The Teaching of Epictetus: Being the 'Encheiridion of Epictetus,' with Selections from the 'Dissertations' and 'Fragments'Epictetus
Philosophy
The Teaching of Epictetus: Being the 'Encheiridion of Epictetus,' with Selections from the 'Dissertations' and 'Fragments'
Epictetus
Philosophy, Ancient
For why did he deem things alien to be his own concern? Why, when he
rejoiced to see thee, did he not reason that thou wert mortal, and apt
to travel to another land? Therefore doth he pay the penalty of his own
folly. But thou, for what cause or reason dost thou bewail thyself? Hast
thou also given no thought to these things; but like silly women
consorted with all that pleased thee as though thou shouldst consort
with them forever, places and persons and pastimes? and now thou sittest
weeping, because thou canst see the same persons and frequent the same
places no longer. This, truly, is what thou art fit for, to be more
wretched than crows and ravens that can fly whithersoever they please,
and change their nests, and pass across the seas, nor ever lament nor
yearn for what they have left.
——“Yea, but they are thus because they are creatures without reason.”
To us, then, was Reason given by the Gods for our misfortune and misery?
that we should be wretched and sorrowful forever? Let all men be
immortal, forsooth, and no man migrate to another land, nor let us
ourselves ever migrate, but remain rooted to one spot like plants; and
if one of our companions go, let us sit down and weep, and if he return,
dance and clap hands like children!
3. Shall we not now at last wean ourselves, and remember what we heard
from the philosophers? if, indeed, we did not listen to them as a
wizard’s incantation. For they said that the universe is one Polity, and
one is the substance out of which it is made, and there must, of
necessity, be a certain cycle, and some things must give place to
others, some dissolving away, and others coming into being, some abiding
in one place, and others being in motion. But all things are full of
love, first of the Gods, then of men, that are by nature made to have
affection towards each other; and it must needs be that some dwell with
each other, and some are separated, rejoicing in those who are with
them, and not distressed for those who go away. And man, they said, is
magnanimous by nature, and contemneth all things beyond the Will; and
hath also this quality, not to be rooted to one spot, nor grown into the
earth, but able to go from place to place, sometimes urged by divers
needs, sometimes for the sake of what he shall see.
4. And such was the case with Ulysses:—
“The cities of many peoples and minds of men he
knew.”—_Od._ i. 3.
And yet earlier with Hercules, who went about the whole earth—
“All disorders of men and orderly rule to see,”
—_Od._ xvii. 487,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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