A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the EncheiridionEpictetus
Philosophy
A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion
Epictetus
Philosophy -- Early works to 1800
anxious about things internal. Are we anxious about not forming a false
opinion? No, for this is in my power. About not exerting our movements
contrary to nature? No, not even about this. When then you see a man
pale, as the physician says, judging from the complexion, this man’s
spleen is disordered, that man’s liver; so also say, this man’s desire
and aversion are disordered, he is not in the right way, he is in a
fever. For nothing else changes the color, or causes trembling or
chattering of the teeth, or causes a man to
Sink in his knees and shift from foot to foot.
Iliad, xiii., 281.
For this reason, when Zeno was going to meet Antigonus, he was not
anxious, for Antigonus had no power over any of the things which Zeno
admired; and Zeno did not care for those things over which Antigonus
had power. But Antigonus was anxious when he was going to meet Zeno,
for he wished to please Zeno; but this was a thing external (out of his
power). But Zeno did not want to please Antigonus; for no man who is
skilled in any art wishes to please one who has no such skill.
Should I try to please you? Why? I suppose, you know the measure by
which one man is estimated by another. Have you taken pains to learn
what is a good man and what is a bad man, and how a man becomes one or
the other? Why then are you not good yourself? How, he replies, am I
not good? Because no good man laments or groans or weeps, no good man
is pale and trembles, or says, How will he receive me, how will he
listen to me? Slave, just as it pleases him. Why do you care about what
belongs to others? Is it now his fault if he receives badly what
proceeds from you? Certainly. And is it possible that a fault should be
one man’s, and the evil in another? No. Why then are you anxious about
that which belongs to others? Your question is reasonable; but I am
anxious how I shall speak to him. Cannot you then speak to him as you
choose? But I fear that I may be disconcerted? If you are going to
write the name of Dion, are you afraid that you would be disconcerted?
By no means. Why? is it not because you have practised writing the
name? Certainly. Well, if you were going to read the name, would you
not feel the same? and why? Because every art has a certain strength
and confidence in the things which belong to it. Have you then not
practised speaking? and what else did you learn in the school?
Syllogisms and sophistical propositions? For what purpose? was it not
for the purpose of discoursing skilfully? and is not discoursing
skilfully the same as discoursing seasonably and cautiously and with
intelligence, and also without making mistakes and without hindrance,
and besides all this with confidence? Yes. When then you are mounted on
a horse and go into a plain, are you anxious at being matched against a
man who is on foot, and anxious in a matter in which you are practised,
and he is not? Yes, but that person (to whom I am going to speak) has
power to kill me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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