The Discourses of Epictetus

 Table of Contents

 BOOK ONE

 Chapter 1

 Chapter 2

 Chapter 3

 Chapter 4

 Chapter 5

 Chapter 6

 Chapter 7

 Chapter 8

 Chapter 9

 Chapter 10

 Chapter 11

 Chapter 12

 Chapter 13

 Chapter 14

 Chapter 15

 Chapter 16

 Chapter 17

 Chapter 18

 Chapter 19

 Chapter 20

 Chapter 21

 Chapter 22

 Chapter 23

 Chapter 24

 Chapter 25

 Chapter 26

 Chapter 27

 Chapter 28

 Chapter 29

 Chapter 30

 BOOK TWO

 Chapter 1

 Confidence then ought to be employed against death, and caution against the fear of death. But now we do the contrary, and employ against death the at

 Chapter 2

 Chapter 3

 Chapter 4

 Chapter 5

 Chapter 6

 Chapter 7

 Chapter 8

 Such will I show myself to you, faithful, modest, noble, free from perturbation. What, and immortal too, exempt from old age, and from sickness? No,

 Chapter 9

 Chapter 10

 Chapter 11

 Chapter 12

 Well then the matter is not now very safe, and particularly at Rome for he who attempts to do it, must not do it in a corner, you may be sure, but m

 Chapter 13

 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 Z

 Chapter 14

 Chapter 15

 Chapter 16

 See how tragedy is made when common things happen to silly men.

 Chapter 17

 Chapter 18

 Chapter 19

 Of things some are good, some are bad, and others are indifferent. The good then are the virtues and the things which partake of the virtues the bad

 Chapter 20

 Chapter 21

 Chapter 22

 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 sa

 Such are the wishes that they utter.

 Chapter 23

 Then having this purpose before you, if some little form of expression pleases you, if some theorems please you, do you abide among them and choose t

 Chapter 24

 Chapter 25

 Chapter 26

 BOOK THREE

 Chapter 1

 Was Hermes going to descend from heaven to say this to him? And now the Gods say this to you and send the messenger, the slayer of Argus, to warn you

 Chapter 2

 Chapter 3

 Chapter 4

 Chapter 5

 Chapter 6

 Chapter 7

 Chapter 8

 Chapter 9

 Chapter 10

 And we ought to retain these verses in such way that we may use them, not that we may utter them aloud, as when we exclaim Paean Apollo. Again in fe

 Chapter 11

 This, then, may be applied even to a father: I must not, even if a worse man than you should come, treat a father unworthily-, for all are from pater

 Chapter 12

 Chapter 13

 Chapter 14

 Chapter 15

 Chapter 16

 Chapter 17

 Chapter 18

 Chapter 19

 Chapter 20

 Chapter 21

 Chapter 22

 And what does he say himself?

 Wretch, which of your affairs goes badly? Your possessions? No. Your body? No. But you are rich in gold and copper. What then is the matter with you?

 whose duty it is to look after others, the married and those who have children to see who uses his wife well, who uses her badly who quarrels what

 he answered, when he was half-asleep,

 But before all the Cynic's ruling faculty must be purer than the sun and, if it is not, he must be a cunning knave and a fellow of no principle, sinc

 and also, If so it pleases the gods, so let it be why should he not have confidence to speak freely to his own brothers, to his children, in a word

 So he was conscious of his own qualification, and knew her weakness.

 Chapter 23

 Chapter 24

 And still earlier it was the fortune of Hercules to visit all the inhabited world

 casting out and clearing away their lawlessness and introducing in their place good rules of law. And yet how many friends do you think that he had in

 Chapter 25

 Chapter 26

 Relying on what? Not on reputation nor on wealth nor on the power of a magistrate, but on his own strength, that is, on his opinions about the things

 BOOK FOUR

 Chapter 1

 But what do you say, philosopher? The tyrant summons you to say something which does not become you. Do you say it or do you not? Answer me. Let me c

 Chapter 2

 Chapter 3

 Chapter 4

 Is it your will that I should go to Rome? I will go to Rome. To Gyara? I will go to Gyara. I will go to Athens? I will go to Athens. To prison? I will

 Chapter 5

 Chapter 6

 he transfers to these things. Where have I failed in the matters pertaining to flattery? What have I done? Anything like a free man, anything like

 Chapter 7

 Chapter 8

 And not this only, but he neither desires nor seeks anything, nor man nor place nor amusement, as children seek the vintage or holidays always fortif

 Chapter 9

 Chapter 10

 Why is this your ill? Do you, then, instead of removing it, blame your mother for not foretelling it to you that you might continue grieving from that

 Chapter 11

 For Aristophanes says of Socrates that he also walked the air and stole clothes from the palaestra. But all who have written about Socrates bear exact

 Chapter 12

 Chapter 13

Chapter 26

To those who fear want

Are you not ashamed at more cowardly and more mean than fugitive slaves? How do they when they run away leave their masters? on what estates do they depend, and what domestics do they rely on? Do they not, after stealing a little which is enough for the first days, then afterward move on through land or through sea, contriving one method after another for maintaining their lives? And what fugitive slave ever died of hunger? But you are afraid lest necessary things should fall you, and are sleepless by night. Wretch, are you so blind, and don't you see the road to which the want of necessaries leads? "Well, where does it lead?" To the same place to which a fever leads, or a stone that falls on you, to death. Have you not often said this yourself to your companions? have you not read much of this kind, and written much? and how often have you boasted that you were easy as to death?

"Yes: but my wife and children also suffer hunger." Well then, does their hunger lead to any other place? Is there not the same descent to some place for them also? Is not there the same state below for them? Do you not choose, then, to look to that place full of boldness against every want and deficiency, to that place to which both the richest and those who have held the highest offices, and kings themselves and tyrants must descend? or to which you will descend hungry, if it should so happen, but they burst by indigestion and drunkenness. What beggar did you hardly ever see who was not an old man, and even of extreme old age? But chilled with cold day and night, and lying on the ground, and eating only what is absolutely necessary they approach near to the impossibility of dying. Cannot you write? Cannot you teach children? Cannot you be a watchman at another person's door? "But it is shameful to come to such necessity." Learn, then, first what are the things which are shameful, and then tell us that you are a philosopher: but at present do not, even if any other man call you so, allow it.

Is that shameful to you which is not your own act, that of which you are not the cause, that which has come to you by accident, as a headache, as a fever? If your parents were poor, and left their property to others, and if while they live, they do not help you at all, is this shameful to you? Is this what you learned with the philosophers? Did you never hear that the thing which is shameful ought to be blamed, and that which is blamable is worthy of blame? Whom do you blame for an act which is not his own, which he did not do himself? Did you, then, make your father such as he is, or is it in your power to improve him? Is this power given to you? Well then, ought you to wish the things which are not given to you, or to be ashamed if you do not obtain them? And have you also been accustomed while you were studying philosophy to look to others and to hope for nothing from yourself? Lament then and groan and eat with fear that you may not have food to-morrow. Tremble about your poor slaves lest they steal, lest they run away, lest they die. So live, and continue to live, you who in name only have approached philosophy and have disgraced its theorems as far as you can by showing them to be useless and unprofitable to those who take them up; you who have never sought constancy, freedom from perturbation, and from passions: you who have not sought any person for the sake of this object, but many for the sake of syllogisms; you who have never thoroughly examined any of these appearances by yourself, "Am I able to bear, or am I not able to bear? What remains for me to do?" But as if all your affairs were well and secure, you have been resting on the third topic, that of things being unchanged, in order that you may possess unchanged - what? cowardice, mean spirit, the admiration of the rich, desire without attaining any end, and avoidance which fails in the attempt? About security in these things you have been anxious.

Ought you not to have gained something in addition from reason and, then, to have protected this with security? And whom did you ever see building a battlement all round and not encircling it with a wall? And what doorkeeper is placed with no door to watch? But you practice in order to be able to prove - what? You practice that you may not be tossed as on the sea through sophisms, and tossed about from what? Show me first what you hold, what you measure, or what you weigh; and show me the scales or the medimnus; or how long will you go on measuring the dust? Ought you not to demonstrate those things which make men happy, which make things go on for them in the way as they wish, and why we ought to blame no man, accuse no man, and acquiesce in the administration of the universe? Show me these. "See, I show them: I will resolve syllogisms for you." This is the measure, slave; but it is not the thing measured. Therefore you are now paying the penalty for what you neglected, philosophy: you tremble, you lie awake, you advise with all persons; and if your deliberations are not likely to please all, you think that you have deliberated ill. Then you fear hunger, as you suppose: but it is not hunger that you fear, but you are afraid that you will not have a cook, that you will not have another to purchase provisions for the table, a third to take off your shoes, a fourth to dress you, others to rub you, and to follow you, in order that in the bath, when you have taken off your clothes and stretched yourself out like those who are crucified you may be rubied on this side and on that, and then the aliptes may say, "Change his position, present the side, take hold of his head, show the shoulder"; and then when you have left the bath and gone home, you may call out, "Does no one bring something to eat?" And then, "Take away the tables, sponge them": you are afraid of this, that you may not be able to lead the life of a sick man. But learn the life of those who are in health, how slaves live, how labourers, how those live who are genuine philosophers; how Socrates lived, who had a wife and children; how Diogenes lived, and how Cleanthes, who attended to the school and drew water. If you choose to have these things, you will have them everywhere, and you will live in full confidence. Confiding in what? In that alone in which a man can confide, in that which is secure, in that which is not subject to hindrance, in that which cannot be taken away, that is, in your own will. And why have you made yourself so useless and good for nothing that no man will choose to receive you into his house, no man to take care of you? but if a utensil entire and useful were cast abroad, every man who found it would take it up and think it a gain; but no man will take you up, and every man will consider you a loss. So cannot you discharge the office of a dog, or of a cock? Why then do you choose to live any longer, when you are what you are?

Does any good man fear that he shall fall to have food? To the blind it does not fall, to the lame it does not: shall it fall to a good man? And to a good soldier there does not fail to one who gives him pay, nor to a labourer, nor to a shoemaker: and to the good man shall there be wanting such a person? Does God thus neglect the things that He has established, His ministers, His witnesses, whom alone He employs as examples to the uninstructed, both that He exists, and administers well the whole, and does not neglect human affairs, and that to a good man there is no evil either when he is living or when he is dead? What, then, when He does not supply him with food? What else does He do than like a good general He has given me the signal to retreat? I obey, I follow, assenting to the words of the Commander, praising, His acts: for I came when it pleased Him, and I will also go away when it pleases Him; and while I lived, it was my duty to praise God both by myself, and to each person severally and to many. He does not supply me with many things, nor with abundance, He does not will me to live luxuriously; for neither did He supply Hercules who was his own son; but another was king of Argos and Mycenae, and Hercules obeyed orders, and laboured, and was exercised. And Eurystheus was what he was, neither kin, of Argos nor of Mycenae, for he was not even king of himself; but Hercules was ruler and leader of the whole earth and sea, who purged away lawlessness, and introduced justice and holiness; and he did these things both naked and alone. And when Ulysses was cast out shipwrecked, did want humiliate him, did it break his spirit? but how did he go off to the virgins to ask for necessaries, to beg which is considered most shameful?

As a lion bred in the mountains trusting in his strength.