by Epictetus
[22] Fine words, you may say – but now I have been seized by the cloak and am being dragged downtown. Bystanders shout, ‘Hey, philosopher, what good did your views do you after all? Look, you’re being hauled off to prison and soon will be beheaded.’ [23] Tell me, what Introduction to Philosophy could I have read that would have saved me from being dragged away if a stronger man grabs me by the cloak; or could have kept me out of prison if I am assaulted by a gang of ten? [24] What philosophy has taught me, though, is to be indifferent to events beyond the will’s control. [25] Haven’t you profited in this respect too? So don’t look for help from philosophy except in areas where you have learned that help from it can be found. [26] As I sit in prison I can say, ‘Whoever laughs at me is deaf to the real meaning of words, can’t understand what they hear, and doesn’t even care to know what it is philosophers say or do. Let them be.’
[27] But the answer comes: ‘Come out of prison.’ If you have no further need of me in prison, I’ll come out; if you need me, I’ll go back in again. [28] ‘How long will you keep this up?’ For as long as the mind chooses to be with the body. But when the mind no longer consents, then you can take my body, and farewell to it. [29] Only, we must not part with it rashly or irrationally, or on trivial pretext. Because, again, God does not wish it. He needs us, he needs the world that we help populate. If he sounds the signal for retreat, though, as he did for Socrates, we must obey the signal as if it came from our commander-in-chief.
[30] Well, should we try telling this to the ignorant mob? [31] What would be the point? It’s enough if we are convinced of it ourselves. When children come up to us clapping their hands and shouting, ‘Today is good Saturnalia,’ do we say, ‘The Saturnalia is not “good”?’ Of course not, we clap our hands right along with them. [32] As for you, if you can’t change a person’s mind, realize that he is no more than a child – and clap hands with him. And if you can’t bring yourself to do that, then just keep quiet.
[33] It is essential that we remember this, so that, when troubles arise, we will know that it’s time to exhibit what we’ve learned. [34] A student fresh out of school who gets into difficulty is like someone practised in the solving of syllogisms; if anyone gives him an easy one, he says, ‘Give me a knotty one instead, I want a bit of practice.’ In the same way, athletes don’t like to be paired with pushovers. [35] ‘He can’t lift me,’ one says, ‘this other guy is better built.’ No, when the crisis comes, we groan and say, ‘I wanted to keep on learning.’ Keep learning what? If you didn’t learn these things in order to demonstrate them in practice, what did you learn them for?
[36] I suppose there might be some who are sitting here losing patience and thinking, ‘Why don’t I get to face the kind of challenge he did? I am growing old in a corner, when I could be winning a crown at Olympia! When will I be nominated for a similar trial?’
That is the attitude that all of you should adopt. [37] There are gladiators at Rome who get frustrated if they are not called out and matched with an opponent, all the while begging God and their own supervisors to be allowed to do battle one-on-one. None of you here shows anything like the same mettle. [38] Which is why I would like to escape to Rome to see my favourite wrestler in action, how he, at least, puts policy into practice.
[39] ‘These are not the circumstances that I want.’ Is it up to you to choose them? You have been given that particular body, these particular parents and brothers, this particular social position and place to live. You come to me hoping that I can somehow change these circumstances for you, not even conscious of the assets that are already yours that make it possible to cope with any situation you face. [40] ‘It is yours to choose the exercise, mine to manage it well.’ Right, but instead you say, ‘Don’t set me that kind of hypothetical argument, give me that one instead; don’t give me that compound proposition, give me that other one.’ [41] The time is coming when actors of tragedy will identify with their masks, their high-heeled boots, and their long robe. Wake up, those are props representing your circumstances and situation. [42] Say something so that we’ll know whether you are a tragic actor or the comic relief – because of the costume you two have in common. [43] Does the tragic actor disappear, if you take away his boots and mask and bring him onstage a mere shadow of his former self – or is he there still? If he has the right voice, he remains.
[44] So it is in life: take a governorship. ‘I take it and, when I take it, I show how a real philosopher acts.’ [45] Take off your senator’s robe and put on beggar’s rags – and let’s have a look at you then. ‘Well, so what? I still have the gift of a fine voice to show off.’ [46] What role do you appear in now? As a witness called by God. [47] ‘Step forward, you, and bear witness for me; you earned the right to represent me as a witness. Is anything good or bad that is independent of your will? Do I do any man harm? Have I put each man’s advantage under the control of anyone except himself?’ What witness do you bear God? [48] ‘I’m in difficulty, lord, and pitiable: no one cares about me, no one helps me; I’m the object of universal scorn.’ [49] Is that the witness you are going to bear, making a mockery of God’s summons, when he honoured you and judged you worthy to be his public spokesman?
[50] But what if someone in authority pronounces you godless and atheistic?52 How are you affected? ‘I have been judged godless and atheistic’ [51] Nothing more? ‘Nothing.’ If he had passed judgement on a conditional argument, and said, ‘The proposition that “If it is day, it is light” I declare to be false, what has happened to the conditional? Who is judged in this case? Who has been condemned – the conditional, or the person who got it wrong?’
[52] Well, then, who is this man who is empowered to pass judgement on you? Does he know anything about what is religious or irreligious? Has he studied and learned about it? Where, and from whom? [53] You know, a musician has no consideration for anyone who mistakes the highest string on the lyre for the lowest; and anyone who affirms that, in a circle, lines that extend from the centre to the circumference can be unequal is not going to win the respect of mathematicians. [54] So – a true philosopher is under no obligation to respect vulgar opinion as to what is religious or irreligious, what is just or unjust. What dishonour he brings on philosophers in general if he did! That’s not what you learned here.
[55] Wouldn’t you rather leave petty arguments about these subjects to do-nothings who sit in a corner and receive their little stipend, or get nothing and whine about it? Step forward and make use of what you’ve learned. [56] It isn’t more logic chopping that is needed – our Stoic texts are full of that. What we need now are people to apply their learning and bear witness to their learning in their actions. [57] Please, be the one to take on this character, I am tired in my teaching of invoking examples from the past, I want to be able to hold up an example from my own time.
[58] Consideration of these factors belongs to people who have the leisure for it; because man is an animal made for abstract thought. [59] But, for our honour’s sake, let’s not be seen studying them as if we were slaves who have run away. We should sit composed, without distraction, listening now to the tragic actor, now to the musician – not act like escapees who are moved to praise the performers while continually glancing nervously around, and who come apart completely if their master’s name is dropped. [60] It is beneath the dignity of philosophers to study nature in this spirit. For what does ‘master’ mean? Man is not the master of another man, only death and life are, pleasure and pain.
So bring Caesar and not these other things before me and I am resolute. [61] But when he comes in thunder and lightning brandishing these things, and I show fear in response, in effect I have been brought face to face with my master, just like a runaway slave. [62] Even while I have a reprieve from these factors, my attention to the performance is no better than the slave’s. I wash, drink, sing, but all in a spirit of gloom and foreboding. [63] If, however, I liberate myself from my master – which is to say, from the emotions that make my master
frightening – what troubles can I have? No man is my master any longer.
[64] Well, is it our duty to announce these truths to everyone? No, instead we need to make allowances for people without the benefit of education, and say to ourselves, ‘He is telling me to do this because he imagines it’s good for himself as well; so I can’t blame him.’ [65] Socrates himself forgave his jailer when he began to drink the hemlock, and the man broke down in tears, saying, ‘It shows great generosity of spirit for him to grieve for us.’ [66] Does he say to the jailer, ‘That’s why we wouldn’t let the women in!’ No, he only says that to his close friends – to those who can assimilate it. The jailer, though, he indulges as he would a child.
I 30 How to prepare for trouble
[1] In the event that you are haled before someone wielding the reigns of power, remember that there is somebody else looking down from above, and you have to answer first to him. [2] So he examines you: ‘How did you categorize exile, imprisonment, chains, death and disgrace, when you were in school?’
‘I said they were indifferent.’
[3] ‘And what do you call them now? They haven’t changed, I presume?’
‘No.’
‘Well, have you changed?’
‘No.’
‘Then define for me now what the “indifferents” are.’
‘Whatever things we cannot control.’∗
‘Tell me the upshot.’
‘They are nothing to me.’
[4] ‘Remind me what you thought was good.’
‘The will and the right use of impressions.’†
‘And the goal of life is what?’
‘To follow God.’
[5] ‘And do you stand by that now?’
‘I say it even now.’
‘Go, then, in confidence, holding fast to these convictions. You’ll see what it’s like to be a young person with an education, alongside people who have none. [6] I promise that you will feel somewhat like this: “Why do we serve such a long and difficult apprenticeship – in preparation to face nonentities? [7] Is this what ‘authority’ meant? Are the courtyards, the palace staff, the guards no more than this? Was this why I sat through so many lectures? It all amounts to nothing – and I was expecting to be overwhelmed.” ’
BOOK II
II 1 That confidence does not conflict with caution
[1] To some people, perhaps, what we philosophers say will appear impossible. But let us investigate, all the same, whether it’s true that in our daily lives we can act with both caution and confidence. [2] It seems impossible because the two are evidently opposites – and opposites (supposedly) cannot coexist. But what most people consider strange I think can be explained on the following hypothesis: [3] if we are talking about using confidence and caution on the same objects, we might fairly be accused of trying to reconcile irreconcilables. But our claim does not involve anything so strange.
[4] We have often said, and shown, that the use of impressions represents for us the essence of good and evil, and that good and evil have to do with the will alone. And if that is true, [5] then nothing is impractical in the philosophers’ advice to ‘Be confident in everything outside the will, and cautious in everything under the will’s control.’ [6] For if evil is a matter of the will, then caution is needed there; and if everything beyond the will and not in our control is immaterial to us, then those things can be approached with confidence. [7] And so, you see, that’s how we can be cautious and confident at the same time – and, in fact, confident owing to our caution. For, being on our guard against evils, we approach things whose nature is not evil in a spirit of assurance.
[8] Instead, however, we act like deer. When deer are frightened by the feathers, they seek safety in the hunters’ nets.1 Confusing ruin with refuge, they come to an ill-timed death. [9] Similarly, fear afflicts us in matters outside the will’s control, while we act confidently and casually in matters dependent on the will as if they were of no importance. [10] To be deceived or rash, to act shamelessly or with unbridled lust – none of this matters to us as long as we have success in affairs outside the will. Death, exile, pain and ill repute – there you will find the impulse to tremble and run away.
[11] So, you would expect when error involves the things of greatest importance, our natural confidence is perverted into rashness, thoughtlessness, recklessness and shamelessness. At the same time, all fear and agitation, we exchange our natural caution and reserve for meekness and timidity. [12] Transfer caution to the will and the functions of the will, and the mere wish will bring with it the power of avoidance. But if we direct it at what is outside us and is none of our responsibility, wanting instead to avoid what’s in the control of others, we are necessarily going to meet with fear, upset and confusion. [13] Death and pain are not frightening, it’s the fear of pain and death we need to fear. Which is why we praise the poet who wrote, ‘Death is not fearful, but dying like a coward is.’
[14] So be confident about death, and caution yourself against the fear of it – just the opposite, in other words, of what we are doing now. Now we shrink from death, whereas our views about death hardly concern us, we hardly give them a thought, and are completely apathetic. [15] Socrates used to call such fears ‘hobgoblins’,2 and rightly so; just as masks scare and frighten children since they haven’t seen them before, we react to events in much the same way and for much the same reason. [16]
What is a child? Ignorance and inexperience. But with respect to what it knows, a child is every bit our equal. [17] What is death? A scary mask. Take it off – see, it doesn’t bite. Eventually, body and soul will havetoseparate, justasthey existed separately before we were born. So why be upset if it happens now? If it isn’t now, it’s later. [18] And why now, if that happens to be the case? To accommodate the world’s cycle; because the world needs things to come into being now, things to come into being later – and it needs things whose time is now complete.
[19] Pain too is just a scary mask: look under it and you will see. The body sometimes suffers, but relief is never far behind. And if that isn’t good enough for you, the door stands open; otherwise put up with it. [20] The door needs to stay open whatever the circumstances, with the result that our problems disappear.3 [21] The fruit of these doctrines is the best and most beautiful, as it ought to be for individuals who are truly educated: freedom from trouble, freedom from fear – freedom in general. [22] The masses are wrong to say that only freeborn men are entitled to an education; believe the philosophers instead, who say that only educated people are entitled to be called free. [23] I will explain. What else is freedom but the power to live our life the way we want?
‘Nothing.’
Do you want to live life doing wrong?
‘No.’
Therefore, no one doing wrong is free. [24] Do you want to live your life in fear, grief and anxiety?
‘Of course not.’
So no one in a state of constant fear is free either. By the same token, whoever has gained relief from grief, fear and anxiety has gained freedom. [25] What confidence, then, can we have in our own dear legislators when they say that only freeborn people are entitled to an education, when the philosophers contend that only people already educated can be considered free? God will not allow it, you see.
[26] ‘What about a master who performs the ceremony of manumitting a slave? Is nothing accomplished by that?’
Certainly it is – the master has performed the ceremony; and, on top of that, he has paid a five per cent tax to the state.
[27] ‘But his slave – hasn’t he come by his freedom in the process?’
No more than he has instantly come by peace of mind. I mean, consider your own case: you have slaves, and the power to free them. [28] But what master, I wonder, do you yourself serve? Money? Women? Boys? The emperor or one of his subordinates? It has to be one of them, or you wouldn’t fret about such things.
[29] This is why I so often repeat to you the need to think about them and have
these thoughts ready to hand, namely, the knowledge of what you should treat with confidence, and what you should treat with caution – that you can treat with confidence whatever lies outside the will, but must treat with caution what lies within.
[30] But you say, ‘Didn’t I read to you, and didn’t you take note of my performance?’
[31] I noticed your clever phrases, yes – and you can have them. Show me instead how you practise desire and aversion to get what you want and avoid what you do not want. As for those treatises of yours, if you have any sense, you will go and burn them.
[32] ‘But wasn’t Socrates a writer, and a prolific one at that?’4 Yes, but for what purpose? Since there wasn’t always someone available whose ideas he could examine or who could examine Socrates’ own in turn, sometimes he would test and examine himself, forever subjecting to scrutiny one assumption or another. [33] That’s the writing of a real philosopher; whereas pretty phrases in dialogue form he leaves to others – aesthetes∗ and idlers who lie about and have no patience with logical reasoning because they’re too stupid.
[34] Even now, if the opportunity presents itself, I know you will go off to read and make public those compositions, and you’ll pride yourself on being fluent in the dialogue form. [35] Don’t do it, man. What I would rather hear from you is, ‘Look how I don’t fail in my desires, or have experiences I don’t want. I’ll prove it to you in the case of death, I’ll prove it to you in the case of physical pain, in the case of prison, of condemnation, and ill repute.’ That’s the real test of a youth fit to finish school. [36] Forget about that other stuff, don’t let people hear you giving public recitations; and even if someone praises you, restrain yourself, be content to look like a nobody or know-nothing.