Encheiridion — Epictetus

Gbe ^Discourses of Bptctetus 169 For it is not shameful to be without something to eat, but not to have reason sufficient for keeping away fear and sorrow. But if once you have gained exemption from sorrow and fear, will there any longer be a tyrant for you, or a tyrant's guard, or attendants on Caesar ?

Or shall any appointment to offices at court cause you pain, or shall those who sacrifice in the Capitol on the occasion of being named to certain functions, cause pain to you who have received so great authority from Zeus? Only do not make a proud display of it, nor boast of it ; but show it by your acts ; and if no man perceives it, be satisfied that you are yourself in a healthy state and happy.

To THOSE WHO Fai.Iv off (Desist) from Their Purpose. — Consider as to the things which you proposed to yourself at first, which you have secured, and which you have not ; and how you are pleased when you recall to memory the one, and are pained about the other ; and if it is possible, recover the things wherein you failed. For we must not shrink when we are engaged in the greatest combat, but we must even take blows.

For the combat before us is not in wrestling and the Pancration, in which both the successful and the unsuccessful may have the greatest merit, or may have little, and

170 TZbe Discourses of Bpictetus in truth may be very fortunate or very unfortunate ; but the combat is for good fortune and happiness themselves.

Well then, even if we have renounced the contest in this matter (for good fortune and happiness), no man hinders us from renewing the combat again, and we are not compelled to wait for another four years that the games at Olympia may come again ; but as soon as you have recovered and restored yourself, and employ the same zeal, you may renew the combat again ; and if again you renounce it, you may again renew it ; and if you once gain the victory, you are like him who has never renounced the combat.

Only do not through a habit of doing the same thing (renouncing the combat) begin to do it with pleasure, and then like a bad athlete go about after being conquered in all the circuit of the games like quails who have run away. To Those who Fear Want. — Are you not ashamed at being 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 afterwards move on through land or through sea, contriving one method after another for main-

Zbe Discourses of Bpictetus 171 taining their lives ? And what fugitive slave ever died of hunger ? But you are afraid lest necessary things should fail 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 ? 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 calls 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