by Epictetus
Lead thou me on, O Zeus, and Destiny,
To that goal long ago to me assigned.
But what say you, philosopher? The tyrant calls upon you to say something that is unworthy of you. Do you say it, or not say it? Tell me. — Let me think about it. — Think about it now? But what were you thinking about when you were attending lectures? Did you not study the questions, what things are good, and what bad, and what are neither good nor bad? — I did. — What conclusions were approved, then, by you and your fellows? — That things righteous and excellent were good, things unrighteous and disgraceful bad. — Life is not a good thing, is it? — No. — Nor death a bad thing? — No. — Nor imprisonment? — No. — But ignoble speech and faithless, and betrayal of a friend, and flattery of a tyrant, what did you and your fellows think of these? — We thought them evil. — What then? You are not thinking about the question now, nor have you thought about it and considered it hitherto. Why, what kind of inquiry is it, to raise the question whether it is fitting, when it is in my power to get for myself the greatest goods, not to get for myself the greatest evils! A fine and necessary question, forsooth, that requires a great deal of deliberation. Why are you making fun of us, man? Such an inquiry is never made. Besides, if you had honestly imagined that disgraceful things were bad, and all else indifferent, you would never have approached this inquiry, no, nor anything near it; but you would have been able to settle the question on the spot, by intuition, just as in a case involving sight. Why, when do you stop to “think about it,” if the question is, Are black things white, or. Are heavy things light? Do you not follow the clear evidence of your senses? How comes it, then, that now you say you are thinking it over, whether things indifferent are more to be avoided than things bad? But you do not have these judgements; on the contrary, imprisonment and death do not appear to you to be indifferent, but rather the greatest evils, and dishonourable words and deeds are not bad in your sight, but rather things that do not concern us. For that is the habit which you developed from the start. “Where am I?” you say. “In school. And who are listening to me? I am talking in the company of philosophers. But now I have left the school; away with those sayings of pedants and fools!” That is how a friend is condemned on the testimony of a philosopher. that is how a philosopher turns parasite, that is how he hires himself out for money, that is how at a meeting of the senate a man does not say what he thinks, while within his breast his judgement shouts loudly, no cold and miserable remnant suspended from idle argumentations as by a hair, but a strong and serviceable judgement, and familiar with its business by having been trained in action. Watch yourself, and see how you take the word — I do not say the word that your child is dead; how could you possibly bear that? — but the word that your oil is spilled, or your wine drunk up. Well might someone stand over you, when you are in this excited condition, and say simply,”Philosopher, you talk differently in the school; why are you deceiving us? Why, when you are a worm, do you claim that you are a man?” I should like to stand over one of these philosophers when he is engaged in sexual intercourse, so as to see how he exerts himself, what manner of words he utters, whether he remembers his own name, or the arguments that he hears, or repeats, or reads!
And what has all this to do with freedom? — Nay, nothing but all this has to do with freedom, whether you rich people so wish or not. — And what is your witness to this? — Why, what else but you yourselves who have this mighty master, and live at his nod and gesture, who faint away if he but look at one of you with a scowl on his face, paying court to the old women and the old men, and saying, “I cannot do this; I am not allowed”? Why are you not allowed? Were you not just now arguing with me and claiming that you were free? “But Aprulla has prevented me.” Tell the truth, then, slave, and do not run away from your masters, nor make denial, nor dare to present your emancipator, when you have so many proofs to convict you of slavery. And, indeed, when a man out of passionate love is under the compulsion to do something contrary to his opinion, all the time seeing the better thing but lacking the strength to follow, one might be all the more inclined to regard him as deserving pity, because he is in the grip of something violent, and, in a manner of speaking, divine. But who could endure you with your passion for old women and old men, wiping the noses and washing the faces of old women, corrupting them with presents, and all the while you are nursing them, like a slave, in some illness, praying for them to die, and asking the physicians if they are finally on their deathbed? Or again, when for the sake of these mighty and dignified offices and honours you kiss the hands of other men’s slaves, so as to be the slave of men who are not even free? And then, God save the mark, you walk around in your dignity as a praetor or a consul! Don’t I know how you came to be praetor, how you got your consulship, who gave it to you? As for me, I should not care even to live, if I had to owe my life to Felicio, putting up with his insolence and slavish arrogance; for I know what a slave is, who is prosperous as the world goes, and puffed up with pride.
Are you, then, free, says someone? — By the gods I wish to be, and pray to be, but I am not yet able to look into the face of my masters, I still honour my paltry body, I take great pains to keep it sound, although it is not sound in any case. But I can show you a free man, so that you will never again have to look for an example, Diogenes was free. How did that come? It was not because he was born of free parents, for he was not, but because he himself was free, because he had cast off all the handles of slavery, and there was no way in which a person could get close and lay hold of him to enslave him. Everything he had was easily loosed, everything was merely tied on. If you had laid hold of his property, he would have let it go rather than followed you for its sake; if you had laid hold of his leg, he would have let his leg go; if of his whole paltry body, his whole paltry body; and so also his kindred, friends, and country. He knew the source from which he had received them, and from whom, and upon what conditions. His true ancestors, indeed, the gods, and his real Country he would never have abandoned, nor would he have suffered another to yield them more obedience and submission, nor could any other man have died more cheerfully for his Country. For it was never his wont to seek to appear to do anything in behalf of the Universe, but he bore in mind that everything which has come into being has its source there, and is done on behalf of that Country, and is entrusted to us by Him who governs it. Therefore, see what he himself says and writes: “For this reason,” he says, “you are permitted, O Diogenes, to converse as you please with the king of the Persians and with Archidamus, the king of the Lacedaemonians.” Was it, indeed, because he was born of free parents? No doubt it was because they were all the children of slaves that the Athenians, and Lacedaemonians, and Corinthians were unable to converse with these monarchs as they pleased, but were afraid of them and paid court to them! Why, then, someone asks, are you permitted? “Because I do not regard my paltry body as my own; because I need nothing; because the law, and nothing else, is everything to me.” This it was which allowed him to be a free man.
And that you may not think I am showing you an example of a man who was solitary, and had neither wife, nor children, nor country, nor friends, nor kinsmen, who might have bent him and diverted him from his purpose, take Socrates and observe a man who had a wife and little children, but regarded them as not his own, who had a country, as far as it was his duty, and in the way in which it was his duty, and friends, and kinsmen, one and all subject to the law and to obedience to the law. That is why, when it was his duty to serve as a soldier, he was the first to leave home, and ran the risks of battle most ungrudgingly; and when he was sent by the Tyrants to fetch Leon, because he regarded it as disgraceful, he never deliberated about the matter at all, although he knew that he would have to die, if it so chanced. And what difference did it make to him? For there was something else that he wished to preserve; not his paltry flesh, but the man of honour, the man of reverence, that he was. These are things which are not to be entrusted to another, not to be m
ade subject. Later on, when he had to speak in defence of his life, he did not behave as one who had children, or a wife, did he? Nay, but as one who was alone in the world. Yes, and when he had to drink the poison, how does he act? When he might have saved his life, and when Crito said to him, “Leave the prison for the sake of your children,” what is his reply? Did he think it a bit of good luck? Impossible! No, he regards what is fitting, and as for other considerations, he does not so much as look at or consider them. For he did not care, he says, to save his paltry body, but only that which is increased and preserved by right conduct, and is diminished and destroyed by evil conduct. Socrates does not save his life with dishonour, the man who refused to put the vote when the Athenians demanded it of him, the man who despised the Tyrants, the man who held such noble discourse about virtue and moral excellence; this man it is impossible to save by dishonour, but he is saved by death, and not by flight. Yes, and the good actor, too, is saved when he stops at the right time, rather than the one who acts out of season. What, then, will the children do? “If I had gone to Thessaly, you would have looked after them; but when I have gone down to the house of Hades, will there be no one to look after them?” See how he calls death soft names, and jests at it. But if it had been you or I, we should forthwith have fallen into the philosophic vein, and said, “One ought to repay evil-doers in kind,” and added, “If I save my life I shall be useful to many persons, but if I die I shall be useful to no one”; yes, indeed, and if we had had to crawl out through a hole to escape, we should have done so! And how should we have been of use to anybody? For where could we have been of use, if the others still remained in Athens? Or if we were useful to men by living, should we not have done much miore good to men by dying when we ought, and as we ought? And now that Socrates is dead the memory of him is no less useful to men, nay, is perhaps even more useful, than what he did or said while he still lived.
Study these things, these judgements, these arguments, look at these examples, if you wish to be free, if you desire the thing itself in proportion to its value. And what wonder is there if you buy something so great at the price of things so many and so great? For the sake of what is called freedom some men hang themselves, others leap over precipices, sometimes whole cities perish; for true freedom, which cannot be plotted against and is secure, will you not yield up to God, at His demand, what He has given? Will you not, as Plato says, study not merely to die, but even to be tortured on the rack, and to go into exile, and to be severely flogged, and, in a word, to give up everything that is not your own? If not, you will be a slave among slaves; even if you are consul ten thousand times, even if you go up to the Palace — a slave none the less; and you will perceive that, as Cleanthes used to say, “Possibly the philosophers say what is contrary to opinion, but assuredly not what is contrary to reason.” For you will learn by experience that what they say is true, and that none of these things which are admired and sought after are of any good to those who attain them; while those who have not yet attained them get an impression that, if once these things come to them, they will be possessed of all things good, and then, when they do come, the burning heat is just as bad, there is the same tossing about on the sea, the same sense of surfeit, the same desire for what they do not have. For freedom is not acquired by satisfying yourself with what you desire, but by destroying your desire. And that you may learn the truth of all this, as you have toiled for those other things, so also transfer your toil to these; keep vigils for the sake of acquiring a judgement which will make you free, devote yourself to a philosopher instead of to a rich old man, be seen about his doors; it will be no disgrace to be so seen, you will not retire thence empty and without profit, if you approach him in the right fashion. Anyway, try it at least; there is no disgrace in making the attempt.
CHAPTER II
Of social intercourse
To this topic you ought to devote yourself before every other, how, namely, you may avoid ever being so intimately associated with some one of your acquaintances or friends as to descend to the same level with him; otherwise you will ruin yourself. But if there slips into your mind the thought, “He will think me unmannerly and will not be as friendly as he used to be,” remember that nothing is done without paying for it, and that it is impossible for a man to remain the same person that he used to be, if he does not do the same things. Choose, therefore, which you prefer; either to be loved just as much as you used to be by the same persons, remaining like your former self, or else, by being superior to your former self, to lose the same affection. Because if this latter alternative is the better choice, turn forthwith in that direction, and let not the other considerations draw you away; for no man is able to make progress when he is facing both ways. But if you have preferred this course to every other, if you wish to devote yourself to this alone, and labour to perfect it, give up everything else. Otherwise this facing both ways will bring about a double result: You will neither make progress as you ought, nor will you get what you used to get before. For before, when you frankly ed at nothing worth while, you made a pleasant ompanion. You cannot achieve distinction along both lines, but you must needs fall short in the one to the degree in which you take part in the other. If you do not drink with those you used to drink with, you cannot in their eyes be as pleasant a companion as you used to be; choose, therefore, whether you wish to be a hard drinker and pleasant to those persons, or a sober man and unpleasant. If you do not sing with those you used to sing with, you cannot be loved by them as you used to be; choose, therefore, here also, which you wish. For if it is better to be a man of respectful and modest behaviour than for someone to say of you, “He is a pleasant fellow,” give up all other considerations, renounce them, turn your back upon them, have nothing to do with them. But if that does not please you, turn about, the whole of you, to the opposite; become one of the addicts to unnatural vice, one of the adulterers, and act in the corresponding fashion, and you will get what you wish. Yes, and jump up and shout your applause to the dancer. But different characters do not mix in this fashion; you cannot act the part of Thersites and that of Agamemnon too. If you wish to be a Thersites, you ought to be humpbacked and bald; if an Agamemnon, you ought to be tall and handsome, and to love those who have been made subject to you.
CHAPTER III
What things should be exchanged for what things?
Here is a thought to keep ready at hand whenever you lose some external thing: What are you acquiring in its place? and if this be more valuable than the other, never say, “I have suffered a loss.” You have lost nothing if you get a horse for an ass, an ox for a sheep, a noble action for a small piece of money, the proper kind of peace for futile discourse, and self-respect for smutty talk. If you bear this in mind you will everywhere maintain your character as it ought to be. If not, I would have you observe that your time is being spent to no purpose, and all the pains you are now taking with yourself you are sure to spill out utterly and upset. Little is needed to ruin and upset everything, only a slight aberration from reason. For the helmsman to upset his ship he does not need the same amount of preparation that he does to keep it safe; but if he heads it a little too much into the wind, he is lost; yes, even if he does nothing by his own deliberate choice, but merely falls to thinking about something else for a moment, he is lost. In life also it is very much the same; if you doze but for a moment, all that you have amassed hitherto is gone. Pay attention, therefore, to your sense-impressions, and watch over them sleeplessly. For it is no small matter that you are guarding, but self-respect, and fidelity, and constancy, a state of mind undisturbed by passion, pain, fear, or confusion — in a word, freedom. What are the things for which you are about to sell these things? Look, how valuable are they? — But, you say, I shall not get anything of that kind in return for what I am giving up. — Observe also, when you do get something in the exchange, just what it is you are getting for what you give up. “I have a modest behaviour, he has a tribuneship; he has a praetorship, I have self-r
espect. But I do not shout where it is unseemly; I shall not stand up where I ought not; for I am a free man and a friend of God, so as to obey Him of my own free will. No other thing ought I to claim, not body, or property, or office, or reputation — nothing, in short; nor does He wish me to claim them. Had He so desired He would have made them good for me. But as it is, He has not so made them; therefore I cannot transgress any of His commands.” Guard your own good in everything you do; and for the rest be content to take simply what has been given you, in so far as you can make a rational use of it. If you do not, you will have bad luck and no good luck, you will be hampered and hindered. These are the laws that have been sent you from God, these are His ordinances; it is of these you ought to become an interpreter, to these you ought to subject yourself, not the laws of Masurius and Cassius.
CHAPTER IV
To those who have set their hearts upon living in peace
Remember that it is not merely desire for office and wealth which makes men abject and subservient to others, but desire also for peace, and leisure, and travel, and scholarship. For it makes no difference what the external object be, the value you set upon it makes you subservient to another. What difference, then, does it make for you to set your heart on the senate, or on not becoming a senator? What difference does it make to desire office or to desire not to hold office? What difference does it make to say, “I am in a bad way, I have nothing to do, but am tied to my books as though I were a corpse,” or to say, “I am in a bad way, I have no leisure to read”? For just as salutations and office-holding are among things external and those which lie outside the province of the moral purpose, so also is a book. Or for what purpose do you wish to read? Tell me. If you turn to reading merely for entertainment, or in order to learn something, you are futile and lazy. But if you refer reading to the proper standard, what else is this but a life of serenity? However, if reading does not secure for you a life of serenity, of what good is it? — Nay, it does secure me serenity, one says, and that is why I am discontented because I am deprived of it. — And what kind of serenity is this which any chance comer can impede, not merely Caesar, or a friend of Caesar, but a crow, a flutist, fever, thirty thousand other things? But no feature of serenity is so characteristic as continuity and freedom from hindrance.