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

not say, alas! I have pain in the ear. Do not say, alas! And I do not say that you are not allowed to groan, but do not groan inwardly; and if your slave is slow in bringing a bandage, do not cry out and torment yourself, and say, “Everybody hates me”: for who would not hate such a man? For the future, relying on these opinions, walk about upright, free; not trusting to the size of your body, as an athlete, for a man ought not to be invincible in the way that an ass is.121

Who then is the invincible? It is he whom none of the things disturb which are independent of the will. Then examining one circumstance after another I observe, as in the case of an athlete; he has come off victorious in the first contest: well then, as to the second? and what if there should be great heat? and what if it should be at Olympia? And the same I say in this case: if you should throw money in his way, he will despise it. Well, suppose you put a young girl in his way, what then? and what if it is in the dark?122 what if it should be a little reputation, or abuse; and what if it should be praise; and what if it should be death? He is able to overcome all. What then if it be in heat, and what if it is in the rain,123 and what if he be in a melancholy (mad) mood, and what if he be asleep? He will still conquer. This is my invincible athlete.

XIX How We Should Behave to Tyrants

If a man possesses any superiority, or thinks that he does when he does not, such a man, if he is uninstructed, will of necessity be puffed up through it. For instance, the tyrant says, “I am master of all?” And what can you do for me? Can you give me desire which shall have no hindrance? How can you? Have you the infallible power of avoiding what you would avoid? Have you the power of moving towards an object without error? And how do you possess this power? Come, when you are in a ship, do you trust to yourself or to the helmsman? And when you are in a chariot, to whom do you trust but to the driver? And how is it in all other arts? Just the same. In what then lies your power? All men pay respect124 to me. Well, I also pay respect to my platter, and I wash it and wipe it; and for the sake of my oil flask, I drive a peg into the wall. Well then, are these things superior to me? No, but they supply some of my wants, and for this reason I take care of them. Well, do I not attend to my ass? Do I not wash his feet? Do I not clean him? Do you not know that every man has regard to himself, and to you just the same as he has regard to his ass? For who has regard to you as a man? Show me. Who wishes to become like you? Who imitates you, as he imitates Socrates? “But I can cut off your head.” You say right. I had forgotten that I must have regard to you, as I would to a fever125 and the bile, and raise an altar to you, as there is at Rome an altar to fever.

What is it then that disturbs and terrifies the multitude? is it the tyrant and his guards? [By no means.] I hope that it is not so. It is not possible that what is by nature free can be disturbed by anything else, or hindered by any other thing than by itself. But it is a man’s own opinions which disturb him: for when the tyrant says to a man, “I will chain your leg,” he who values his leg says, “Do not; have pity:” but he who values his own will says, “If it appears more advantageous to you, chain it.” “Do you not care?” “I do not care.” “I will show you that I am master.” “You cannot do that. Zeus has set me free: do you think that he intended to allow his own son126 to be enslaved? But you are master of my carcass: take it.” “So when you approach me, you have no regard to me?” “No, but I have regard to myself; and if you wish me to say that I have regard to you also, I tell you that I have the same regard to you that I have to my pipkin.”

This is not a perverse self-regard,127 for the animal is constituted so as to do all things for itself. For even the sun does all things for itself; nay, even Zeus himself. But when he chooses to be the Giver of rain and the Giver of fruits, and the Father of Gods and men, you see that he cannot obtain these functions and these names if he is not useful to man; and, universally, he has made the nature of the rational animal such that it cannot obtain any one of its own proper interests, if it does not contribute something to the common interest.128 In this manner and sense it is not unsociable for a man to do everything for the sake of himself. For what do you expect? that a man should neglect himself and his own interest? And how in that case can there be one and the same principle in all animals, the principle of attachment (regard) to themselves?

What then? when absurd notions about things independent of our will, as if they were good and (or) bad, lie at the bottom of our opinions, we