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do they not belong to the Giver, and to Him who made you? then will you not give up what belongs to others? will you not give way to Him who is superior? |
"Why, then, did He introduce me into the world on these conditions," And if the conditions do not suit you depart. He has no need of a spectator who is not satisfied. He wants those who join in the festival, those who take part in the chorus, that they may rather applaud, admire, and celebrate with hymns the solemnity. |
But those who can bear no trouble, and the cowardly He will not willingly see absent from the great assembly; for they did not when they were present behave as they ought to do at a festival nor fill up their place properly, but they lamented, found fault with the deity, fortune, their companions; not seeing both what ... |
To use them. "How long;" So long as He who his lent them chooses. "What if they are necessary to me?" |
Do not attach yourself to them and they will not be necessary: do not say to yourself that they are necessary, and then they are not necessary. This study you ought to practice from morning to evening, beginning, with the smallest things and those most liable to damage, with an earthen pot, with a cup. Then proceed in ... |
Look all round and throw these things from you. Purge your opinions so that nothing cleave to you of the things which are not your own, that nothing grow to you, that nothing give you pain when it is torn from you; and say, while you are daily exercising yourself as you do there, not that you are philosophizing, for th... |
For this reason when he was taken prisoner, how did he behave to the pirates? Did he call any of them master? and I do not speak of the name, for I am not afraid of the word, but of the state of mind by which the word is produced. |
How did he reprove them for feeding badly their captives? How was he sold? Did he seek a master? |
no; but a slave, And, when he was sold, how did he behave to his master? Immediately he disputed with him and said to his master that he ought not to be dressed as he was, nor shaved in such a manner; and about the children he told them how he ought to bring them up. And what was strange in this? |
for if his master had bought an exercise master, would he have employed him in the exercises of the palaestra as a servant or as a master? and so if he had bought a physician or an architect. And so, in every matter, it is absolutely necessary that he who has skill must be the superior of him who has not. |
Whoever, then, generally possesses the science of life, what else must he be than master? For who is master of a ship? "The man who governs the helm." |
Why? Because he who will not obey him suffers for it. "But a master can give me stripes." |
Can he do it, then, without suffering for it?' "So I also used to think." But because he can not do it without suffering for it, for this reason it is not in his power: and no man can do what is unjust without suffering for it. |
"And what is the penalty for him who puts his own slave in chains, what do you think that is?" The fact of putting the slave in chains: and you also will admit this, if you choose to maintain the truth, that man is not a wild beast, but a tame animal. For when is a a vine doing badly? |
When it is in a condition contrary to its nature. When is a cock? Just the same. |
Therefore a man also is so. What then is a man's nature? To bite, to kick, and to throw into prison and to behead? |
No; but to do good, to co-operate with others, to wish them well. At that time, then, he is in a bad condition, whether you choose to admit it or not, when he is acting foolishly. "Socrates, then, did not fare badly?" |
No; but his judges aid his accusers did. "Nor did Helvidius at Rome fare badly?" No; but his murderer did. |
"How do you mean?" The same as you do when you say that a cock has not fared badly when he has gained the victory and been severely wounded; but that the cock has fared badly when he has been defeated and is unhurt: nor do you call a dog fortunate who neither pursues game nor labors, but when you see him sweating, when... |
Is that a paradox? for do you not say this in the case of all other things? Why then in the case of man only do you think differently, But because we say that the nature of man is tame and social and faithful, you will not say that this is a paradox? |
"It is not." What then is it a paradox to say that a man is not hurt when he is whipped, or put in chains, or beheaded? does he not, if he suffers nobly, come off even with increased advantage and profit? |
But is he not hurt, who suffers in a most pitiful and disgraceful way, who in place of a man becomes a wolf, or viper or wasp? Well then let us recapitulate the things which have been agreed on. The man who is not under restraint is free, to whom things are exactly in that state in which he wishes them to be; but he wh... |
But who is free from restraint? He who desires nothing that belongs to others. And what are the things which belong to others? |
Those which are not in our power either to have or not to have, or to have of a certain kind or in a certain manner. Therefore the body belongs to another, the parts of the body belong to another, possession belongs to another. If, then, you are attached to any of these things as your own, you will pay the penalty whic... |
This road leads to freedom, that is the only way of escaping from slavery, to be able to say at last with all your soul Lead me, O Zeus, and thou O destiny, The way that I am bid by you to go. But what do you say, philosopher? The tyrant summons you to say something which does not become you. |
Do you say it or do you not? Answer me. "Let me consider." |
Will you consider now? But when you were in the school, what was it which you used to consider? Did you not study what are the things that are good and what are bad, and what things are neither one nor the other? |
"I did." What then was our opinion? "That just and honourable acts were good; and that unjust and disgraceful acts were bad." |
Is life a good thing? "No." Is death a bad thing? |
"No." Is prison? "No." |
But what did we think about mean and faithless words and betrayal of a friend and flattery of a tyrant? "That they are bad." Well then, you are not considering, nor have you considered nor deliberated. |
For what is the matter for consideration: is it whether it is becoming for me, when I have it in my power, to secure for myself the greatest of good things, and not to secure for myself the greatest evils? A fine inquiry indeed, and necessary, and one that demands much deliberation. Man, why do you mock us? |
Such an inquiry is never made. If you really imagined that base things were bad and honourable things were good, and that all other things were neither good nor bad, you would not even have approached this inquiry, nor have come near it; but immediately you would have been able to distinguish them by the understanding ... |
How, then, do you now say that you are considering whether things which are neither good nor bad ought to be avoided more than things which are bad? But you do not possess these opinions; and neither do these things seem to you to he neither good nor bad, but you think that they are the greatest evils; nor do you think... |
"Where am I? In the schools: and are any listening to me? I am discoursing among philosophers. |
But I have gone out of the school. Away with this talk of scholars and fools." Thus a friend is overpowered by the testimony of a philosopher: thus a philosopher becomes a parasite; thus he lets himself for hire for money: thus in the senate a man does not say what he thinks; in private he proclaims his opinions. |
You are a cold and miserable little opinion, suspended from idle words as from a hair. But keep yourself strong and fit for the uses of life and initiated by being exercised in action. How do you hear? |
I do not say that your child is dead- for how could you bear that?- but that your oil is spilled, your wine drunk up. Do you act in such a way that one standing by you while you are making a great noise, may say this only, "Philosopher, you say something different in the school. Why do you deceive us? |
Why, when you are only a worm, do you say that you are a man?" I should like to be present when one of the philosophers is lying with a woman, that I might see how he is exerting himself, and what words he is uttering, and whether he remembers his title of philosopher, and the words which he hears or says or reads. "An... |
Nothing else than this, whether you who are rich choose or not. "And who is your evidence for this?" who else than yourselves? |
who have a powerful master, and who live in obedience to his nod and motion, and who faint if he only looks at you with a scowling countenance; you who court old women and old men, and say, "I cannot do this: it is not in my power." Why is it not in your power? Did you not lately contend with me and say that you are fr... |
Tell the truth, then, slave, and do not run away from your masters, nor deny, nor venture to produce any one to assert your freedom, when you have so many evidences of your slavery. And indeed when a man is compelled by love to do something contrary to his opinion, and at the same time sees the better but has not the s... |
And again, when in order to obtain these great and much admired magistracies and honours, you kiss the hands of these slaves of others, and so you are not the slave even of free men. Then you walk about before me in stately fashion, praetor or a consul. Do I not know how you became a praetor, by what means you got your... |
I would not even choose to live, if I must live by help of Felicion and endure his arrogance and servile insolence: for I know what a slave is, who is fortunate, as he thinks, and puffed up by pride. "You then," a man may say, "are you free?" I wish, by the Gods, and pray to be free; but I am not yet able to face my ma... |
But I can point out to you a free man, that you may no longer seek an example. Diogenes was free. How was he free?- not because he was born of free parents, but because he was himself free, because he had cast off all the handles of slavery, and it was not possible for any man to approach him, nor had any man the means... |
He had everything easily loosed, everything only hanging to him. If you laid hold of his property, he would rather have let it go and be yours than he would have followed you for it: if you had laid hold of his leg, he would have let go his leg; if of all his body, all his poor body; his intimates, friends, country, ju... |
His true parents indeed, the Gods, and his real country he would never have deserted, nor would he have yielded to any man in obedience to them or to their orders, nor would any man have died for his country more readily. For he was not used to inquire when he should be considered to have done anything on behalf of the... |
Was it because he was born of free parents? I suppose all the Athenians and all the Lacedaemonians, because they were born of slaves, could not talk with them as they wished, but feared and paid court to them. Why then does he say that it is in his power? |
"Because I do not consider the poor body to be my own, because I want nothing, because law is everything to me, and nothing else is." These were the things which permitted him to be free. And that you may not think that I show you the example of a man who is a solitary person, who has neither wife nor children, nor cou... |
For this reason he was the first to go out as a soldier, when it was necessary; and in war he exposed himself to danger most unsparingly, and when he was sent by the tyrants to seize Leon, he did not even deliberate about the matter, because he thought that it was a base action, and he knew that he must die, if it so h... |
These are things which could not be assailed nor brought into subjection. Then, when he was obliged to speak in defense of his life, did he behave like a man who had children, who had a wife? No, but he behaved like a man who has neither. |
And what did he do when he was to drink the poison, and when he had the power of escaping from prison, and when Crito said to him, "Escape for the sake of your children," what did Socrates say? Did he consider the power of escape as an unexpected gain? By no means: he considered what was fit and proper; but the rest he... |
For he did not choose, he said, to save his poor body, but to save that which is increased and saved by doing what is just, and is impaired and destroyed by doing what is unjust. Socrates will not save his life by a base act; he who would not put the Athenians to the vote when they clamoured that he should do so, he wh... |
For the good actor also preserves his character by stopping when he ought to stop, better than when he goes on acting beyond the proper time. What then shall the children of Socrates do? "If," said Socrates, "I had gone off to Thessaly, would you have taken care of them; and if I depart to the world below, will there b... |
See how he gives to death a gentle name and mocks it. But if you and I had been in his place, we should have immediately answered as philosophers that those who act unjustly must be repaid in the same way, and we should have added, "I shall be useful to many, if my life is saved, and if I die, I shall be useful to no m... |
And how in that case should we have been useful to any man? for where would they have been then staying? or if we were useful to men while we were alive, should we not have been much more useful to them by dying when we ought to die, and as we ought? |
And now, Socrates being dead, no less useful to men, and even more useful, is the remembrance of that which he did or said when he was alive. Think of these things, these opinions, these words: look to these examples, if you would be free, if you desire the thing according to its worth. And what is the wonder if you bu... |
For the sake of this which is called "liberty," some hang themselves, others throw themselves down precipices, and sometimes even whole cities have perished: and will you not for the sake of the true and unassailable and secure liberty give back to God when He demands them the things which He has given? Will you not, a... |
For you will know by experience that the words are true, and that there is no profit from the things which are valued and eagerly sought to those who have obtained them; and to those who have not yet obtained them there is an imagination that when these things are come, all that is good will come with them; then, when ... |
If you do not observe this rule, you will ruin yourself. But if the thought arises in your mind. "I shall seem disobliging to him, and he will not have the same feeling toward me," remember that nothing is done without cost, nor is it possible for a man if he does not do the same to be the same man that he was. |
Choose, then, which of the two you will have, to be equally loved by those by whom you were formerly loved, being the same with your former self; or, being superior, not to obtain from your friends the same that you did before. For if this is better, turn away to it, and let not other considerations draw you in a diffe... |
But if you will not do this, your wavering will produce both these results: you will neither improve as you ought, nor will you obtain what you formerly obtained. For before, by plainly desiring the things which were worth nothing, you pleased your associates. But you cannot excel in both kinds, and it is necessary tha... |
You cannot, when you do not drink with those with whom you used to drink, he agreeable to them as you were before. Choose, then, whether you will be a hard drinker and pleasant to your former associates or a sober man and disagreeable to them. You cannot, when you do not sing with those with whom you used to sing, be e... |
Choose, then, in this matter also which of the two you will have. For if it is better to be modest and orderly than for a man to say, "He is a jolly fellow," give up the rest, renounce it, turn away from it, have nothing to do with such men. But if this behavior shall not please you, turn altogether to the opposite: be... |
And jump up in the theatre and bawl out in praise of the dancer. But characters so different cannot be mingled: you cannot act both Thersites and Agamemnon. If you intend to be Thersites, you must be humpbacked and bald: if Agamemnon, you must be tall and handsome, and love those who are placed in obedience to you. |
What things we should exchange for other things Keep this thought in readiness, when you lose anything external, what you acquire in place of it; and if it be worth more, never say, "I have had a loss"; neither if you have got a horse in place of an ass, or an ox in place of a sheep, nor a good action in place of a bi... |
And it needs only a few things for the loss and overturning of all, namely a small deviation from reason. For the steerer of a ship to upset it, he has no need of the same means as he has need of for saving it: but if he turns it a little to the wind, it is lost; and if he does not do this purposely, but has been negle... |
Attend therefore to the appearances of things, and watch over them; for that which you have to preserve is no small matter, but it is modesty and fidelity and constancy, freedom from the affects, a state of mind undisturbed, freedom from fear, tranquillity, in a word, "liberty." For what will you sell these things? See... |
"But shall I not obtain any such thing for it?" See, and if you do in return get that, see what you receive in place of it. "I possess decency, he possesses a tribuneship: be possesses a praetorship, I possess modesty. |
But I do not make acclamations where it is not becoming: I will not stand up where I ought not; for I am free, and a friend of God, and so I obey Him willingly. But I must not claim anything else, neither body nor possession, nor magistracy, nor good report, nor in fact anything. For He does not allow me to claim them:... |
Preserve that which is your own good in everything; and as to every other thing, as it is permitted, and so far as to behave consistently with reason in respect to them, content with this only. If you do not, you will be unfortunate, you will fall in all things, you will be hindered, you will be impeded. These are the ... |
Of these laws a man ought to be an expositor, to these he ought to submit, not to those of Masurius and Cassius. To those who are desirous of passing life in tranquility Remember that not only the desire of power and of riches makes us mean and subject to others, but even the desire of tranquillity, and of leisure. an... |
For, to speak plainly, whatever the external thing may be, the value which we set upon it places us in subjection to others. What, then, is the difference between desiring, to be a senator or not desiring to be one; what is the difference between desiring power or being content with a private station; what is the diffe... |
For what purpose do you choose to read? Tell me. For if you only direct your purpose to being amused or learning something, you are a silly fellow and incapable of enduring labour. |
But if you refer reading to the proper end, what else is this than a tranquil and happy life? But if reading does not secure for you a happy and tranquil life, what is the use of it? But it does secure this," the man replies, "and for this reason I am vexed that I am deprived of it." |
And what is this tranquil and happy life, which any man can impede; I do not say Caesar or Caesar's friend, but a crow, a piper, a fever, and thirty thousand other things? But a tranquil and happy life contains nothing so sure is continuity and freedom from obstacle. Now I am called to do something: I will go, then, wi... |
"How then shall I cease to commit them?" Formerly I also acted wrong, but now I do not: thanks to God. Come, when you have done these things and have attended to them, have you done a worse act than when you have read a thousand verses or written as many? |
For when you eat, are you grieved because you are not reading? are you not satisfied with eating according to what you have learned by reading, and so with bathing and with exercise? Why, then, do you not act consistently in all things, both when you approach Caesar and when you approach any person? |
If you maintain yourself free from perturbation, free from alarm, and steady; if you look rather at the things which are done and happen than are looked at yourself; if you do not envy those who are preferred before you; if surrounding circumstances do not strike you with fear or admiration, what do you want? Books? Ho... |
for is not this a preparation for life? and is not life itself made up of certain other things than this? This is just as if an athlete should weep when he enters the stadium, because he is not being exercised outside of it. |
It was for this purpose that you used to practice exercise; for this purpose were used the halteres, the dust, the young men as antagonists; and do you seek for those things now when it is the time of action? This is just as if in the topic of assent when appearances present themselves, some of which can he comprehende... |
The reason is that we have never read for this purpose, we have never written for this purpose, so that we may in our actions use in a way conformable to nature the appearances presented to us; but we terminate in this, in learning what is said, and in being able to expound it to another, in resolving a syllogism, and ... |
Be prevented then, be hindered, fail in your purpose. But if we read what is written about action, not that we may see what is said about action, but that we may act well: if we read what is said about desire and aversion, in order that we may neither fall in our desires, nor fall into that which we try to avoid: if we... |
Another man is afraid that he shall not have power: you are afraid that you will. Do not do so, my man; but as you ridicule him who is afraid that he, shall not have power, so ridicule yourself also. For it makes no difference whether you are thirsty like a man who has a fever, or have a dread of water like a man who i... |
Or how will you still be able to say as Socrates did, "If so it pleases God, so let it be"? Do you think that Socrates, if he had been eager to pass his leisure in the Lyceum or in the Academy and to discourse dally with the young men, would have readily served in military expeditions so often as he did; and would he n... |
And is it not your business to be happy, to be free from hindrance, free from impediment? And could he still have been Socrates, if he had lamented in this way: how would he still have been able to write Paeans in his prison? In short, remember this, that what you shall prize which is beyond your will, so far you have ... |
But these things are out of the power of the will, not only power, but also a private condition: not only occupation, but also leisure. "Now, then, must I live in this tumult?" Why do you say "tumult"? |
"I mean among many men." Well what is the hardship? Suppose that you are at Olympia: imagine it to be a panegyris, where one is calling out one thing, another is doing another thing, and a third is pushing another person: in the baths there is a crowd: and who of us is not pleased with this assembly and leaves it unwil... |
"Vinegar is disagreeable, for it is sharp; honey is disagreeable, for it disturbs my habit of body. I do not like vegetables." So also, "I do not like leisure; it is a desert: I do not like a crowd; it is confusion." |
But if circumstances make it necessary for you to live alone or with a few, call it quiet and use the thing as you ought: talk with yourself, exercise the appearances, work up your preconceptions. If you fall into a crowd, call it a celebration of games, a panegyris, a festival: try to enjoy the festival with other men... |
We see with pleasure herds of horses or oxen: we are delighted when we see many ships: who is pained when he sees many men? "But they deafen me with their cries." Then your hearing is impeded. |
What, then, is this to you? Is, then, the power of making use of appearances hindered? And who prevents you from using, according to nature, inclination to a thing and aversion from it; and movement toward a thing and movement from it? |
What tumult is able to do this? Do you only bear in mind the general rules: "What is mine, what is not mine; what is given to me; what does God will that I should do now? what does He not will?" |
A little before he willed you to be at leisure, to talk with yourself, to write about these things, to read, to hear, to prepare yourself. You had sufficient time for this. Now He says to you: "Come now to the contest; show us what you have learned, how you have practiced the athletic art. |
How long will you be exercised alone? Now is the opportunity for you to learn whether you are an athlete worthy of victory, or one of those who go about the world and are defeated." Why, then, are; you vexed? |
No contest is without confusion. There be many who exercise themselves for the contests, many who call out to those who exercise themselves, many masters, many spectators. "But my wish is to live quietly." |
Lament, then, and groan as you deserve to do. For what other is a greater punishment than this to the untaught man and to him who disobeys the divine commands: to be grieved, to lament, to envy, in a word, to be disappointed and to he unhappy? Would you not release yourself from these things? |
"And how shall I release myself?" Have you not often heard that you ought to remove entirely desire, apply aversion to those things only which are within your power, that you ought to give up everything, body, property, fame, books, tumult, power, private station? for whatever way you turn, you are a slave, you are sub... |
But keep the words of Cleanthes in readiness, Lead me, O Zeus, and thou necessity. Is it your will that I should go to Rome? I will go to Rome. |
To Gyara? I will go to Gyara. I will go to Athens? |
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