to me." "But how did I treat of that particular matter?" "Which?" |
"The passage in which I described Pan and the nymphs?" "Excellently." Then do you tell me that in desire and in aversion you are acting according to nature? |
Begone; try to persuade somebody else. Did you not praise a certain person contrary to your opinion? and did you not flatter a certain person who was the son of a senator? |
Would you wish your own children to be such persons? "I hope not." Why then did you praise and flatter him? |
"He is an ingenuous youth and listens well to discourses." How is this? "He admires me." |
You have stated your proof. Then what do you think? do not these very people secretly despise you? |
When, then, a man who is conscious that he has neither done any good nor ever thinks of it, finds a philosopher who says, "You have a great natural talent, and you have a candid and good disposition," what else do you think that he says except this, "This man has some need of me?" Or tell me what act that indicates a, ... |
has he been turned to reflect on himself? has he perceived in what a bad state he is? has he cast away self-conceit? |
does he look for a person to teach him? "He does." A man who will teach him to live? |
No, fool, but how to talk; for it is for this that he admires you also. Listen and hear what he says: "This man writes with perfect art, much better than Dion." This is altogether another thing. |
Does he say, "This man is modest, faithful, free from perturbations?" and even if he did say it, I should say to him, "Since this man is faithful, tell me what this faithful man is." And if he could not tell me, I should add this, "First understand what you say, then speak." |
You, then, who are in a wretched plight and gaping after applause and counting your auditors, do you intend to be useful to others? "To-day many more attended my discourse." "Yes, many; we suppose five hundred." |
"That is nothing; suppose that there were a thousand." "Dion never had so many hearers." "How could he?" |
"And they understand what is said beautifully." "What is fine, master, can move even a stone." See, these are the words of a philosopher. |
This is the disposition of a man who will do good to others; here is a man who has listened to discourses, who has read what is written about Socrates as Socratic, not as the compositions of Lysias and Isocrates. "I have often wondered by what arguments." Not so, but "by what argument": this is more exact than that. |
What, have you read the words at all in a different way from that in which you read little odes? For if you read them as you ought, you would not have been attending to such matters, but you would rather have been looking to these words: "Anytus and Meletus are able to kill me, but they cannot harm me": and "I am alway... |
Therefore they used to come to him and ask to be introduced to philosophy by him; and he would take them and recommend them. Not so; but as he accompanied them he would say, "Hear me to-day discoursing in the house of Quadratus." Why should I hear you? |
Do you wish to show me that you put words together cleverly? You put them together, man; and what good will it do you? "But only praise me." |
What do you mean by praising? "Say to me, "Admirable, wonderful." Well, I say so. |
But if that is praise whatever it is which philosophers mean by the name of good, what have I to praise in you? If it is good to speak well, teach me, and will praise you. "What then? |
ought a man to listen to such things without pleasure?" I hope not. For my part I do not listen even to a lute-player without pleasure. |
Must I then for this reason stand and play the lute? Hear what Socrates says, "Nor would it be seemly for a man of my age, like a young man composing addresses, to appear before you." "Like a young man," he says. |
For in truth this small art is an elegant thing, to select words, and to put them together, and to come forward and gracefully to read them or to speak, and while he is reading to say, "There are not many who can do these things, I swear by all that you value." Does a philosopher invite people to hear him? As the sun h... |
What physician invites a man to be treated by him? Indeed I now hear that even the physicians in Rome do invite patients, but when I lived there, the physicians were invited. "I invite you to come and hear that things are in a bad way for you, and that you are taking care of everything except that of which you ought to... |
A fine kind of invitation: and yet if the words of the philosopher do not produce this effect on you, he is dead, and so is the speaker. Rufus was used to say: "If you have leisure to praise me, I am speaking to no purpose." Accordingly he used to speak in such a way that every one of us who were sitting there supposed... |
The philosopher's school, ye men, is a surgery: you ought not to go out of it with pleasure, but with pain. For you are not in sound health when you enter: one has dislocated his shoulder, another has an abscess, a third a fistula, and a fourth a headache. Then do I sit and utter to you little thoughts and exclamations... |
Is it for this then that young men shall quit home, and leave their parents and their friends and kinsmen and property, that they may say to you, "Wonderful!" when you are uttering your exclamations. Did Socrates do this, or Zeno, or Cleanthes? |
What then? is there not the hortatory style? Who denies it? |
as there is the style of refutation, and the didactic style. Who, then, ever reckoned a fourth style with these, the style of display? What is the hortatory style? |
To be able to show both to one person and to many the struggle in which they are engaged, and that they think more about anything than about what they really wish. For they wish the things which lead to happiness, but they look for them in the wrong place. In order that this may be done, a thousand seats must be placed... |
Cease, I entreat you by the gods, to spoil good words and good acts as much as you can. Nothing can have more power in exhortation than when the speaker shows to the hearers that he has need of them. But tell me who when he hears you reading or discoursing is anxious about himself or turns to reflect on himself? |
or when he has gone out says, "The philosopher hit me well: I must no longer do these things." But does he not, even if you have a great reputation, say to some person, "He spoke finely about Xerxes"; and another says, "No, but about the battle of Thermopylae"? Is this listening to a philosopher? |
That we ought not to be moved by a desire of those things which are not in our power Let not that which in another is contrary to nature be an evil to you: for you are not formed by nature to be depressed with others nor to be unhappy with others, but to be happy with them. If a man is unhappy, remember that his unhap... |
"But," you say, "I have parted from a certain person, and he is grieved." Why did he consider as his own that which belongs to another? why, when he looked on you and was rejoiced, did he not also reckon that you are mortal, that it is natural for you to part from him for a foreign country? |
Therefore he suffers the consequences of his own folly. But why do you or for what purpose bewail yourself? Is it that you also have not thought of these things? |
but like poor women who are good for nothing, you have enjoyed all things in which you took pleasure, as if you would always enjoy them, both places and men and conversation; and now you sit and weep because you do not see the same persons and do not live in the same places. Indeed you deserve this, to be more wretched... |
Was reason, then, given to us by the gods for the purpose of unhappiness and misery, that we may pass our lives in wretchedness and lamentation? Must all persons be immortal and must no man go abroad, and must we ourselves not go abroad, but remain rooted like plants; and, if any of our familiar friends go abroad, must... |
if we did not listen to them as if they were jugglers: they tell us that this world is one city, and the substance out of which it has been formed is one, and that there must be a certain period, and that some things must give way to others, that some must be dissolved, and others come in their place; some to remain in... |
And yet how many friends do you think that he had in Thebes, how many in Argos, how many in Athens? and how many do you think that he gained by going about? And he married also, when it seemed to him a proper occasion, and begot children, and left them without lamenting or regretting or leaving them as orphans; for he ... |
For it was not as mere report that he had heard that Zeus is the father of for he thought that Zeus was his own father, and he called him so, and to him he looked when he was doing what he did. Therefore he was enabled to live happily in all places. And it is never possible for happiness and desire of what is not prese... |
that which is happy must have all that desires, must resemble a person who is filled with food, and must have neither thirst nor hunger. "But Ulysses felt a desire for his wife and wept as he sat on a rock." Do you attend to Homer and his stories in everything? |
Or if Ulysses really wept, what was he else than an unhappy man? and what good man is unhappy? In truth, the whole is badly administered, if Zeus does not take care of his own citizens that they may be happy like himself. |
But these things are not lawful nor right to think of: and if Ulysses did weep and lament, he was not a good man. For who is good if he knows not who he is? and who knows what he is, if he forgets that things which have been made are perishable, and that it is not possible for one human being to be with another always? |
To desire, then, things which are impossible is to have a slavish character and is foolish: it is the part of a stranger, of a man who fights against God in the only way that he can, by his opinions. "But my mother laments when she does not see me." Why has she not learned these principles? |
and I do not say this, that we should not take care that she may not lament, but I say that we ought not to desire in every way what is not our own. And the sorrow of another is another's sorrow: but my sorrow is my own. I, then, will stop my own sorrow by every means, for it is in my power: and the sorrow of another I... |
Some person has arrived from Rome. "I only hope that there is no harm." But what harm can happen to you, where you are not? |
From Hellas some one is come: "I hope that there is no harm." In this way every place may be the cause of misfortune to you. Is it not enough for you to be unfortunate there where you are, and must you be so even beyond sea, and by the report of letters? |
Is this the way in which your affairs are in a state of security? "Well, then, suppose that my friends have died in the places which are far from me." What else have they suffered than that which is the condition of mortals? |
Or how are you desirous at the same time to live to old age, and at the same time not to see the death of any person whom you love? Know you not that in the course of a long time many and various kinds of things must happen; that a fever shall overpower one, a robber another, and a third a tyrant? Such is the condition... |
Sit down, then, in a flutter at all these things, lamenting, unhappy, unfortunate, dependent on another, and dependent not on one or two, but on ten thousands upon ten thousands. Did you hear this when you were with the philosophers? did you learn this? |
do you not know that human life is a warfare? that one man must keep watch, another must go out as a spy, and a third must fight? and it is not possible that all should be in one place, nor is it better that it be so. |
But you, neglecting neglecting to do the commands of the general, complain when anything more hard than usual is imposed on you, and you do not observe what you make the army become as far as it is in your power; that if all imitate you, no man will dig a trench, no man will put a rampart round, nor keep watch, nor exp... |
and will he not pitch you overboard as a useless thing, an impediment only and bad example to the other sailors? And so it is here also: every man's life is a kind of warfare, and it is long and diversified. You must observe the duty of a soldier and do everything at the nod of the general; if it is possible, divining ... |
You are placed in a great office of command and not in any mean place; but you are always a senator. Do you not know that such a man must give little time to the affairs of his household, but be often away from home, either as a governor or one who is governed, or discharging some office, or serving in war or acting as... |
"Yes, for it is pleasant." Who says that it is not? but a soup is pleasant, and a handsome woman is pleasant. |
What else do those say who make pleasure their end? Do you not see of what men yon have uttered the language? that it is the language of Epicureans and catamites? |
Next while you are doing what they do and holding their opinions, do you speak to us the words of Zeno and of Socrates? Will you not throw away as far as you can the things belonging to others with which you decorate yourself, though they do not fit you at all? For what else do they desire than to sleep without hindran... |
why need we say how? for one can easily conjecture. Come, do you also tell your own way of passing the time which you desire, you who are an admirer of truth and of Socrates and Diogenes. |
What do you wish to do in Athens? the same, or something else? Why then do you call yourself a Stoic? |
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