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

why do you say Socrates? Speak of the thing as it is: how strange that the poor body of Socrates should have been carried off and dragged to prison by stronger men, and that anyone should have given hemlock to the poor body of Socrates, and that it should breathe out the life. Do these things seem strange, do they seem unjust, do you on account of these things blame God? Had Socrates then no equivalent for these things? Where then for him was the nature of good? Whom shall we listen to, you or him? And what does Socrates say? Anytus and Melitus190 can kill me, but they cannot hurt me: and further, he says, “If it so pleases God, so let it be.”

But show me that he who has the inferior principles overpowers him who is superior in principles. You will never show this, nor come near showing it; for this is the law of nature and of God that the superior shall always overpower the inferior. In what? In that in which it is superior. One body is stronger than another: many are stronger than one: the thief is stronger than he who is not a thief. This is the reason why I also lost my lamp,191 because in wakefulness the thief was superior to me. But the man bought the lamp at this price: for a lamp he became a thief, a faithless fellow, and like a wild beast. This seemed to him a good bargain. Be it so. But a man has seized me by the cloak, and is drawing me to the public place: then others bawl out, “Philosopher, what has been the use of your opinions? see you are dragged to prison, you are going to be beheaded.” And what system of philosophy (εἰσαγωγήν) could I have made so that, if a stronger man should have laid hold of my cloak, I should not be dragged off; that if ten men should have laid hold of me and cast me into prison, I should not be cast in? Have I learned nothing else then? I have learned to see that everything which happens, if it be independent of my will, is nothing to me. I may ask, if you have not gained by this.192 Why then do you seek advantage in anything else than in that in which you have learned that advantage is?

Then sitting in prison I say: The man who cries out in this way193 neither hears what words mean, nor understands what is said, nor does he care at all to know what philosophers say or what they do. Let him alone.

But now he says to the prisoner, “Come out from your prison.”⁠—If you have no further need of me in prison, I come out: if you should have need of me again, I will enter the prison.⁠—“How long will you act thus?”⁠—So long as reason requires me to be with the body: but when reason does not require this, take away the body, and fare you well.194 Only we must not do it inconsiderately, nor weakly, nor for any slight reason; for, on the other hand, God does not wish it to be done, and he has need of such a world and such inhabitants in it.195 But if he sounds the signal for retreat, as he did to Socrates, we must obey him who gives the signal, as if he were a general.196

Well then, ought we to say such things to the many? Why should we? Is it not enough for a man to be persuaded himself? When children come clapping their hands and crying out, “Today is the good Saturnalia,”197 do we say, “The Saturnalia are not good”? By no means, but we clap our hands also. Do you also then, when you are not able to make a man change his mind, be assured that he is a child, and clap your hands with him; and if you do not choose198 to do this, keep silent.

A man must keep this in mind; and when he is called to any such difficulty, he should know that the time is come for showing if he has been instructed. For he who is come into a difficulty is like a young man from a school who has practiced the resolution of syllogisms; and if any person proposes to him an easy syllogism, he says: rather propose to me a syllogism which is skillfully complicated that I may exercise myself on it. Even athletes are dissatisfied with slight young men, and say, “He cannot lift me.”⁠—“This is a youth of noble disposition.”199 [You do not so]; but when the time of trial is come, one of you must weep and say, “I wish that I had learned more.” A little more of what? If you did not learn these things in order to show them in practice, why did you learn them? I think that there is someone, among you who are sitting here, who is suffering like a woman in labor, and saying, “Oh, that such a difficulty does not present itself to me as that which has come to this man; oh, that I should be wasting my life in a corner, when I might be crowned at Olympia. When will anyone announce to me such a contest?” Such ought to be the disposition of all of you. Even among the gladiators of Caesar (the Emperor) there are some who complain grievously that they are not brought forward and matched, and they offer up prayers to God and address themselves to their superintendents entreating that they may fight.200 And will no one among you show himself such? I would willingly take a voyage [to Rome] for this purpose and see what my athlete