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Page 76
33. To look for the fig in winter is a mad-man's act: such is he who
looks for his child when it is no longer allowed (Epictetus, iii. 24,
87).
34. When a man kisses his child, said Epictetus, he should whisper to
himself, "To-morrow perchance thou wilt die."--But those are words of
bad omen.--"No word is a word of bad omen," said Epictetus, "which
expresses any work of nature; or if it is so, it is also a word of bad
omen to speak of the ears of corn being reaped" (Epictetus, iii. 24, 88).
35. The unripe grape, the ripe bunch, the dried grape, are all changes,
not into nothing, but into something which exists not yet (Epictetus,
iii. 24).
36. No man can rob us of our free will (Epictetus, iii. 22, 105).
37. Epictetus also said, a man must discover an art [or rules] with
respect to giving his assent; and in respect to his movements he must be
careful that they be made with regard to circumstances, that they be
consistent with social interests, that they have regard to the value of
the object; and as to sensual desire, he should altogether keep away
from it; and as to avoidance [aversion], he should not show it with
respect to any of the things which are not in our power.
38. The dispute then, he said, is not about any common matter, but about
being mad or not.
39. Socrates used to say, What do you want, souls of rational men or
irrational?--Souls of rational men.--Of what rational men, sound or
unsound?--Sound.--Why then do you not seek for them?--Because we have
them.--Why then do you fight and quarrel?
XII.
All those things at which thou wishest to arrive by a circuitous road
thou canst have now, if thou dost not refuse them to thyself. And this
means, if thou wilt take no notice of all the past, and trust the future
to providence, and direct the present only conformably to piety and
justice. Conformably to piety that thou mayest be content with the lot
which is assigned to thee, for nature designed it for thee and thee for
it. Conformably to justice, that thou mayst always speak the truth
freely and without disguise, and do the things which are agreeable to
law and according to the worth of each. And let neither another man's
wickedness hinder thee, nor opinion nor voice, nor yet the sensations of
the poor flesh which has grown about thee; for the passive part will
look to this. If, then, whatever the time may be when thou shalt be near
to thy departure, neglecting everything else thou shalt respect only thy
ruling faculty and the divinity within thee, and if thou shalt be afraid
not because thou must some time cease to live, but if thou shalt fear
never to have begun to live according to nature--then thou wilt be a man
worthy of the universe which has produced thee, and thou wilt cease to
be a stranger in thy native land, and to wonder at things which happen
daily as if they were something unexpected, and to be dependent on this
or that.
2. God sees the minds [ruling principles] of all men bared of the
material vesture and rind and impurities. For with his intellectual part
alone he touches the intelligence only which has flowed and been derived
from himself into these bodies. And if thou also usest thyself to do
this, thou wilt rid thyself of thy much trouble. For he who regards not
the poor flesh which envelops him, surely will not trouble himself by
looking after raiment and dwelling and fame and such like externals and
show.
3. The things are three of which thou art composed: a little body, a
little breath [life], intelligence. Of these the first two are thine, so
far as it is thy duty to take care of them; but the third alone is
properly thine. Therefore if thou shalt separate from thyself, that is,
from thy understanding, whatever others do or say, and whatever thou
hast done or said thyself, and whatever future things trouble thee
because they may happen, and whatever in the body which envelops thee or
in the breath [life], which is by nature associated with the body, is
attached to thee independent of thy will, and whatever the external
circumfluent vortex whirls round, so that the intellectual power exempt
from the things of fate can live pure and free by itself, doing what is
just and accepting what happens and saying the truth: if thou wilt
separate, I say, from this ruling faculty the things which are attached
to it by the impressions of sense, and the things of time to come and of
time that is past, and wilt make thyself like Empedocles' sphere,
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