Discourses by Epictetus (good books to read for beginners txt) 📕

if I am of such a disposition; but he goes forth and tells all men what he has heard. Then if I hear what has been done, if I be a man like him, I resolve to be revenged, I divulge what he has told me; I both disturb others and am disturbed myself. But if I remember that one man does not injure another, and that every man’s acts injure and profit him, I secure this, that I do not any thing like him, but still I suffer what I do suffer through my own silly talk.

“True: but it is unfair when you have heard the secrets of your neighbour for you in your turn to communicate nothing to him.”⁠—Did I ask you for your secrets, my man? did you communicate your affairs on certain terms, that you should in return hear mine also? If you are a babbler and think that all who meet you are friends, do you wish me also to be like you? But why, if you did well in entrusting your affairs to me, and it is not well for me to entrust mine to you, do you wish me to be so rash? It is just the same as if I had a cask which is watertight, and you one with a hole in it, and you should come and deposit with me your wine that I might put it into my cask, and then should complain that I also did not entrust my wine to you, for you have a cask with a hole in it. How then is there any equality here? You entrusted your affairs to a man who is faithful, and modest, to a man who thinks that his own actions alone are injurious and (or) useful, and that nothing external is. Would you have me entrust mine to you, a man who has dishonored his own faculty of will, and who wishes to gain some small bit of money or some office or promotion in the court (emperor’s palace), even if you should be going to murder your own children, like Medea? Where (in what) is this equality (fairness)? But show yourself to me to be faithful, modest, and steady: show me that you have friendly opinions; show that your cask has no hole in it; and you will see how I shall not wait for you to trust me with your affairs, but I myself shall come to you and ask you to hear mine. For who does not choose to make use of a good vessel? Who does not value a benevolent and faithful adviser? Who will not willingly receive a man who is ready to bear a share, as we may say, of the difficulty of his circumstances, and by this very act to ease the burden, by taking a part of it.

“True: but I trust you; you do not trust me.”⁠—In the first place, not even do you trust me, but you are a babbler, and for this reason you cannot hold anything; for indeed, if it is true that you trust me, trust your affairs to me only; but now whenever you see a man at leisure, you seat yourself by him and say: “Brother, I have no friend more benevolent than you nor dearer; I request you to listen to my affairs.” And you do this even to those who are not known to you at all. But if you really trust me, it is plain that you trust me because I am faithful and modest, not because I have told my affairs to you. Allow me then to have the same opinion about you. Show me that if one man tells his affairs to another, he who tells them is faithful and modest. For if this were so, I would go about and tell my affairs to every man, if that would make me faithful and modest. But the thing is not so, and it requires no common opinions (principles). If then you see a man who is busy about things not dependent on his will and subjecting his will to them, you must know that this man has ten thousand persons to compel and hinder him. He has no need of pitch or the wheel to compel him to declare what he knows:795 but a little girl’s nod, if it should so happen, will move him, the blandishment of one who belongs to Caesar’s court, desire of a magistracy or of an inheritance, and things without end of that sort. You must remember then among general principles that secret discourses (discourses about secret matters) require fidelity and corresponding opinions. But where can we now find these easily? Or if you cannot answer that question, let someone point out to me a man who can say: I care only about the things which are my own, the things which are not subject to hindrance, the things which are by nature free. This I hold to be the nature of the good: but let all other things be as they are allowed; I do not concern myself.

Endnotes

Aulus Gellius (Attic Nights i 2 and xvii 19) speaks of the Discourses of Epictetus being arranged by Arrian; and Gellius (Attic Nights xix 1) speaks of a fifth book of these Discourses, but only four are extant and some fragments. The whole number of books was eight, as Photius (Codex 58) says. There is also extant an Enchiridion or Manual, consisting of short pieces selected from the Discourses of Epictetus; and there is the valuable commentary on the Enchiridion written by Simplicius in the sixth century AD and in the reign of Justinian.

Arrian explains in a manner what he means by saying that he did not write these Discourses of Epictetus; but he does not explain his meaning when he says that he did not