Encheiridion — Epictetus
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ii4 Gbe Discourses of Bpictetus What then is usually done ? Men generally act as a traveller would do on his way to his own country, when he enters a good inn, and being pleased with it should remain there. Man, you have forgotten your purpose : you were not travelling to this inn, but you were passing through it. But this is a pleasant inn. And how many other inns are pleasant? and how many meadows are pleasant? yet only for passing through.
But your purpose is this, to return to your country, to relieve your kinsmen of anxiety, to discharge the duties of a citizen, to marry, to beget children, to fill the usual magistracies. For you are not come to select more pleasant places, but to live in these where you were born and of which you were made a citizen. Something of the kind takes place in the matter which we are considering.
Since by the aid of speech and such communication as you receive here you must advance to perfection, and purge your will and correct the faculty which makes use of the appearances of things ; and since it is necessary also for the teaching (delivery) of theorems to be effected by a certain mode of expression and with a certain variety and sharpness, some persons captivated by these very things abide in them, one captivated by the expression, another by syllogisms, another again by sophisms, and still another by
Gbe Discourses of Epictetus us some other inn {TtavSoxEiov) of the kind ; and there they stay and waste away as they were among sirens.
Man, your purpose (business) was to make yourself capable of using conformably to nature the appearances presented to you, in your desires not to be frustrated, in your aversion from things not to fall into that which you would avoid, never to have no luck (as one may say), nor ever to have bad luck, to be free, not hindered, not compelled, conforming yourself to the administration of Zeus, obeying it, well satisfied with this, blaming no one, charging no one with fault, able from your whole soul to utter these verses : Lead me, O Zeus, and thou too Destiny.
To (or against) a Person who was One OF THOSE WHO WERE NOT VALUED (ES- TEEMED) BY him. — A certain person said to him (Epictetus) : Frequently I desired to hear you and came to you, and you never gave me any answer ; and now, if it is possible, I entreat you to say something to me.
Do you think, said Epictetus, that as there is an art in anything else, so there is also an art in speaking, and that he who has the art, will speak skilfully, and he who has not, will speak unskilfully ? — I do think so.— He then who by speaking receives n6 Zhe Dtecourses of JEpictetm benefit himself, and is able to benefit others, will speak skilfully ; but he who is rather damaged by speaking and does damage to others, will he be unskilled in this art of speaking ? And you may find that some are damaged and others benefited by speaking. And are all who hear benefited by what they hear ? Or will you find that among them also some are benefited and some damaged ?
There are both among these also, he said. In this case also then those who hear skilfully are benefited, and those who hear unskilfully are damaged ? He admitted this. Is there then a skill in hearing also, as there is in speaking ? It seems so. If you choose, consider the matter in this way also. The practice of music, to whom does it belong ? To a musician. And the proper making of a statue, to whom do you think that it belongs ? To a statuary.
And the looking at a statue skilfully, does this appear to you to require the aid of no art ? This also requires the aid of art. Then if speaking properly is the business of the skilful man, do you see that to hear also with benefit is the business of the skilful man ? Now as to speaking and hearing perfectly, and usefully, let us for the present, if you please, say no more, for both of us are a long way from everything of the kind. But I think that every man will allow this, that he who is going to
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