An 18^th century drawing of Epictetus with an inscription, an elegiac couplet from the Greek Anthology, Book VII, epigram 676.  This is printed opposite the title page of John Adams’ copy of the Enchiridion published in London in 1715 which is now in the Boston Public Library.

               Δοῦλος Επίκτητος γενόμην καὶ σῶμ’ανάπηρος

                        καὶ πενίην Ἶρος καὶ φίλος ἀθανάτοις.

A slave, I was Epictetus, crippled in body and poor as Irus and I

was a friend of the gods.

(Irus is the beggar in Odyssey XVIII)

Current translation project

Discourses II  16 – 26

 

16.   That we are not careful in using our knowledge of good and evil.

 

16.1   Where is good?  In the rational will.  where is evil?  In the rational will.  Where is neither?  In those things beyond the scope of the rational will.

16.2   What do you mean?  Does anyone of us remember these statements in the outside world?  Does anyone on his own take care to respond in this way to everyday occurrences as he does to these questions?  Is it day?  Yes.  And is it night?  No.  And this, is the number of stars even?  I am not able to say.

16.3   When money is offered to you as an inducement, have you taken care beforehand so that you can give the necessary response, that this is not right?  Have you practiced responses to this sort of question or only to school sophisms? 

16.4   So why are you amazed if, where you have put your effort, you excel yourself while where you have made no effort, you remain the same?

16.5   Then why does a public speaker, knowing that he has written well, that he has learned what he’s written by heart, and having a fine voice, nevertheless feel anxious?  Because he is not satisfied with taking care to speak well.

16.6   What else does he want?  He wants to be praised by all those present.  He has been trained I being able to rehearse well but not in taking praise and blame.

16.7   For when did he hear from anyone what praise is, what blame is, and what the nature of each is?  Or what sort of praise should be pursued or what sort of blame should be avoided?  And when did he take care about the effort it takes to understand these propositions. 

16.8   Why are you surprised then if in what he has learned well, he excels others and in what he has made no effort he is the same as everyone else?

16.9   So the performer knows how to play the lute, sings beautifully and has a beautiful costume and nevertheless going on stage he trembles.  For he knows those things but he does not know, whether it is our own to manage or someone else’s, and if it is possible to stop it or not.  On account of this if he has been well applauded, he leaves the theater all puffed up.  But if he has been jeered his little balloon is pricked and shrivels flat.

16.11   We, too, experience something of just this sort.  What things do we admire?  Externals.  what do we put our time and energy into?  Externals.  And are we surprised that we are at a loss why we are fringtened or why we are filled with anxiety?

16.12   What happens then when we think that what is happening to us is bad?  It is impossible for us not to be afraid and not to be filled with anxiety.

16.13   And then we say. “Oh lord god, how can I escape this anxiety?”  Moron!  Don’t you have hands?  Didn’t god give you hands?  And now you sit there praying for your snot not to run?  Wipe your own nose and stop blaming god. 

16.14   What?  Has he given you nothing here?  Has he not given you endurance?  Has he not given you magnanimity?  Has he not given you courage?  Having such hands as these are you still looking for somebody else to wipe your nose?

16.15   But we do not take care of these matters nor pay attention to them.  Show me one person who is concerned with how he does something, who takes pains not to get something, but with the process of his own action.  Who goes around paying attention to his own actions?  Who, contriving a plan, does not do so in order to get that thing concerning which he made his plan?

16.16   And should the plan happen to work he is elated and says, “How did we manage to plan so well?  Didn’t I tell you, brother, that it’s not possible for anything that we work on not to come out just like this.”  But if it turns out otherwise, he turns into an abased wretch and finds nothing he can even say about what happened.  Who of us for the sake of this (for the sake of one’s own conduct in a situation rather than the outcome of the situation) has consulted a seer?

16.17   Who of us has slept in a temple for guidance about his conduct?  Who?  Show me one person, so I can look upon him, the one I have been searching for, for so long, the one nobly born to truths and noble by nature.  Either young or old, show me!

16.18   Why, then, are we still amazed if we have spent our time on material things and in regard to our behavior we are wretched, deformed, worthy of nothing, cowardly, careless and altogether a collection of misfortunes?  For our behavior has not been a concern to us and we are not concerned with it.

16.19   If we did not fear death or exile, but fear itself, we would take care with those things (death and exile) in order not to fall into what appears evil to us.

16.20   Here in school we are fierce and smooth-talking and if some small question concerning any of these matters should come us, we are well able to go into the arguments.  But drag us into practical usage and you will find that we are wretched shipwrecked sailors.  Let an anxiety-provoking image fall upon us and you will dind out what we have spent our time on and what we have practiced.

16.21   And furthermore because of want of practice we are always heaping one thing on top of another and building up something much greater than what is there.

16.22   Right away whenever I am sailing, leaning over the side and looking into the deep or scanning about at the wide open sea and not seeing any land, I am out of my mind imaging that I am going to have to drink up this whole wide sea if the ship goes down, nor does it occur to me that three pints will suffice to drown me.  What is it, then, that distresses me?  The open sea?  No, but my opinion about it.

16.23   Again, when an earthquake occurs, I imagine that the entire city is about to collapse on toop of me.  And isn’t a small stone sufficient to knock out my brains?

16.24   Then what are these things that weigh heavily upon us and drive us out of our minds?  What else than our opinions or beliefs and for the person who departs and sets out from his kinsmen and companions and his own haunts and his life with others, what is weighing heavy on him but his opinion?

16.25   and as for children, when one cries because his nurse has steppen away for a moment, he will forget everything if he gets a small cake.

16.26   So, do you want us to compare you to little children?  No, by Jove.  For I do not expect you will experience this (freedom from distress) through getting a small cake, but through right reason. 

16.27   What are these things?  They are what a man must attend carefully to all day long devoting himself to nothing that is the business of others, not to his companion or situation or his athletic exercises, not even to his own body, but remembering the law and keeping it before his eyes.

16.28   And what is this divine law?  That you must attend to your own business and must not lay claim to what belongs to others,  that you must use what has been given and not desire what has not been given, and if something is taken away from you, you must give it up freely and on the spot, being thankful for the time you had the use of it, unless you want to go crying to your nurse and momma.

16.29   What difference does it make what a man has a weakness for and on what he has a dependence?  How are you any better than a man balling about  his girlfriend when you are grieving about some wretched gymnasium and colonnade and a bunch of young louts, wanting to spend your time there?

16.30   And here comes somebody else grieving that he will no longer be able to drink the water of Dirce’s stream.  Because ther water of the Marcian aqueduct is worse and Dirce’s?  “But that’s what I was used to.”

16.31   And you’d get used to this Marcian water, too.  And if you become  passionately fond of it, cry about that, too, and try to compose a verse like one by Euripides,  “Ah, the hot baths of Nero and the Marcian waters.”  See how tragedy arises when everyday things happen to morons.

16.32   “When shall I see Athens again, and the Acropolis?”  You ninny, isn’t what you see every day sufficient for you?  Do you have something better to see or something greater than the sun, the moon, the stars, the wide earth and the sea?

16.33   If you have knowledge of the governor of the universe and understand that you are carrying him about within yourself, do you still long for some small stones and skillfully finished rock?  Therefore, when you are about to depart from this same sun and moon, what will you do?

16.34   Will you sit down and cry like a baby?  then what was it you were doing in school and what did you hear and what did you learn?  Why did you write yourself down as a philosopher when it was possible to write down the truth?  “I did a couple of introductory courses and read some Chrysippus, but I have never even passed by the front door of a philosopher.

16.35   How can I be a part of that thing of which Socrates partook both in his death and in the same way also in his life, and in which Diogenes shared?”  Do you know of any one of these philosophers who was crying or angry,

16.36   that he would not be seeing a certain man or a certain woman and that he would not be in Athens or in Corinth, but rather, should it so happen, in Susa or in Ekbatana.

16.37   When a person cn make his exit from the banquet of life any time he may please and no longer play the game, will he yet stay and complain?  does he not stay, as at any entertainment, for as long as it may be pleasant?

16.38   Perhaps it is possible for such a person to endure exile, either permanent exile or having been condemned to it, the exile of death.

16.39   Are you not wishing already to be weaned, as children are, and to take more solid food and not to cry for momma and nurse, crying for old women.

16.40   “But departing from these old women I will distress them.”  You will distress them?  Never, but rather the same thing that also distresses you will distress them, opinion.  What, then, are you able to do?  Remove that opinion.  And if they are going to do the right thing, they will remove their own opinion and if not they will lament because of their own failing.

16.41   Man, you must rack your brain to desperation to achieve a flow of progress, freedom and greatness of soul.  Life up your head as one set free from slavery,

16.42   Boldly look up at god and say,  Use me from now on as you wish.  I am in accord with y ou and equal to you.  I refuse nothing of what seems good to you.  Where you wish, lead.  Dress me in what clothing you wish.  Do you want me to be a ruler or a private citizen?  To remain here, to flee, to be poor, to be rich?  I will explain to men for you will these conditions.  I will show them the nature of each thing just as it is.

16.43   No, you will not do that.

16.44   Instead, sit in an ox’s belly and wait for your many to deed you.  If Hercules had sat around with the folks at home, who would he be?  Eurysthus and not Hercules.  And in roaming around the world, how many companions did he have, how many friends?  Yet none more dear than god.  For this reason he was believed to be the son of god and he was.  Therefore trusting in god he went about clearing the world of injustice and lawlessness.

Discourses II trans 4 15 11

16.45   But you aren’t Hercules and you can’t clean up the wickedness of others, nor are you Theseus, so that you could clean up the evils of Attica.  Clean up your own!  And from hence forward throw out, instead of Procrustus and Skiron, grief, fear, desire, envy, taking pleasure in wickedness, love of money, softness, loss of self-control.

16.46   It is not possible to throw out these evils unless one looks to god alone and is devoted to him alone and dedicated to his ordinances.

16.47   But if you want something else, you will follow a strong-man, moaning and groaning, always searching outside yourself for the flow of wellbeing and never able to find it.  For you are seeking it there where it is not, failing to seek it where it is.

 

17.     How it is necessary for us to adapt our preconceptions to specific situations.

17.1   What is the most important work of the person who philosophizes?  To throw out the opinion that he has knowledge.  It is useless for a person to try to learn those things which he thinks he knows already. 

17.2  Things that must be done, that must not be done, good things and bad and noble and base, all of us talk back and forth about these things and we go to the philosophers, we offer praises and blame, accusations and censures, and we judge and dispute about actions both noble and base.

17.3   For what reason do we go to the philosophers?  We go for what we think we do not know.  And what is that?  General principles.  For we wish to learn what the philosophers say because it seems accomplished and acute and some people want to learn in order to get profit for themselves from what they learn.

17.4   It’s laughable to think that a person wants to learn one thing but will learn another, or further that someone will make progress in what he does not learn.

17.5   This is the thing that deceives most people, the thing in fact that deceived the orator Theopompos, who reproaches Plato for wishing that each and every term should be defined.

17.6   For what does he say?  “Has no one of us, prior to you, ever used the terms ‘good’ and ‘just’?  Or did we have no understanding of what each of these terms means and did we just utter empty sounds without meaning?

17.7   Then who says to you, Theopompos, that we did not have natural thoughts and preconceptions about each of these terms?  But it is not possible to fit these preconceptions to their corresponding realities without analyzing them and considering careful this very thing - what kind of reality is it necessary to subsume under each of the preconceptions.

17.8   Say things of this sort then about doctors.  “Who of us did not speak of something being healthy or unhealthy before Hippocrates lived?  Or were we just emptily parroting back those sounds?”

17.9   For we have some preconception of what health is but we are not able to apply it.  So it is that one person says, “Fast,” and another says, “Give nourishment.”  And one says, phlebotomize and another, cup.  What is the reason for this?  Is it anything else than that a person is unable to fit his preconception of what health is to specific cases?

17.10   So the matter stands here in life.  Who of us does not speak of good and bad and suitable and unsuitable?  And who of us does not have a preconception of each of these things?  Then is the preconception thoroughly analyzed and complete?

17.11   Demonstrate that it is!  How shall I demonstrate it?  Adapt it well to specific realities.  To begin with Plato subsumes definitions under the preconception of what is useful, but you subsume definitions under the preconception of what is not useful.

17.12   Is it possible then for both of you to be right?  How could that be possible?  To the reality of the existence of the rich man doesn’t one person apply the preconception of the good, while another person does not?  And doesn’t the same hold for pleasure and for health?

17.13   To sum up, if all of us speaking these words are not carrying on an empty charade in respect to each and every one of them and we need no practice in the differentiation of preconceptions, why do we have differences?  Why do we have wars?  Why do we blame each other?

17.14   And why at this point do I bring up fighting with each other and talk about that?  If you yourself are adapting your preconceptions well, why is your life a mess, why are you thwarted at every turn?

17.15   Let’s put aside for now the second topic, the one concerning impulses or pursuits (ὁρμαί) and also the study of what is fitting in regard to these impulses.  And let’s also put aside the third topic, the one concerning the giving of assents.

17.16   I freely give up to you both these topics.  Let’s stay with the first one which provides an almost palpable demonstration of the fact that we do not rightly adapt our preconceptions.

17.17   Are you now wishing for things that are possible?  And are these things possible for  you?  Then why are you thwarted?  Why is your life a mess?  Are you not at this time trying to escape from the inescapable?  Why then do you fall into something you flee?  Why are you unlucky?  Why when you wish for something does it not happen and when you wish it not to happen, it does.

17.18   For this is the greatest demonstration of misfortune and unhappiness:  I want something and it doesn’t happen - and what is more wretched than me?  I want something not to happen and it does - and what is more wretched that me?

17.19   Medea could not endure this and came to the murder of her children.  There was at least great spirit in this for she had the necessary conception of what sort of thing it is when the very thing a person wishes to happen does not happen.

17.20   Medea says, “In this way then I will take vengeance on the one who wronged me, who outraged me.  And what profit is there for me in his suffering thus?  How then should it occur?  I kill my children.  But I shall also punish myself.  And what does that matter to me?

17.21   This is the breakdown of a soul having enormous strength.  For she did not know where the means lie to do what we wish;  that it is not possible to find them outside ourselves, nor to alter or adapt matters outside ourselves.

17.22  Do not desire the man and nothing of what  you want does not happen.  Above all, do not desire to live with him as his wife.  Do not desire to remain in Corinth.  Simply desire nothing else than what the god desires.  And who will hinder you, who will constrain you?  No one, any more that he would compel or constrain Zeus.

17.23   When you have such a one as your guide, when you wish with such a one and desire with such a one, why do you still fear that you will fail?

17.24   Devote your desire to the goal of becoming wealthy and your abersion to the goal of avoiding poverty.   You will fail to achieve your desire and you will fall into what you were avoiding.  But devote yourself to having good health.  You will have bad luck.  Devote yourself to power, honor, your native land, friends, children - in a word, to any of these things which are not under your power and you will be  unfortunate.

17.25   But give these things to Zeus and the other gods.  Surrender them to the gods and let the gods pilot the ship.  Let your desire and aversion be aligned with those of the gods.  How then will you still be unhappy?

17.26   If you are jealous, you lazy dolt, and sentimental and you are envious and you tremble and quake and you do not leave aside a single day in which you are not moaning about yourself and berating the gods, how can you still say that you have been educated?

17.27   What kind of education is that, man?  That you did some syllogisms?  Fallacies due to a change in the premises?  Don’t you want to unlearn all that, if possible, and to begin from the beginning recognizing that until now you haven’t even touched the real problems,

17.28   and starting from this point on, for the future, to rebuild your education step by step learning how nothing will happen if you don’t choose it and if you choose it, it will happen?

17.29   Give me one young man who has come to school to accomplish this purpose, a fighting contender in this project, saying, “Let all other matters bid me farewell, it is sufficient if it is permitted somehow to me to live without hinderance and without distress and to hold up my head in all matters as a free man, and to look up to heaven as a friend of god, fearing nothing of what is able to come to pass.”  Let someone of you point out such a man in order that I may say,

17.30   Come, young man, into your own, for it has been decreed by fate that you will adorn philosophy.  These possessions are yours, yours the books, yours these discourses.

17.31   Then, when he has labored and completed his training in this course, let him come back to me and say, “I want to be free of passion and free of perturbation but I also wish as a pious man and a philosopher and a careful man to know what it is proper for me to do in respect to the gods, and in respect to my parents, and my brothers, and my native country, and strangers.”

17.32   Come now to the second course, for this is also yours.

17.33   “But I have already mastered the second course as well.  What I wanted was to live in safety and without distress not only when I’m awake, but also when I’m asleep and drunk and melancholy.”  Man, you are a god.  You have great purposes.

17.34   But no, that is not how it goes.  Instead someone says, “I wish to know what Chrysippus says in his Treatise Concerning Pseudomenos.”  Why don’t you go hang yourself, you ninny, with a plan like that?  What use will it be to you?  In sorrow you will read all and trembling you will go to ask others.

17.35   And this is what you’ll do.  “Would you want me to read to you, brother?”  “And will you read to me, too?”  “You write wonderfully, good sir.”  And, “You write magnificently in the style of Xenophon.”  “So do you in the style of Plato.”

17.36   “And you, so superbly in the style of Antisthenes.”  Then, having discussed your hallucinations with each other you go back to the same things as before.  Your desires are the same as ever, your aversions the same, your pursuits are the same, your plans and your purposes, and you pray the say prayers and you are busy with the same busy work.

17.37   At that point you are not looking for people to give you advice, and you are vexed if you do hear them say what I’m telling you.  Then you say, “A sour, loveless old man.”  There I was setting out into the world and he didn’t break down balling or even say, “You are going away from me into such critical times, my child.  If you should survive, I will light lamps.”  Tell me, is this what a sweet old man full of love would say?

17.38   As a matter of fact it will be a huge accomplishment for a person like you to survive and worthy of lamps.  You must be immortal and unaffected by disease.

17.39   What I say, then, is this, that we must throw out this self-important opinion that we seem to know something worthwhile before we embark on this study, just as we do in the study of geometry or music.

17.40   Otherwise, we will not even get close to making progress in philosophy, even if we study our way through all the introductions and collected works of Chrysippus and Antipater and Archedemus.

 

18.      How we must struggle against appearances.

 

18.1   Every skill and faculty is held together and grows through its corresponding actions, the skill of walking by the act of walking, the skill of running by the act of running.

 

18.2   If you wish to be a reader, read, or a writer, write.  When you don’t read for thirty days in a row but do something else, you’ll see the result.

 

18.3   If you lie in bed for ten days, get up and try to take a good long walk and you will see how weak your legs are.

 

18.4   In general, then, if you want to do something, do that very thing over and over.  If you want not to do something, do not do it, but get used to doing some other thing in the place of that one.

 

18.5   The same thing holds in matters of the mind.  When you have become angry you must remember that this is not only bad for you, but that you cause the habit of being angry to grow. It is as though you were throwing dry sticks on a fire.

 

18.6   When you have been overcome by passion and hae had sex with someone, do not think that this is a single lapse, but that you are cultivating and nourishing your licentiousness.

 

18.7   For it is impossible that from actions the corresponding habits and skills should not be engendered if they were not present before of increased and strengthened if they were.

 

18.8   Of course philosophers say that moral weaknesses grow in just this way.  For when you once develop a desire for money, if reason should be applied to lead to the perception of evil, the desire is stopped and our ruling faculty is restored  to what it was in the beginning.

 

18.9   But if you bring in nothing for treatment, the condition no longer returns to its original status, but when it is inflamed again by the corresponding appearance, it is set afire for what it desires more quickly than before.  And when this happens repeatedly it becomes fixed from then on and the moral sickness strengthens the love of wealth.

 

18.10   For the person who has a disease, once the disease has passed, it not the same as he was before he became sick, unless in some way he was completely cured.

 

18.11   It’s like that also with the sufferings of the mind.  Certain traces and lash-weals are left on it, and unless someone clears these up completely, the mind, when it is whipped again in the same places, not longer develops weals but wounds.

 

18.12   So if you do not want to be prone to anger do not cultivate your habit of anger and do not throw anything around it that will make it grow.  As a first step calm yourself and then tally up the days in which yo have not been angry.

 

18.13   “Day in and day out I was in the habit of getting angry.  Now I’m skipping a day and in the future I’ll skip two days and then three days without getting angry.”  And if you skip thirty days, give a sacrifice to god.  The habit is omitted at first and then it is removed altogether.

 

18.14   “Today I was not distressed and I won’t be tomorrow or after that for two or three months, but I’ve been dealing with some things that are quite irritating.”  You must know that you are doing fine.

 

18.15   “Today seeing a beautiful man or woman I did not say to myself, “I sure hope somebody is sleeping with  that one,” and, “Her husband is a happy man,” for the man who says this is the happy one and is her adulterous lover.

 

18.16   And I did not paint a vibrant explicit picture in my mind of what happens next, how she is there beside me taking off her clothes and lying down right up against me.

 

18.17  I stroke my head and say, Wow, Epictetus, you have solved a subtle sophistic puzzle, one far more subtle than the Master Syllogism.

 

18.18   And suppose this young woman desires me and beckons me and draws me to her and is fondling me and snuggling up with me and . . . .  I abstain and I overcome.  THIS now is the sophism above and beyond The Liar, above and beyond The Quiescent.  THIS is worth being proud of, not formulating the master syllogism. 

 

18.19   How could this happen?  You must wish to be satisfied with yourself.  You must wish to be beautiful in the sight of god.  You must desire to e pure with your own pure self and with god.

 

18.20   Then when there befalls you some such fantasy as the young woman taking off her clothes, you must follow the advice of Plato who says, “You must turn to offering expiatory sacrifices.  You must go as a suppliant to the temples of the averting gods.”

 

18.21   It is sufficient if you retreat to the society of good and noble men, and whether you choose someone of them who is living or someone who is dead, you can compare his conduct with your own.

 

18.22   Go to Socrates and see him lying down right beside Alcibiades and mocking is youthful beauty.  Consider what sort of victory it was when he knew that he had conquered himself, what sort of Olympian victory and where he stood in the line of successors to Hercules.  So that someone, by the gods, might justly greet him, “Hail incredible one,” victor but not victor over these rotten boxers and pancratiasts nor over their kith and kin, the gladiators.

 

18.23   Having compared these things you will conquer the appearance and you will not be dragged away by it.

 

18.24   First, do not be carried away by the sharpness and suddenness of the appearance, but say, “Wait for me a little while, impression.  Let me see who you are and what you are about.  Let me examine you.”

 

18.25   And after that do not allow the impression to lead you on by painting vivid pictures of what is going to happen.  Otherwise, with you in tow, it goes wherever it may wish.  But rather bring in instead some other worthy and noble impression and throw out that filthy one.

 

18.26   And if you become accustomed to exercise yourself in this way, you will see what great shoulders you develop, what sinews, what tone.  As it is now, though, you have nothing more than trivial words.

 

18.27   This is the true athlete, the one who exercises himself against such impressions.

 

18.28   Wait, wretch, do not be snatched away.  The contest is great, the work is sacred.  It is for the sake of kingdoms, for the sake of truths, for the sake of well being, for the sake of tranquillity.

 

18.29   Remember god and call upon him as your help and defender, just as those at sea call upon the Dioscuri in a storm.  For what sort of storm is greater than the one from impressions powerful enough to drive out reason?  And the storm itself, what else is it than an impression?

 

18.30   Then take away the fear of death and bring on as much thunder and lightening as you wish and you will know how great is the tranquillity and the calm of your governing mind.

 

18.31   But if having been overcome you once start saying yo will wait till later to win the contest and then you do the same thing again, rest assured that at some point you will be so ineffective and weak that finally you will not know that you are in the wrong and you will begin to defend your actions.

 

18.32   And then you will confirm the truth of the words of Hesiod:

         

          The man who puts off his work is always wrestling with misfortune.

 

 

19.      Against those who take up the subject of philosophy in word only.

 

19.1   That which is called “The Master Argument” appears to have been set forth from principles such as the following.  A shared conflict exists in these three propositions against each other.  1) Everything that has come to pass is true by necessity and 2) What is impossible does not follow the possible and 3) A thing is possible which is not true and will not be true.  Diodorus, noting this conflict used the persuasiveness of the first two propositions for the demonstration of the proposition that nothing is possible that is not true and will not be true.

 

19.2   In addition someone will observe these things concerning two of the propositions, that something is  possible which is not true and will not be true, and that what is impossible does not follow what is possible but that everything that has come to pass is not necessarily true, just as the students of Cleanthes seem to hold, whom Antipater strongly supported.

 

19.3   And others hold the other two propositions, that what is not true and will not be true is possible and that everything which has come to pass is true by necessity, but that the impossible follows the possible.

 

19.4   But it is impossible to maintain all three of these propositions on account of the existence of a contradiction common to them all.

 

19.5   Therefore if someone should ask me, “What opinion about these matters do you hold?”, I will reply to him that I do not know.  But I have received such an account as this, that Diodorus held this opinion and that the adherents of Panthoides, I believe, and also Cleanthes, held another and those of Chrysippus a third.

 

19.6   “But what do YOU think?”  I was not made for this, for the close examination of my own impressions and for judging critically what has been said and forming an opinion of my own concerning the matter.  For this reason I am no different from the grammarians.

 

19.7   Who was the father of Hector?  Priam.  Who were his brothers?  Alexander and Deiphobos.  And who was their mother?  Hecuba.  this is the tale that I heard told.  But whom?  By Homer.  He writes about them and I think Hellanicos does too and also another such poet.

 

19.8   And what other, better, account do I have of the Master Argument?  But if I were a vain and empty man, I would, especially at a drinking party, astound the people there by enumerating all those who have written about it.

 

19.9   “Chrysippus has written amazingly in the first chapter of his book, Concerning Possibilities.  And Cleanthes has independently written about this and also Archedemus not only in his Treatise Concerning Possibilities but also separately in his Treatise Concerning the Master Argument.

 

19.10   “You have read the whole collection, have you not?”  “I have not read it.”  “Read it.”  And how will he be helped by reading it?  He will be sillier and more trifling than he is now.  What about you?  Did anything else happen to  you when you read it?  What opinion did you form on the subject?  Instead you will tell us about Helen and Priam and Calypso’s island which never existed and never will.

 

19.11   Well, in this it’s no big thing to hold onto the story without forming any opinion of your own.  But in the case of moral behavior we experience this same failure to form our own opinions much more so than we do in other areas.

 

19.12   “Speak to me about good and evil.”  All right, hear this:

         

          Carrying me from Troy the wind brought me to the Ciconians.

 

19.13   Of the things that are, some are good, some are bad, and some are indifferent.  Good things are the virtues and those things which partake of the virtues, and evil things are the evils and those things which partake of evil, and the indifferent things are those in between these, wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, pain.

 

19.14   “Whence do you know this?”  Hellanicus says it in his History of Egypt.  What difference does it make to say either that Diogenes wrote it in his Ethics or Chrysippus wrote it or Cleanthes?  The POINT is, have you examined any of this and formed your own opinion?

 

19.15   Show me how you act in a storm at sea aboard a ship.  Do  you remember this sort of distinction when the sail is whistling and straining and you are screaming and some bonehead somehow standing up right beside you says, “For heaven’s sake, tell me again what it was you were saying earlier.  It isn’t a vice of any sort to be shipwrecked, is it?  And surely it doesn’t partake of vice, does it?”

 

19.16   Wouldn’t you pick up a stave and beat him?  “What difference does it make to us and to you, man?  We are perishing and you come here acting like a child.”

 

19.17   And if Caesar summons you about a charge, remember this distinction if someone should come along as you are going in pale and shaking and say to you, “Why are  you trembling, man?  What is your case about?  Surely Caesar is not in there giving out virtue and vice to those who come before him?

 

19.18   Why are you mocking me and adding yourself to my problems?  Nevertheless, philosopher, tell me why you are trembling.  Isn’t it death of which you run the risk?  Or prison or torture or exile of disgrace?  For what else is there?  And surely none of these is a vice nor partakes of any vice?

 

19.19   What are the things that  you yourself were saying?  What’s it to you, man?  My own evils suffice for me.  You say well, because your evils do indeed suffice for  you - baseness, cowardice, and the pretensions you acquired sitting in school.  Why were you showing off accomplishments that belonged to others?  Why were you calling yourself a Stoic?

 

19.20   Observe yourselves, therefore, in the things which you actually do and you will find out what sect you belong to.  You will find that most of our are Epicureans, some Peripatetics and all, very feeble.

 

19.21   How is it that you take virtue to be equal to all other things or even in fact superior?  How me a Stoic, if you have one.

 

19.22   Where?  How?  You can find ten thousand who talk trivial Stoic talk.  And do these same people talk the Epicurean line any less well?  And the Peripatetics’ parlance, don’t they know that, too.

 

19.23   Who then is a Stoic?   Just as we say that a Phidian statue is one fashioned according to the technique of Phidias, so also I want you to show me somebody who is fashioned according to the convictions he talks.

 

19.24   Show me someone who is sick and happy, in danger and happy, dying and happy, exiled and happy, despised and happy.  Show me.  By the gods I want to see someone who is a Stoic!

 

19.25   But you don’t have one fashioned like that and ready to show?  Then at least show me one that’s being worked on, one that is leaning in that direction.  Do me a huge favor.  Don’t begrudge it to an old man to see a sight he hasn’t yet seen.

 

19.26   You think that you will show me the Zeus of Phidias of his Athena, statues of ivory and gold.  No, someone of you show me the soul of a man wishing to be of one mind with god and never again to blame either god or man, never to fail in his desire nor to fall into what he avoids, never to be angry, to envy, to be jealous.

 

19.27   And why should I beat around the bush - show me a man who wishes to become a god and in this wretched body, this corpse, thinks of his communality with Zeus.  Show me.  But you can’t.  Why do you delude yourselves and chet others?

 

19.28   And why do you put on an appearance that does not belong to you and walk around as thieves and robbers of names and deeds that do not in any way belong to  you?

 

19.29   I am your teacher now and you must be taught here by me.  And I have this goal, to make you accomplished in philosophy, unhindered, unrestrained, unfettered, free, prosperous, happy and looking to god in all things both small and great, and you are here to learn these things and to practice them.    

 

19.30   Why not complete the work, if you have the necessary goal and I have the necessary preparation and means to get you there?

 

19.31   What else remains?  Whenever I see a carpenter with wood lying beside him I look for finished work.  Here then is the carpenter and there the wood.  What else do we need?

 

19.32   Isn’t this thing teachable?  Yes, it is teachable.  Is it not in our power?  Yes, it alone of all things is in our power.  Wealth is not in our power, nor health, nor reputation nor in a word anything else except for the right use of impressions.  This alone is unhindered by nature, this is unfettered.

 

19.33   Why do you not complete your training?  Tell me the reason.  Either it’s a problem with me or with you or with the nature of the thing.  The thing itself is possible and it alone is in our poser.  That leaves a problem with either me or you or, more truthfully, with both of us.  What then can be done?

 

19.34   Do you want to begin at this very moment to work towards such a goal?  Let us leave behind the things that have happened tp to now.  Pnly let us begin.  Trust me and you will see.

 

 

20.      Against the Epicureans and the Academics.

 

20.1   Propositions both true and evident must of necessity be used even by those contradicting them.  And someone might consider it the very best evidence that something is clearly true, that the one speaking against it finds it necessary to use it.  So if someone should deny that there is anything that is universally true,

 

20.2   it is clear that he ought to deny the opposite, that nothing is universally true (because that affirms that it is universally true that nothing is universally true).  None of this is right,  you bozo.

 

20.3   For what else is it than to say that if something is universally true, it is false.

 

20.4   Again if someone comes up and says, “You must know that nothing can be known, for all things are  uncertain.”  Or another person says, “Believe me and you will benefit, a man must believe nothing.”  Or another again, “Learn this from me, sir, that it is impossible to learn anything.  I am saying this to you and I will teach it to  you if you wish.”

 

20.5   So, the people I’ve just mentioned. how do they differ from these - who could they be - these Academics, as they call themselves?  “Gentlemen, agree with us that no one agrees.  Believe us that no one believes anyone.”

 

20.6   So too Epicurus, whenever he wants to deny the natural tendency of people to associate with each other uses the very thing that is denied.

 

20.7   For what does he say?  “Don’t be fooled, my friends, don’t be led astray, don’t go completely wrong.  There is no natural tendency of rational creatures to associate with each other.  Trust me.  Those who say otherwise are cheating yo and deceiving you.

 

20.8   What concern is that to you?  Allow us to be deceived.  Surely you will not be worse off in any way if all the rest of us are persuaded that there is a natural tendency in us to associate with each other and that it is necessary to preserve this in every way?  In fact you will be much better off and much more secure.

 

20.9   Good sir, why are you working your brain on behalf of us?  Why are you spending sleepless nights on our account?  Why are you burning the midnight oil and then getting up with the chickens?  Why are you writing so many books?  Are you worried that some one of us may be deceived about the gods and think that they may have some small interest in men, or that someone might suppose that there is some other nature of the good than pleasure?

 

20.10   If this is how things really are, then just go tuck yourself into bed and sleep and live the life of a tape worm, the life you judge yourself worthy of:  eat and drink and fuck and shit and snore.

 

20.11   Why is it of any concern to you how other people will understand these ideas, whether sound or unsound?  What’s it to you?  You tend your sheep because they supply wool and milk and finally meat.

 

20.12   Wouldn’t it be an answered prayer if people were able to be charmed and bewitched by the Stoics so that they would fall into a stupor and provide themselves to you and your adherents to be clipped and milked?

 

20.13   You must say these things to your fellow Epicureans, but shouldn’t you hide them from other people and shouldn’t you most especially persuade those other people above all that we are social by nature and that self-control is a good thing, in order that all of them may be preserved for you?

 

20.14   Or is it necessary to preserve this natural social fellowship only for certain people and not for others?  For whom is it necessary to preserve it?  For those maintaining it in turn or for those disposed to transgress it?  And who are those more disposed to transgress it than you who have embraced such principles?

 

20.15   What then was it that awakened Epicurus from sleep and forced him to write what he wrote?  What else than the strongest thing of all among men,  nature, who draws men to her own will against their will and groaning. 

 

20.16   You must, nature says, write it down that you think there is no community among men and leave the opinion for others and be sure to stay up all night writing it and you yourself by your actions must become the accuser of your own principles.

 

20.17   Then should we speak of Orestes awakened from his sleep and driven by the Furies - and did not more baleful Furies and Pains drive Epicurus?  They kept awakening him from his sleep and would not allow him to rest but kept forcing him to blurt out his own evil deeds, just as madness and wine did the priests of Cebele.

 

20.18   So it is that nature in mankind is so strong and unconquerable a thing.  For how is it possible for a vine not to grow like a vine but to grow like an olive tree, or again for an olive tree not to grow like an olive tree but like a vine.  It is impossible, unthinkable.

 

20.19   It is not possible, therefore, for any man utterly to remove his muman emotions, just as it is not possible for those who are castrated also to have their male desires cut off.

 

20.20   So it was that Epicurus cut off all the usual functions of a man, his activities as master of his household and as a citizen and as a friend, but he did not cut off his human desires because he was not able to cut them off, no more so than the lazy Academics are able to throw out or blind their own senses though of all things especially they have striven to do this.

 

20.21   What else is this than misfortune?  A man receives from nature standards and rules for knowing the truth and does not employ his own skill further to add to these things and to work on remaining problems but entirely to the contrary, if anything is capable of conferring knowledge of the truth he tries to remove it and destroy it.

 

20.22   What are you saying, philosopher?  The sacred and the holy, what sort of thing do they appear to you to be?  If you wish, I will demonstrate that these things are good.  By all means, demonstrate it, so that our citizens may be turned around and honor the deity and may somehow cease being remiss in the most important matters.  Then do you have the demonstrations?  I do and I am thankful for it.

 

20.23   Since, therefore, these things are entirely satisfactory to you,  take the opposite, thet there are no gods and even if there are, they take no interest in mankind nor is there any communion between them and us.  The sacred and the hold spoken of among many people is a fiction of pretenders and sophists or, by Jove, of lawmakers for the terrorizing and restraint of wrong-doers.

 

20.24   Whoa, philosopher!  You have conferred benefit upon our citizens, you have recovered our young people inclining already towards contempt for the gods.

 

20.25   What’s this/  Are these things not sufficient for  you?  Then learn how how justice is nothing how modesty is stupidity, how a father is nothing how his son is nothing.

 

20.26   Whoa, philosopher!  Keep at it!  Persuade our young people, so that we may have more of them who feel the same things you feel and who say what you      say.  From these principles our well ordered cities have been strengthened in their growth.  From these principles Sparta came into being.  Lycurgus by means of them introduced cables of obedience through his laws and his plan of education, teaching that to be a slave is not base rather than that to be a slave is not honorable and that freedom is not honorable rather than that not to be free is not base.  The dead of Thermopylae died for these principles, and for what other sort of principles did the people of Athens leave their city?

 

20.27   Next, those spouting your principles marry and have children and participate in government and establish themselves as priests and prophets - of whom? - of those who do not exist - and they cross examine the Pythia in order that they might learn lies and then they explicate these oracles to others.  Oh, great shamelessness and deception.

 

20.28   Man, what are you doing?  You refute yourself day in and day out and do you not wish to put aside these cold principles?  When you eat, where do  you put   your hand, to your mouth or to your eye?  And when you take a bath, into what do you step?  When did  you ever call a pot a plate or a spoon a spit?

 

20.29   If I were a slave of one of these thinkers, and even if I were whipped by him daily for it,  I would torment him.  - Boy!  Throw a little olive oil into my bath.  -  I would throw some fish sauce into his bath and stepping back I’d pour some more on his head.  -  What’s this??  -  An impression came to me of olive oil, sir, indistinguishable from olive oil, exactly like olive oil.  I swear it by your good fortune.

 

20.30   -  Give me some soup here!  -  I would serve him a dish of vinegar.  -  Didn’t I ask you for the soup?  -  Yes, my lord.  This is the soup.  -  Isn’t this vinegar?  -  How is it vinegar, my lord, rather than soup?  -  Take a sniff of it!  Take it!  TASTE  IT !!  How do you know, sir, that our senses are not deceiving us?

 

20.31   If I had three, maybe four, like-minded fellow slaves, I would make him hang himself in despair or change his ways.  But as it is now they mock us by making full use of all the gifts of the natural world while they disparage those same gifts in their philosophy.

 

20.32   Grateful men and modest, too.  If nothing else, they eat their bread every day and have the effrontery to say, “We do not know if there is a Demeter or a Persephone or a Pluto.”

 

20.33   Not to mention that they enjoy the night and they day and the changes of the year and of the stars and the sea and earth and the fellowship of men, yet are not moved by any one of these, not in the least, but are eager only to vomit up their trivial problem of skepticism and so having given their stomachs a workout to retire to the baths.

 

20.34   How they will speak and about what and to whom and how their words will affect those who hear them they have not in the least considered.  Nor have they taken any care lest in some way a generous youth hearing these words might suffer something because of them or even, because of the experience, might lose all the seeds of his generosity.

 

20.35   There is no concern that we might be providing occasions to tosme adulterer for shameful behavior in addition to what he as already done, or that someone who is embezzling public funds might find a clever defense in these statements, or that someone who is neglecting his own parents might be emboldened and take some comfort from these words.  What do  you say is good or bad,

 

20.36   base or excellent?  These or those?  What do you say?  Is there still some point in arguing with any of  these people or giing them reasons or listening to theirs or trying to change their minds?

 

20.37   By Jove, you’d sooner hope to reform a bunch of catamites than these people who have become in this opinion so deaf and blind.

 

 

21.      Concerning inconsistency

 

21.1   People easily confess to certain bad things about themselves but not to others.  No one confesses that he is a dunce or blockhead, but on the other hand you hear everyone saying, “I wish I had the good fortune that my abilities deserve.”

 

21.2   But people easily admit that they are shy and say, “I’m a bit shy, I admit, but you will not find me a stupid man.”

 

21.3   No one will easily admit that he is intemperate nor will he say at all that he is unjust and certainly not envious or a meddling busybody and most people will easily admit that they are merciful. 

 

21.4   What, then, is the cause of this?  The most important cause is inconsistency and conflict about things concerning good and evil.  For some people have certan motives and others have other motives and practically anything that people imagine to be shameful they will not admit to at all.

 

21.5   For they imagine shyness and mercy to belong to the character of a kindhearted person and stupidity to that of a slave.  And they do not at all admit to anything out of tune with their own community.

 

21.6   In the case of most faults it is for this reason especially that people bring themselves to the acknowledgement of them, that they imagine there is something involuntary in them just as in shyness and mercy.

 

21.7   If someone should perhaps acknowledge that he has poor self control of his passions, he adds that he is in love so as to be excused as though for an involuntary action.  But people never imagine injustice to be involuntary.  There is something even in jealousy, as people think, of the involuntary.  On account of this and because of this people admit to jealousy. 

 

21.8   For a person living among such people - so disturbed that they do not know what they are calling evil or what evil condition they are in or if they are in an evil condition or why they are in it or how they will rest from these things - for this person I believe that it is worthwhile constantly to consider these questions:

 

21.9   “Surely I am not somehow one of these myself, am I?  What impression do I have of myself?  How do I employ myself?  For my part, surely not as a wise man and not as a master of myself?  And surely I am not one ever to say this, that I have been educated for whatever may come.

 

21.10   Do I have that awareness that is necessary in one who knows nothing, that I do in fact know nothing?  Do I come to the teacher as to the oracles, prepared to obey/  Do I come to school full of driveling stupidity to learn only the history of philosophy and to consider the books I didn’t understand before and if it should so happen, even teach them to others?”

 

21.11   Well sir, you have had a knockdown drag out fight at your house with your wretched servant, you have turned your place upside down, you have disturbed the whole neighbourhood and are you coming to me putting on the dignified reserve of a man of wisdom and from your seat are you criticizing how I have interpreted the text and telling me how in my comments on it I was perhaps somehow talking nonsense?

 

21.12   You have come full of ill will and in a wretched state because no word has come to you from your family back home and you sit here in the midst of the discussion thinking of nothing else than what your father and your brother are thinking about you.

 

21.13   “What are they saying about me back home?  They are thinking that now at last I’m making some progress and they’re saying that, “He will come home knowing everything.”

 

21.14   “I wanted somehow to go back after I’d learned everything but I saw that would require a great deal of hard work and no one sends me any news from home and the baths in Nicopolis are rotten and things are bad at the house with my servant and they’re bad here.”

 

21.15   Then they say, “Nobody benefits from school.”  Well, who comes to school?  Who, I ask, comes to be treated and cured?  Who comes to have his thinking cleaned and purified?  Who comes to learn what it is that he needs?

 

21.16   So why are you surprised if you go back home with the very same opinions you brought to school?  You didn’t come here to put them aside or to have them straightened out or to get others to replace them.

 

21.17   Where have you come from?  Not from near by.  So consider this carefully.  Are you getting what you came for?  You want to talk about theorems.  Why?  Doesn’t that make you sound sillier than ever?  Don’t your wretched theorems just provide you with material for showing off?  Aren’t you analyzing hypothetical syllogisms?  Don’t you examine the premises of The Liar syllogism and of hypothetical syllogisms?  Why then are you still upset if you have the very things you came here for?

 

21.18   “Yes, but if my child dies or my brother or it is necessary for me to die or to be tortured, how will such things help me?”

 

21.19   You didn’t come here for that did you?  Nor for that are you sitting beside me.  Nor for that have you ever burned the midnight oil or spent sleepless nights.  Or have you ever, walking in the colonnade, proposed for discussion any perception or impression of your own instead of a syllogism and then examined it with your friends?

 

21.20   When did you ever do that?  And then you say, “Theorems are useless.”  To whom?  To those who do not use them correctly.  For eye salves  are not useless to those who apply them when they ought to and as they ought to; emollients are not useless, jumping weights are not useless, but these things are useless to some people and again useful to others.

 

21.21   If you ask me now, “Are syllogisms useful?”, I will say to you that they are useful and if you wish I will show you how.  “Will they be useful then to me in some way?”  Look, you didn’t ask if they would be useful to you but if they would be useful in general.  Isn’t that true?

 

21.22   Let the person with diarrhea ask me if vinegar is useful, and I will say that it is useful.  Is is therefore useful to me?  I will say no it is not.  Be sure first to get your discharge squared away and your wretched sores scarred over.  And as for you ,gentlemen,  take care of the sores first, stop the discharges, calm your mind and make it quiet and bring it to school free of all distraction.  Then you will understand what sort of power reason has.

 

 

22.      Concerning friendship.

 

22.1   It is very likely that a person loves those things which he has earnestly pursued.  People don’t earnestly pursue anything which (they think) is bad, do they?  Not at all.  And they do not in any way earnestly pursue things that mean nothing to them, do they?  No, they do not pursue those things.

 

22.2   It remains then that people earnestly pursue only (what they think are) good thing.  And it they pursue something, they also love it.

 

22.3   Whoever is knowledgeable of what is good, therefore, would also know how to love.  But the person who is not able to distinguish the good from the bad and what is neither from both, how would that person ever be able to love.  It is only the wise person, then, who can love.

 

22.4   And how can this be so?  Someone says, I am a foolish man yet nevertheless I love my child.

 

22.5   I am amazed, by the gods I am, how right of the bat you have acknowledged that you are foolish.  What’s left for you?  Don’t you use your senses?  Don’t you distinguish impressions.  Don’t you provide yourself with food suitable for your body, and clothes, and a roof over your head?

 

22.6   Why then do you affirm that you are foolish?  Because, by Jove, you are often disoriented by impressions and you are disturbed and the persuasiveness of them gets the best of you.  And at one point you believe they are good and then that these same things are bad, and afterwards they they are neither.  And you are completely distressed, afraid, envious, disturbed and in short your life is turned upside down.  It is because of this that you acknowledge that you are foolish.

 

22.7   In love are you not changed?  But as for wealth and pleasure and things of this kind in general, do you believe at one time that they are good but at another time that they are bad?  And as for people, don’t you believe that the very same ones are good at one time and bad at another and don’t you feel friendly towards them at one point and unfriendly at another and don’t you praise them at one time and blame them at another?  “Yes, I do experience these very feelings.”

 

22.8   What about this?  Does it seem to you that a person who has been deceived about someone is his friend?  Not at all.  Nor does it seem to  you that when a person in a fickle, changeable state of mind picks someone as a friend, he is genuinely well disposed towards him?  “No, that person is not well disposed.”  And what about the person who first reviles someone and then says he’s wonderful.

 

22.9   “No, that person is not a friend.”  So, what about this?  Haven’t you ever seen puppies wagging their tails and playing with each other so that you say, “Nothing could be more friendly!”?   However, in order that you might see what friendliness is, throw into their midst a piece of meat and you will learn.

 

22.10   Now throw between yourself and your son some small scrap of land and you will learn how fast your son wants to bury you, and how fast you start praying your son was dead.  Then you’ll change your tune.  “What kind of wretched child have I brought up??  He’s been wanting to carry me out feet first for a long time.”

 

22.11   Throw between father and son a beautiful young woman and the old man loves her and so does that young one..And if you throw a scrap of fame between you or if it is necessary for some risk to be taken, you will be speaking the words of the father of Admetus:

    

     You wish to look upon the light, and do you think your father does not?

22.12   Do you think that Admetus did not love his own child when he as small and when he had a fever, that he was not in agony about it and saying over and over, “Would that I were sick rather than he.”  Then when some problem comes up and draws near, look at what sort of words are spoken.

 

22.13   Weren’t Eteocles and Polynices born of the same mother and father?  Weren’t they raised together and didn’t they love together, drink together, sleep together and often even kiss each other?  So that, I think, if anyone saw them, he would laugh at the philosophers for the paradoxes they speak about friendship.

 

22.14   But kingship falling between them like a piece of meat, observe what sort of things they say:

 

          Polynices - Where will you position yourself before the towers?

          Eteocles - Why do you ask me this?

          Pol. - I will meet you there face to face and kill you.

          Et. - Desire for this very thing also grips me.

 

Such are the prayers they pray.

 

22.15   For this is universally so - do not be deceived - that every living thing is devoted to nothing so much as to its own interest.  Whatever, therefore, may appear to a person to be interfering with this, whether this interference is a brother or a father or a child or a beloved or a lover, that one he hates, he accuses, he curses.

 

22.16   For there is nothing that one loves so much by nature as his own interest.  And this includes father and brother and family and native land and god.  For inded when the gods seem to us to be an impediment to our own interest,

 

22.17   we revile even them and we tear down their holy places and we burn their temples just as Alexander ordered the temple of Aesculapius to be burned when his beloved friend died.

 

22.18   For this reason if someone puts in the same place his interest and also the sacred and the beautiful and his native land and parents and friends, he preserves them all.  But if he puts his interest in one place and in another his friends and native land and relatives and justice itself, all these things collapse under the weight of self-interest.

 

22.19   For wherever there is an “I” and a “mine” there the animal must of necessity turn.  If it is in the flesh, there the governing power is located.  If in the moral purpose (will, προαίρεσις), there it is located.  If in external things, there.

 

22.20   If I am there wherever my moral purpose is, in that case only will I be a friend of the sort a friend must be and a son and father.  For it will be in my own interest to preserve trust and modesty, endurance and forbearance, and cooperativeness, and to guard these qualities.

 

22.21   But if I put myself in one place and the good in another, then the doctrine of

Epicurus grows strong stating that the good does not exist or if it does it is a matter of opinion.

 

22.22   On account of this ignorance the Athenians and the Lacedemonians fought each other and the Thebans fought both of them and the great king fought Greece and the Macedonians fought both of them and now the Romans fight the Getae and long ago the events at Troy came about for the same reason.

 

22.23   Alexander was the guest of Menelaos, and if someone had seen their kindness and courtesy towards each other, he would not have believed somebody who said that they were not friends. But there was thrown into their midst a neat little package, a gorgeous young woman, and for this there was war.

 

22.24   And now whenever you see friends, brothers who seem to be of one mind, do not from this observation declare anything about their friendship, not if they should swear to it, not even if they say it is impossible for them to be apart from each other.

 

22.25   The ruling faculty of a bad man is not to be trusted.  It is unstable, its judgement is poor and it is over powered at one time by one impression and at another by another.

 

22.26   But you must make a careful examination not of the usual things - whether these brothers were born of the same parents, raised in the same way, taught by the same tutor - but of this alone, where do they place their interest, in external things or in their moral purpose?

 

22.27   If in external things, you must not call them friends any more than you would call them trustworthy or reliable or courageous or free, but do not even call them men, if you have any judgement.

 

22.28   For it is not a necessary principle of human behavior that makes men bite each other and revile each other and take possession of quiet, solitary places and public squares alike as though they were the mountain home of wild beasts, and in the courts of law to display the behavior of thieves and bandits; nor does any necessary principle of human behavior make men intemperate, adulterous and corrupt or cause other such offenses as men commit against each other.  No, these failures and offenses are caused by this one principle alone:  placing themselves and their actions in those things which are not within the power of moral purpose.

 

22.29   But if you should hear that in very truth these are men who think that the only good is there where moral purpose lies and where the right use of impressions is, you need no longer be worried, whether it is a son and his father or brothers or long time associates and friends, but with this one fact in hand you must courageously declare that they are friends just as they are trustworthy and jsut as they are just.

 

22.30   For how could friendship be in any other place then where there is trust, where there is modesty, where there is the gift of excellence and of nothing else?

 

22.31   But he has taken care of me for such a long time, and does he not love me?  Where do you get that notion, bozo?  For he may well take care of you just as he sponges off his shoes or brushes down his horse.  What do you know?  Maybe when you lose your usefulness as a small vessel he will throw you away like a broken plate.

 

22.32   But it is my wife and we have lived together for such a long time.  Well how long did Eriphile live with Amphiaraus, mother of his children and of many at that?

 

22.33   But a necklace came between them.  And what is a necklace?  It is the opinion about such things.  And this opinion was savage and one that cut through love, one that did not allow a woman to be a wife, a mother to be a mother.

 

22.34   And whoever of you is eager to be a friend himself to someone or to have another for a friend, let him cut these savage opinions out let him hate them, let him drive them from his soul.

 

22.35   And thus it will be first of all that he will not rebuke himself, he will not be at war with himself nor change his course nor torture himself.

 

22.36   And then to other people like himself he will act altogether openly, and he will be tolerant towards those unlike him  - gentle, kind and forgiving as towards the ignorant, as towards those who fail in their understanding of the most important things.  He will be angry with no one, inasmuch as he fully understands the words of Plato that every soul is unwillingly robbed of the truth.

 

22.37   But if not, you will go right ahead doing all the other things friends usually do.  You will eat together, live together, travel together.  You may in fact be born of the same parents.  Snakes are no different.  They are not friends to each other nor will  you be as long as you retain these bestial and defiled principles.

 

 

 

 

23.    Concerning the power of speaking.

 

23.1   Anyone would read a book with more pleasure and ease if it were written in clearer, more well formed letters.  In the same way anyone would listen more easily to what is spoken if it were presented in graceful and at the same time fitting words.

 

23.2   It must not be said that there is no power or faculty of narration, for this is what an impious and at the same time cowardly man would say.  Impious because he dishonors the good things from god, just as if he were removing the good usefulness of the  power of vision or hearing or that of speaking.

 

23.3   In vain then did god give you eyes?  In vain did he mix into them spirit so powerful and ingenious that reaching far away it wipes up for itself the forms of the things that are seen?

 

23.4   And what sort of messenger is so quick and so careful?  In vain did he make the intervening air so full of energy and tension that through this tenseness (or tense medium) the seen image somehow arrives?  In vain did he make light without which there would be no use for any of the other things?

 

23.5   Man, do not be ungrateful and again do not be unmindful of greater gifts, but for vision and hearing an by Jove for life itself and the things that sustain life, for dry fruit, for wine, for olive oil give thanks to god.

 

23.6   But remember that he has given you something greater than all of these things, something to use them, to examine them, something to determine the worth of each thing. 

 

23.7   For what is it that tells about each of these powers (faculties) how much value there is in each of them?  It is surely not in any way each power itself, is it?  Surely you have not ever heard the faculty of vision saying something about itself or the faculty of hearing about itself?  [Surely wheat does not explain itself, or a horse or a dog?]  But these are appointed as ministers and slaves to serve the faculty which understands the u se of the impressions.

 

23.8   If you ask what the value is of each thing, who do you ask?  Who answers you?  How, then, is any other faculty able to be superior to this one which uses the other faculties as servants and itself examines each and every thing and pronounces upon it?

 

23.9   Which of these faculties knows what it is itself and who much it is worth?  Which of them knows when it is necessary for one to use it and when not?  What is the faculty that opens and closes the eyes, and turns them aside from what it is necessary to turn them towards and directs them to what it is necessary for them to be directed towards?  The faculty of vision?  No.  But the faculty of moral purpose.

 

23.10   what is the faculty that closes and opens the ears?  What faculty is it through which people are gossips and busybodies or again are uninterested in talk?  The hearing?

 

[23.11   It is nothing else than the faculty of moral purpose.  Therefore this faculty of moral purpose having seen that among all the other blind and deaf faculties there are none which are able to oversee anything else than their own functions in which they have been assigned to serve and obey this one which alone sees sharply and oversees the others, how much each is worth, and oversees itself, is anything else than this going to be revealed to as the most powerful?]

 

23.12   And what else does an open eye do than see?  But if a man ought to look at someone else’s wife and if so how, who determines that?

 

23.13   The faculty of moral purpose.  And whether one ought to trust what has been said or distrust it and if he believes it, whether he should be angry or not, who determines that?

 

23.14   Is it not the faculty of moral purpose?  But this skill of speaking and the adornment of words, if there is some specific faculty for it, does it do anything else, when a discussion occurs about something, than adorn what is said and arrange it as hair dressers do the hair?

 

23.15   Whether to speak is better or to remain silent and whether to speak this way is better or in that way and whether this is fitting or not fitting and the right occasion and use for each thing, what else determines this than the faculty of moral purpose?  Do you then want this faculty to come forward and affirm itself?

 

23.16  Why so?, says the faculty.  If the matter stands thus and it is possible for the servant to be better than the one he serves, the horse better that the rider or the dog than the hunter or the instrument than the musician or the servants that their king.  What is it that uses?

 

23.17  Moral purpose.  What manages all faculties?  Moral purpose.  What wholly destroys that man, at one time by starvation, at another time by hanging, at another time by falling from a precipice?  Moral purpose.

 

23.18   Then what is stronger than this among men?  And how is it possible for things that are hindered to be stronger than what is unhindered?  What things are formed by nature to impede the faculty of vision?

 

23.19   Both moral purpose and things not under the control of the moral purpose.  These same things which are not under the control of moral purpose may impede the faculty of hearing and likewise that of speech.  But what has been formed by nature to impede moral purpose?  Nothing which is not under the control of the moral purpose, but moral purpose itself distorting itself.  For this reason moral purpose becomes purely a vice or purely a virtue.

 

23.20   Then being so great a power put in charge of all the others, let moral purpose come forward and say to us that the most excellent thing of all is the flesh.  For if the flesh itself said that the most excellent thing was itself, no one would endure the flesh to say this.

 

23.21   Now what is it, Epicurus, that demonstrates these things.  Is it the composition Concerning the End, the one about The Nature of Things, the one Concerning the Canons?  Is it what caused you to wear a beard?  Is it the thing that caused you to write when you were dying that, “We are spending our last and at the same time our happiest day?”

 

23.22  Is it the flesh or the oral purpose?  Then do you maintain that there is something more excellent than the moral purpose and if you do, are you not insane?  Are you so blind and deaf to the truth?

 

23.23   What then?  Does anyone disparage the other faculties?  Let it not be so!  Does anyone say that they are of no use or advantage beyond the faculty of moral purpose?  Certainly not!  That is stupid, profane and without gratitude towards god.  Rather a person acknowledges the worth of each faculty.

 

23.24   For an ass has some usefulness but not as much as an ox.  A dog is useful but not as useful as a slave.  A slave is useful but not as useful as citizens and citizens are not as useful as magistrates.

 

23.25   Simply because some things are superior one must not disparage the usefulness which things provide. There is worth in the power of speech but it is not so great as that in the power of moral purpose.

 

23.26   When I say these things then, no one should think that I consider it right for you to neglect the faculty of speech or in fact the eyes or ears or hands or feet or clothes or shoes.

 

23.27   But if you should ask me, “What then is the most excellent thing of all things that exist?”, what should I say?  The power of speaking?  I cannot say that.  Rather it is the power of moral purpose, when it is right moral purpose.

 

23.28   For this is the faculty that uses the power of speaking and all the other powers both small and great.  When moral purpose is right a man becomes good and when it is not right a man becomes bad.

 

23.29   Through moral purpose we are unlucky, we are lucky, we blame each other, we are well pleased.  In a word, when moral purpose has escaped our notice and has been neglected, it creates unhappiness, but when it has received care and attention it creates happiness.

 

23.30   To diminish the faculty of speech and to say that in reality it is nothing is not only ungrateful towards those who gave it but also cowardly.

 

23.31   Such a person seems to me to fear that if there is some faculty of his kind, we may not be able to ignore it.

 

23.32   Such also are those who say that there is no difference between the beautiful and the base.  Then would a person seeing Thersites be affected in just the same way seeing Achilles?  Or would he see Helen in just the same way he would see any woman he happened to encounter?

 

23.33   But these are stupid and rustic matters belonging to those who do not understand the nature of each thing but fear that should someone perceive the superiority of such a faculty, straightway he would be overcome, seized and carried off.

 

 23.34   But this is the big thing, to leave to each his own faculty, which he has and in leaving it to see the worth of the faculty.  And to learn the best of all the things that exist, and to pursue this in all things, to be diligent about this, considering all other things ancillary to it, not however neglecting those other things so far as that is in our power. 

 

23.35   For also we must take care of our eyes, but not as though they were the most important thing, but rather we care for them for the sake of the most important thing, because this most important thing will not otherwise remain in accord with nature if it does not act rationally in these matters and choose certain things in preference to other things.

 

23.36   What is it that happens?  It is as if someone set out for his own native country and stopped at a beautiful inn which was so pleasing to him that he remained in the inn.

 

23.37   Good sir, you have forgotten your purpose.  You are not travelling to this place but through this place.  But this is a beautiful inn.  And there are many other beautiful inns and many beautiful meadows, all simply for passing through.

 

23.38   But this is your objective, to arrive in your native country, to set your household free from fear, to perform yourself the duties of the citizen, to marry, to have children, to fill the customary offices.

 

23.39   For you have not come to pick out more pleasant locations for us to go to, but to live in those places in which you were born and of which you are an established citizen.  Something such as this is what is developing here.

 

23.40   For since through discussion and such teaching as is imparted to you here it is necessary to bring yourself to your most accomplished state and to cleanse your own moral purpose and prepare and correct that faculty which makes use of the impressions;  and since it is necessary for this instruction to come about through the use of certain theorems and a certain way of speaking with theorems of a certain variety and sharpness;

 

23.41  it inevitably happens that some students are captivated by these things and remain there in the study of philosophy, one taken by the process of speech, another by syllogisms, another by intricate arguments, and another by some other such attractive in, and remaining there they rot away as though among the Sirens.

 

23.42   Man, your assignment is to prepare yourself to use the impressions which come to you in accordance with nature, not failing to hit the mark of your desires, not falling into what you would avoid, never being luckless and never a victim of bad luck, free, unfettered, uncompelled, in harmony with the governance of Zeus, conforming to it and well satisfied with it,  blaming no one, censuring no one and able to say these verses from your whole being, “Lead me, Zeus, and you, Fate.”

 

23.43   Having this assignment, then, if it should happen that some wretched phrase is pleasing to you or certain theories are appealing, will you remain and choose to put your roots down there forgetting the people at home?  And do you say these things are very fine?  Well, who says they’re not fine?

 

23.44   But only as being a way home, as inns are.  For what prevents you, though you speak like Demosthenes, from being unfortunate?  And what prevents you, though you solve syllogisms like Chrysippus, from being wretched, from grieving, being envious, being a nervous wreck and completely unhappy?

 

23.45   Not one thing!  You see therefore that these accomplishments are pleasant inns worth nothing in achieving your purpose which is something different.

 

23..46   When I say these things to certain people they think I am disparaging skill in speaking or in formulating theorems.  I am not disparaging any of that, but I am disparaging persisting uncomprehendingly in these matters and putting all one’s hope in them.

 

23.47   If someone who presents this teaching does harm to those who hear him, then consider me a harmful teacher.  I am not able, seeing something that is most excellent and most sovereign, to say that something else is so just to  please you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23.      Against a certain person of those not held in esteem by him.

 

 

24.1   Someone said to Epictetus, Often did I come to you wanting to hear you, but you never answered my question, and now,

 

24.2   if it is possible, I want you to tell me something.  Does it seems to you , Epictetus said, that just as there is a craft of anything else, there is also a craft of speaking and that the person who has it will speak skillfully, while the person who does not will speak poorly?

 

24.3   Yes, that seems to be so.  Therefore the person who, through speaking, is himself benefitted and is able to benefit others, would speak skillfully, but the person who is instead harmed and does harm to others would be unskillful in this craft of speaking?

 

24.4   And are all those listening benefitted from what they hear, or would you find among them some who are benefitted and some who are harmed?  You would find both, he said.  Then also in this case do those who listen skillfully benefit, whild those who listen unskillfully suffer harm?

 

24.5   The man agreed.  Just as there is a certain skill in speaking, is there also in the same way a skill in listening?  It seems that there is.

 

24.6   If you wish, consider this also.  To play an instrument harmoniously, whose job does this seem to be?  The musician’s.  And what about this?

 

24.7   To fashion a statue properly, whose job does this appear to be?  The sculptor’s.  As for observing skillfully, does it appear to you that no skill is needed?  This skill also is necessary.

 

24.8   Then if speaking properly requires skill, do you see that listening with benefit also requires skill?

 

24.9   And as to speaking perfectly and beneficially, if you wish, let us put that aside for the present since we both are far from all such accomplishments.

 

24.10   This point rather, it seems to me, everyone agrees on, that a person listening to philosophers needs a certain amount of practice in listening.  Or do you disagree?  What is it then that I should speak to you about?

24.11   Show me.  About what are you able to listen?  About  good and evil?  A good and evil what?  Horse?  No. Is it an ox?  No.  What then?

 

24.12   About a good and an evil man?  Yes.  What is a man?  Do we even know that?  What is his nature?  What are his thoughts?  Do we have ears open to this and if so to what extent?  But the nature of man, what do you think it is?  To what extent are  you able to understand me as I speak?

 

24.13   Shall I use a proof for you?  How should I do it?  For do you understand this, what a proof is or how or through what process it proves something?  Or do you understand what things are like a proof but are not a proof?

 

24.14   For do you know what is true or what is false?  What follows from a statement and what conflicts with it or is inconsistent or discordant?

 

24.15   But should I encourage you towards philosophy?  How could I demonstrate for you the conflicts among me on which they disagree about what is good and evil, advantageous and disadvantageous, and this in particular, how can I demonstrate what conflict is to someone who does not know?  Therefore show me what I shall accomplish in discussion with you.  Stir up my desire.

 

24.16   Fresh hay presented to a sheep stirs the desire in him to ear, but if you present him a stone instead of food, he will not be interested.  In the same way there are certain natural desires in us about speaking whenever someone seems to be listening and whenever he may show some interest.

 

24.16   But if he just sits there in the front row like a stone showing zero interest, how is it possible to stimulate desire in the speaker?

 

24.17   Does the grape vine say to the farmer, Tend me!  Certainly not.  But the vine itself indicating by its own appearance that it will be profitable to the farmer to tend it, calls him forth to give it care.

 

24.18  What persuasive, smart children are not asked to play with others and to run around and whoop it up with them?  But who wants to play with a jackass, and go around braying with him.  Even if he’s small, he’s still a little jackass.

 

24.19   So why aren’t you saying anything to me?, the man asked.   I have only this to say to you.  The person who has no idea who he is and whay he was born and into what kind of world and with what fellow creatures, and does not know what is good and what is bad, what is beautiful and what is ugly, and has not understanding of reasoning and critical thinking or of what is true and what is false and is not able to judge these things, this person will not desire or avoid according to nature, nor will he undertake, nor apply himself, nor assent, nor deny, nor suspend judgement in any way.  He is deaf and blind but he goes around thinking he’s somebody when he;s nobody at all.

 

24.20   But is this how things are for the first time?   Isn’t it the case that since the human race began, all the mistakes and misfortunes have come from ignorance?

 

24.21   Agamemnon and Achilles, what was the reason for their falling out with each other?  Was it not that they did not know what things were profitable and what were unprofitable?  Did not one say that it was profitable to return Chryse to her father, while the  other said it was not?  Because of these things did they not forget both who they were and for what they had come?

 

24.22   So, man, for what have you come?  To find mistresses or to fight?  To fight.  Who?  The Trojans or the Greeks?  The Trojans.  Ignoring Hector do  you draw your sword against your own king?

 

24.23   But do you, good sir (i.e. Agamemnon), put aside the business of the king on whom the people depend for their sustenance and in whose care so many things reside, and for the sake of a young girl do you confront the most formidable fighter among all the allies, who it is necessary in every way to treat with the greatest respect and to protect?   Are you worse even than some fancy high priest who keeps a stable of gorgeous gladiators for every need?  Do you see what sort of well being ignorance brings?

 

24.24   But I am a rich man!  Surely you are not richer than Agamemnon?  But I am also quite handsome.  Surely you are not more handsome than Achilles?  But I also have a fine head of hair.  And did not Achilles have hair more beautiful and also blond?  And he neither combed it elegantly nor put it into any shape. 

 

24.25   But I am strong.  But surely you cannot life a stone as gig as the one that Hector or Ajax could.  But I am nobly born.  Yes, well, your mother was not a goddess, not  was your father the grandson of Zeus.  And in any case how do these things benefit a man when he sits around balling over a little girl?  But I am an orator.

 

24.26   And was Achilles not?  Don’t you see how he spoke to those of the Greeks most accomplished in oratory, Odysseus and Phoenix, and how he rendered them speechless.

 

24.27   These are the only thigs I have to say to you and i was not happy to say them. 

 

24.28   Why?  Because you are uninteresting to me.  In what, as I bring you into full view, do I find interest - as for instance horsemen feel in the presence of a thoroughbred?  In your body?  Your posture is bad.  Your clothes?  You dress like a girl.  Your manner?  Your expression?  Well, no.

 

24.29   When you wish to hear a philosopher, do not say to him,  “You are telling me nothing,” but only show yourself ready to hear and you will see how easily you will arouse the interest of the speaker.

 

 

 

25.      That logic is necessary.

 

 

25.1   When one of those present said, Convince me that logic is necessary, Epictetus replied, Do you want me to prove this to you?

 

25.2   Yes.  In that case I must give an account in the form of a logical proof.  He agreed and Epictetus asked, But how would you know it if i were tricking you?

 

25.3   The man was silent and Epictetus continued, You see how you yourself agree that logic is necessary since without it you are not able to understand this very point, whether it is necessary or not.

 

 

 

26.      What is the characteristic property of error?

 

 

26.1   All error includes contradiction.  For since the person who errs does not wish to err but to be right, it is clear that he does not do what he wants to do.

 

26.2   What does the their want to achieve?  He wants what is profitable for himself.  If theft is unprofitable to him, he is not doing what he wants to do. 

 

26.3   But every rational soul is averse to contradiction, and as long as the soul does not comprehend the fact that it is in conflict, nothing prevents it from doing contradictory acts.  But if the soul does comprehend that it is contradicting itself, there is every necessity for it to stand away from the conflict and to flee it, just as there is a strong necessity to dissent from a lie when one perceives that it is a lie.  But as long as this does not appear to be the case, he assents to it as though it were true.

 

26.4   Potent in speech is that person who encourages and confutes and is able to demonstrate to each person the contradiction in which he errs, and can also explain clearly how that person is not doing what he wishes to do and is doing what he does not wish to do.

 

26.5   For if someone demonstrates this, the person himself, of his own accord, will withdraw from his error.  But as long as you do not demonstrate it, do not be surprised if he persists in it, for he does it taking it to be what is right from its appearance.

 

26.6   For this reason also Socrates, trusting in this power, says, I am not accustomed to call on any additional witnesses to what I say but I am satisfied always with the person I am talking with and I put the vote to him and call him as my witness and being one person, he is sufficient to me for all.

 

26.7   For Socrates knew by what the rational soul is stirred, for like a pair of scales it will incline and tip whether it wants to or not.  Demonstrate a contradiction to the rational ruling faculty and it will abandon it, but if you do not demonstrate it, you must blame yourself rather than the one who is not persuaded.