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Page 38
7. A prayer of the Athenians: Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, down on the
ploughed fields of the Athenians and on the plains.--In truth we ought
not to pray at all, or we ought to pray in this simple and noble
fashion.
8. Just as we must understand when it is said, That Aesculapius
prescribed to this man horse-exercise, or bathing in cold water, or
going without shoes, so we must understand it when it is said, That the
nature of the universe prescribed to this man disease, or mutilation, or
loss, or anything else of the kind. For in the first case Prescribed
means something like this: he prescribed this for this man as a thing
adapted to procure health; and in the second case it means, That which
happens[A] to [or suits] every man is fixed in a manner for him suitably
to his destiny. For this is what we mean when we say that things are
suitable to us, as the workmen say of squared stones in walls or the
pyramids, that they are suitable, when they fit them to one another in
some kind of connection. For there is altogether one fitness [harmony].
And as the universe is made up out of all bodies to be such a body as it
is, so out of all existing causes necessity [destiny] is made up to be
such a cause as it is. And even those who are completely ignorant
understand what I mean; for they say, It [necessity, destiny] brought
this to such a person.--This then was brought and this was prescribed to
him. Let us then receive these things, as well as those which
Aesculapius prescribes. Many as a matter of course even among his
prescriptions are disagreeable, but we accept them in the hope of
health. Let the perfecting and accomplishment of the things which the
common nature judges to be good, be judged by thee to be of the same
kind as thy health. And so accept everything which happens, even if it
seem disagreeable, because it leads to this, to the health of the
universe and to the prosperity and felicity of Zeus [the universe]. For
he would not have brought on any man what he has brought, if it were not
useful for the whole. Neither does the nature of anything, whatever it
may be, cause anything which is not suitable to that which is directed
by it. For two reasons then it is right to be content with that which
happens to thee; the one, because it was done for thee and prescribed
for thee, and in a manner had reference to thee, originally from the
most ancient causes spun with thy destiny; and the other, because even
that which comes severally to every man is to the power which
administers the universe a cause of felicity and perfection, nay even of
its very continuance. For the integrity of the whole is mutilated, if
thou cuttest off anything whatever from the conjunction and the
continuity either of the parts or of the causes. And thou dost cut off,
as far as it is in thy power, when thou art dissatisfied, and in a
manner triest to put anything out of the way.
[A] In this section there is a play on the meaning of [Greek:
sumbainein].
[Illustration: THE CAPITOL AND TEMPLE OF JUPITER]
9. Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not
succeed in doing everything according to right principles, but when
thou hast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part
of what thou doest is consistent with man's nature, and love this to
which thou returnest; and do not return to philosophy as if she were a
master, but act like those who have sore eyes and apply a bit of sponge
and egg, or as another applies a plaster, or drenching with water. For
thus thou wilt not fail to + obey reason, and thou wilt repose in it.
And remember that philosophy requires only things which thy nature
requires; but thou wouldst have something else which is not according to
nature.--It may be objected, Why, what is more agreeable than this
[which I am doing]? But is not this the very reason why pleasure
deceives us? And consider if magnanimity, freedom, simplicity,
equanimity, piety, are not more agreeable. For what is more agreeable
than wisdom itself, when thou thinkest of the security and the happy
course of all things which depend on the faculty of understanding and
knowledge?
10. Things are in such a kind of envelopment that they have seemed to
philosophers, not a few nor those common philosophers, altogether
unintelligible; nay even to the Stoics themselves they seem difficult to
understand. And all our assent is changeable; for where is the man who
never changes? Carry thy thoughts then to the objects themselves, and
consider how short-lived they are and worthless, and that they may be in
the possession of a filthy wretch or a whore or a robber. Then turn to
the morals of those who live with thee, and it is hardly possible to
endure even the most agreeable of them, to say nothing of a man being
hardly able to endure himself. In such darkness then and dirt, and in so
constant a flux both of substance and of time, and of motion and of
things moved, what there is worth being highly prized, or even an object
of serious pursuit, I cannot imagine. But on the contrary it is a man's
duty to comfort himself, and to wait for the natural dissolution, and
not to be vexed at the delay, but to rest in these principles only: the
one, that nothing will happen to me which is not conformable to the
nature of the universe; and the other, that it is in my power never to
act contrary to my god and daemon: for there is no man who will compel
me to this.
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