for a man to watch constantly (and to ask) whether I also am one of them, what imagination I have about myself, how I conduct myself, whether I conduct myself as a prudent man, whether I conduct myself as a temperate man, whether I ever say this, that I have been taught to be prepared for every thing that may happen. Have I the consciousness, which a man who knows nothing ought to have, that I know nothing? Do I go to my teacher as men go to oracles, prepared to obey? or do I like a snivelling boy go to my school to learn history and understand the books which I did not understand before, and, if it should happen so, to explain them also to others?-Man, you have had a fight in the house with a poor slave, you have turned the family upside down, you have frightened the neighbours, and you come to me 2 as if you were a wise man, and you take your seat and judge how I have explained some word, and low I have babbled whatever came into my head. You come full of envy, and humbled, because you bring nothing from home; 3 and you sit during the discussion thinking of nothing else than how your father is disposed towards you and your brother. What are they saying about me there? now they think that I am improving, and are saying, He will return with all knowledge. I wish I could learn every thing before I return but much labour is necessary, and no one sends me any thing, and the baths at Nicopolis are dirty; every thing is bad at home, and bad here.' Then they say, no one gains any profit from the school. -Why, who comes to the school? who comes for the purpose of being improved? who comes to present his opinions to be purified? who comes to learn what he is in want of? Why do you wonder then if you carry back from the school the very things which you bring into it? For you come not to lay aside (your principles) or to correct 2 KATAσTOλÀS Tohoas. I have omitted these words because I don't understand them; nor do the commentators. The word кaтασTOXŃ occurs in ii. 10. 15, where it is intelligible. Literally, because to you or for you nothing is brought from home. Perhaps the meaning is explained by what follows. The man has no comfort at home; he brings nothing by the thought of which he is comforted. them or to receive other principles in place of them. By no means, nor any thing like it. You rather look to this, whether you possess already that for which you come. You wish to prattle about theorems? What then? Do you not become greater triflers? Do not your little theorems give you some opportunity of display? You solve sophistical syllogisms. Do you not examine the assumptions of the syllogism named the Liar?5 Do you not examine hypothetical syllogisms? Why then are you still vexed if you receive the things for which you come to the school? Yes; but if my child die or my brother, or if I must die or be racked, what good will these things do me?Well, did you come for this? for this do you sit by my side? did you ever for this light your lamp or keep awake? or, when you went out to the walking place, did you ever propose any appearance that had been presented to you instead of a syllogism, and did you and your friends discuss it together? Where and when? Then you say, Theorems are useless. To whom? To such as make a bad use of them. For eye-salves are not useless to those who use them as they ought and when they ought. Fomentations are not useless. Dum-bells are not useless; but they are useless to some, useful to others. If you ask me now if syllogisms are useful, I will tell you that they are useful, and if you choose, I will prove it.8-How then will they in any way be useful to me? Man, did you ask if they are useful to you, or did you ask generally? Let him who is suffering from dysentery, ask me if vinegar is useful; I will say that it is useful.-Will it then be useful to me?-I will say, no. Seek first for the discharge to be stopped and the ulcers to be closed. And do you, O men, first cure the ulcers and stop the discharge; be tranquil in your mind, bring it free from distraction into the school, and you will know what power reason has. 4 See i. 7. 5 See ii. 17. 34. 6 τί με ταῦτα ὠφελήσει; Schweig. in his note says that he has written the text thus; but he has not. He has written Tí μETÀ TAÛTα WOEλńσel; The ue appears to be necessary, and he has rendered the passage accordingly; and rightly, I think. See i. 4, note 5 on Halteres. 8 See ii. 25. CHAPTER XXII. ON FRIENDSHIP.1 WHAT a man applies himself to earnestly, that he naturally loves. Do men then apply themselves earnestly to the things which are bad? By no means. Well, do they apply themselves to things which in no way concern themselves? not to these either. It remains then that they employ themselves earnestly only about things which are good; and if they are earnestly employed about things, they love such things also. Whoever then understands what is good, can also know how to love: but he who cannot distinguish good from bad, and things which are neither good nor bad from both, how can he possess the power of loving? To love then is only in the power of the wise. How is this? a man may say; I am foolish, and yet I love my child.-I am surprised indeed that you have begun by making the admission that you are foolish. For what are you deficient in? Can you not make use of your senses? do you not distinguish appearances? do you not use food which is suitable for your body, and clothing and habitation? Why then do you admit that you are foolish? It is in truth because you are often disturbed by appearances and perplexed, and their power of persuasion often conquers you; and sometimes you think these things to be good, and then the same things to be bad, and lastly neither good nor bad; and in short you grieve, fear, envy, are disturbed, you are changed. This is the reason why you confess that you are foolish. And are you not changeable in love? But wealth, and pleasure and in a word 1 In this dissertation is expounded the Stoic principle that friendship is only possible between the good.' Schweig. He also says that there was another discourse by Epictetus on this subject, in which he expressed some of the opinions of Musonius Rufus (i. 1. note 12). Schweig. draws this conclusion from certain words of Stobaeus; and he supposes that this dissertation of Epictetus was in one of the last four books of Epictetus' discourses by Arrian, which have been lost. Cicero (de Amicit. c. 5) says 'nisi in bonis amicitiam esse non posse, and c. 18. things themselves, do you sometimes think them to be good, and sometimes bad? and do you not think the same men at one time to be good, at another time bad? and have you not at one time a friendly feeling towards them, and at another time the feeling of an enemy? and do you not at one time praise them, and at another time blame them? Yes; I have these feelings also. Well then, do you think that he who has been deceived about a man is his friend? Certainly not. And he who has selected a man as his friend and is of a changeable disposition, has he good will towards him? He has not. And he who now abuses a man, and afterwards admires him? This man also has no good will to the other. Well then, did you never see little dogs caressing and playing with one another, so that you might say, there is nothing more friendly? but that you may know what friendship is, throw a bit of flesh among them, and you will learn. Throw between yourself and your son a little estate, and you will know how soon he will wish to bury you and how soon you wish your son to die. Then you will change your tone and say, what a son I have brought up! He has long been wishing to bury me. Throw a smart girl between you; and do you the old man love her, and the young one will love her too. If a little fame intervene or dangers, it will be just the same. You will utter the words of the father of Admetus! Life gives you pleasure: and why not your father?? Do you think that Admetus did not love his own child when he was little? that he was not in agony when the child had a fever? that he did not often say, I wish I had the fever instead of the child? then when the test (the thing) came and was near, see what words they utter. Were not Eteocles and Polynices from the same mother and from the same father? Were they not brought up together, had they not lived together, drunk together, slept together, and often kissed one another? So that, if * The first verse is from the Alcestis of Euripides, v. 691. The second in Epictetus is not in Euripides. Schweighaeuser thinks that it has been intruded into the text from a trivial scholium. N any man, I think, had seen them, he would have ridiculed the philosophers for the paradoxes which they utter about friendship. But when a quarrel rose between them about the royal power, as between dogs about a bit of meat, ses what they say Polynices. Eteocles. Pol. Et. Where will you take your station before the towers? Why do you ask me this? I will place myself opposite and try to I also wish to do the same.3 Such are the wishes that they utter. For universally, be not deceived, every animal is attached to nothing so much as to its own interest.1 Whatever then appears to it an impediment to this interest, whether this be a brother, or a father, or a child, or beloved, or lover, it hates, spurns, curses: for its nature is to love nothing so much as its own interest; this is father, and brother and kinsman, and country, and God. When then the gods appear to us to be an impediment to this, we abuse them and throw down their statues and burn their temples, as Alexander ordered the temples of Aesculapius to be burned when his dear friend died.5 For this reason if a man put in the same place his interest, sanctity, goodness, and country, and parents, and friends, all these are secured: but if he puts in one place his interest, in another his friends, and his country and his kinsmen and justice itself, all these give way being borne down by the weight of interest. For where the I and the Mine are placed, to that place of necessity the animal inclines: if in the flesh, there is the ruling power: if in the will, it is there and if it is in externals, it is 3 From the Phoenissae of Euripides, v. 723, etc. • Compare Euripides, Hecuba, v. 846, etc. :— δεινόν γε θνητοῖς ὡς ἅπαντα συμπίτνει· 5 Alexander did this when Hephaestion died. Arrian, Expedition of Alexander, vii. 14. |