Epictetus

“ Is that shameful to thee which is not thine own doing, whereof thou art not the cause, which cometh to thee without thy will, like a headache or a fever? If thy parents were poor, or made others their heirs, or are alive and give thee nothing, are these things shameful to thee? Is this what thou hast learnt from the philosophers? Hast thou never heard that what is shameful is blamable; and that which is blamable ought to be blamed? But what man wilt thou blame for a work not his own, one that he himself never did! ”

“ Thus dost Thou harmonize into One all good and evil things, that there should be one everlasting Reason of them all. And this the evil among mortal men avoid and heed not; wretched, ever desiring to possess the good, yet they nor see nor hear the universal Law of God, which obeying with all their heart, their life would be well. But they rush graceless each to his own aim, Some cherishing lust for fame, the nurse of evil strife, Some bent on monstrous gain, Some turned to folly and the sweet works of the flesh, Hastening, indeed, to bring the very contrary of these things to pass. ”

“ What would Hercules have been had he said, How shall I contrive that a great lion may not appear to me, or a great boar, or a savage man? And what hast thou to do with that? if a great boar appear, thou wilt fight the greater fight; if evil men, thou wilt clear the earth of them. But if I die thus? Thou wilt die a good man, in the accomplishing of a noble deed. For since we must by all means die, a man cannot be found but he will be doing somewhat, either tilling or digging or trading or governing, or having an indigestion or a diarrhœa. What wilt thou, then, that Death shall find thee doing? ”

“ If, having considered these things, you are still in the mind to enter for the contest, then do so. But without consideration you will turn from one thing to another like a child, who now plays the wrestler, now the gladiator, now sounds the trumpet, then declaims like an actor; and so you, too, will be first an athlete, then a gladiator, then an orator, then a philosopher, and nothing with your whole soul; but as an ape you will mimic everything you see, and be charmed with one thing after another. ”

“ If by doom you mean that which is doomed to happen to us, then we are doomed in all things. But if only our afflictions are to be called doom, then what affliction is it that that which has come into being should perish? But we perish by the sword, or the wheel, or the sea, or the tile of a roof, or a tyrant. What matters it by what road thou goest down into Hades? they are all equal. But if thou wilt hear the truth, the way the tyrant sends thee is the shortest. Never did a tyrant cut a man’s throat in six months, but a fever will often be a year killing him. ”

“ O unhappy mind of thee! of all things alone neglected and untended. They will be slain by the Trojans and die! And if the Trojans slay them not, will they not still die? Yea, but not all together. What, then, doth it matter? for if it be an evil to die, it is alike evil to die together or to die one by one. Shall anything else happen to them than the parting of body and soul? Nothing. And when the Greeks have perished, is the door closed to thee? canst thou not also die? I can. Wherefore, then, dost thou lament: Woe is me, a king, and bearing the scepter of Zeus? ”

“ Zeus, ruler of nature, that governest all things with law, Hail! for lawful it is that all mortals should address Thee. For we are Thy offspring, taking the image only of Thy voice,2 as many mortal things as live and move upon the earth. Therefore will I hymn Thee, and sing Thy might forever. For Thee doth all this universe that circles round the earth obey, moving whithersoever Thou leadest, and is gladly swayed by Thee. Such a minister hast Thou in Thine invincible hands;—the two-edged, blazing, imperishable thunderbolt. ”

“ God grant it be no evil. And thus to thee every place may be a source of misfortune. Is it not enough for thee to be unfortunate where thou art, and not also across the sea, and by writings? Is this the security of thine affairs? But what if my friends which are abroad die there? What else than that creatures destined to die have died? And how dost thou desire to live to old age, and never to see the death of any whom thou lovest? Knowest thou not that in a great length of time many and various things must chance; that a fever shall overthrow one, and a robber another, and a tyrant another? ”

“ How shall one endure such fellows? Wretch, wilt thou not bear with thine own brother, who is of the progeny of Zeus, like a son sprung of the same seed as thyself, and of the same heavenly descent, but thou must straightway make thyself a tyrant, for the place of command in which thou art set? Wilt thou not remember who thou art, and whom thou rulest—that they are kinsmen, brethren by nature, the progeny of Zeus? ”

“ Again, if one should come and say, Know that nothing can be known, but all things are incapable of proof; or another, Believe me, and it shall profit thee, that no man ought to believe any man; or again, another, Learn from me, O man, that it is not possible to learn anything, and I tell thee this, and I will teach thee, if thou wilt—now wherein do such men differ from those—whom shall I say?—those who call themselves Academics? Assent, O men, that no man can assent to aught; believe us that no man can believe any one. ”

“ When thou art zealous about things not thine own, and hast cast away the things that are.” With such counsels and commands from Zeus, what wilt thou still from me? Am I greater than he? am I more worthy of thy faith? But if thou hold to these things, of what others hast thou need? But perchance these are none of his commands? Then bring forward the natural conceptions, bring the proofs of the philosophers, bring the things thou hast often heard, bring the things that thyself hast spoken, bring what thou hast read, bring what thou hast pondered. ”

“ Man, why dost thou take thought for us, and watch at night for our sakes? Why dost thou kindle thy lamp and rise early? why dost thou write so many books, lest any of us should be deceived about the Gods, in supposing that they cared for men? or lest any one should take the essence of the Good to be anything else than Pleasure? For if these things are so, then lie down and sleep, and live the life of a worm, wherefor thou hast judged thyself fit; eat and drink and cohabit and ease thyself and snore. What is it to thee how other men think concerning these matters, whether soundly or unsoundly? ”

“ When thou goest to inquire of an oracle, remember that what the event will be thou knowest not, for this is the thing thou art come to learn from the seer; but of what nature it is (if haply thou art a philosopher) , thou knewest already in coming. For if it be any of those things that are not in our own power, it follows of necessity that it can be neither good nor evil.
2. Bring, therefore, to the seer neither pursuit nor avoidance, nor go before him with trembling, but well knowing that all events are indifferent and nothing to thee. ”

“ Fool! dost thou seek a greater polity than that in whose affairs he is already concerned? Will it be greater if he come forward among the Athenians to say something about ways or means—he, whose part it is to discourse with all men, Athenians, Corinthians, Romans alike, not concerning means or ways, nor concerning peace or war, but about happiness and unhappiness, about good-fortune and ill-fortune, about slavery and freedom? And of a man that hath his part in so great a polity will you ask me if he shall attend to public affairs? ”

“ Thou dwellest in a chief city; it is thy part to rule, to judge righteously, to refrain from other men’s goods; nor must any woman seem beautiful to thee save thine own wife, nor vessel of gold or silver. Seek for doctrines in harmony with these words, from which setting out thou mayest with gladness abandon things so potent to attract and overcome. But if beside the seduction of these things we have sought out some philosophy like this that pushes us towards them, and confirms us in them, what shall come of it? ”

“ And how else at the waxing and waning of the moon, and the approach and withdrawal of the sun, do we behold such a change and reversal in earthly things? But are the plants and our bodies so bound up in the whole, and have sympathy with it, and are our spirits not much more so? And our souls being thus bound up and in touch with God, seeing, indeed, that they are portions and fragments of Him, shall not every movement of them, inasmuch as it is something inward and akin to God, be perceived by Him? ”

“ The tokens of one that is making advance: he blames none, he praises none, he accuses none, he complains of none; he speaks never of himself, as being somewhat, or as knowing aught. When he is thwarted or hindered in aught, he accuseth himself. If one should praise him, he laughs at him in his sleeve; if one should blame him, he makes no defense. He goes about like the sick and feeble, fearing to move the parts that are settling together before they have taken hold. He hath taken out of himself all pursuit, and hath turned all avoidance to things in our power which are contrary to nature. ”

“ Whosoever, then, hath understanding of good things, the same would know how to love. But he who is not able to distinguish good things from evil, and things that are neither from both, how could this man yet be capable of loving? To love, then, is a quality of the wise alone.
2. And how is this, saith one, for I am foolish, and none the less do I love my child. By the Gods! I wonder, then, how you have begun by confessing yourself to be foolish. For wherein do you lack? Do you not use your senses? do you not judge of appearances? ”

“ For concerning these things, the multitude are not to be believed which say that those only should be taught who are freemen, but the philosophers rather, which say that those only are free who have been taught. How is this? It is thus—Is freedom anything else than the power to live as we choose? Nothing else. Do ye choose, then, to live in sin? We do not choose it. None, therefore, that fears or grieves or is anxious is free; but whosoever is released from griefs and fears and anxieties is by that very thing released from slavery. ”

“ But if you hear, in sooth,170 that these men hold the Good to be there only where the Will is, where the right use of appearances is, then be not busy to inquire if they are father and son, or brothers, or have long time companied with each other as comrades; but, knowing this one thing alone, argue confidently that they are friends, even as they are faithful and upright. For where else is friendship than where faith is, where piety is, where there is an interchange of virtue, and none of other things than that? ”

“ Doth he call upon any other than God? Is he not persuaded, whatsoever things he may suffer, that he is being trained and exercised by God? Hercules, when he was exercised by Eurystheus, never deemed himself wretched; but fulfilled courageously all that was laid upon him. But he who shall cry out and bear it hard when he is being trained and exercised by Zeus, is he worthy to bear the scepter of Diogenes? Hear what Diogenes saith, when ill of a fever, to the bystanders: Base souls, will ye not remain? To see the overthrow and combat of athletes, how great a way ye journey to Olympia ”

“ If those things are true which are said by philosophers concerning the kinship of God and men, what else remains for men to do than after Socrates’ way, who never, when men inquired of him what was his native country, replied Athens or Corinth, but the universe. For why wilt thou say thou art an Athenian, and not rather name thyself from that nook alone into which thy wretched body was cast at birth? ”

“ If that which the philosophers say is true—that there is one principle in all men, as when I assent to something, the feeling that it is so; and when I dissent, the feeling that it is not so; yea, and when I withhold my judgment, the feeling that it is uncertain; and likewise, when I am moved towards anything, the feeling that it is for my profit, but it is impossible to judge one thing to be profitable and to pursue another, to judge one thing right and be moved towards another—why have we indignation with the multitude? ”

“ For under its stroke all Nature shuddereth, and by it Thou guidest aright the Universal Reason, that roams through all things, mingling itself with the greater and the lesser lights, till it 36 have grown so great, and become supreme king over all. Nor is aught done on the earth without Thee, O God, nor in the divine sphere of the heavens, nor in the sea, Save the works that evil men do in their folly— Yea, but Thou knowest even to find a place for superfluous things, and to order that which is disorderly, and things not dear to men are dear to Thee. ”

“ Are we justified in terming their view of the universe a materialistic one? and what was their doctrine of the destinies of the human soul? Now it is certainly the usual practice among writers on philosophy to reckon the Stoics as materialists, and it is unquestionably true that they denied the possibility of any existence which was not corporeal. Strong as they are on the supremacy of the human soul over the human body, sharp as is the line with which they divide these elements, yet the distinction is a moral, not a metaphysical one—each is an actual material substance. ”

“ Why, then, wilt thou still live, being such a man as thou art?
6. Doth any good man fear lest the means of gaining food fail him? They fail not the blind, nor the lame; shall they fail a good man? To the good soldier there fails not one who gives him pay, nor to the laborer, nor to the shoemaker; and shall such a one fail to the good man? Is God, then, careless of His instruments, His servants, His witnesses, whom alone He useth to show forth to the untaught what He is, and that He governs all things well, and is not careless of human things? ”