Encheiridion — Epictetus

Gbe BNscourees of jEpictetus 199 this pity ? It is in my power, if I show them that I do not require pity. And whether then are you in the condition of not deserving (requiring) pity, or are you not in that condition ?

I think that I am not ; but these persons do not pity me, for the things for which, if they ought to pity me, it would be proper, I mean, for my faults ; but they pity me for my poverty, for not possessing honorable offices, for diseases and deaths and other such things.

Whether then are you prepared to convince the many, that not one of these things is an evil, but that it is possible for a man who is poor and has no office (avcipxovTi) and enjoys no honor to be happy ; or to show yourself to them as rich and in power ? For the second of these things belong to a man who is boastful, silly, and good for nothing. And consider by what means the pretence must be supported.

It will be necessary for you to hire slaves and to possess a few silver vessels, and to exhibit them in public, if it is possible, though they are often the same, and to attempt to conceal the fact that they are the same, and to have splendid garments, and all other things for display, and to show that you are a man honored by the great, and to try to sup at their houses, or to be supposed to sup there, and as to your person to employ some mean arts, that you may

200 Gbe ©iecourses of Bpictetug appear to be more handsome and nobler than you are. These things you must contrive, if you choose to go by the second path in order not to be pitied. But the first way is both impracticable and long, to attempt the very thing which Zeus has not been able to do, to convince all men what things are good and bad. Is this power given to you?

This only is given to you, to convince yourself; and you have not convinced yourself. Then I ask you, do you attempt to persuade other men ? and who has lived so long with you as you with yourself? and who has so much power of convincing you as you have of convincing yourself; and who is better disposed and nearer to you than you are to yourself? How then have you not yet convinced yourself in order to learn ?

At present are not things upside down ? Is this what you have been earnest about doing, to learn to be free from grief and free from disturbance, and not to be humbled (abject), and to be free ? Have you not heard then that there is only one way which leads to this end, to give up (dismiss) the things which do not depend on the will, to withdraw from them, and to admit that they belong to others ?

For another man then to have an opinion about you, of what kind is it? It is a thing independent of the will — Then is it nothing to you?

XLbe Discourses of JEptctetus 201 It is nothing. When then you are still vexed at this and disturbed, do you think that you are convinced about good and evil ? On Freedom from Fear. — What makes the tyrant formidable ? The guards, you say, and their swords, and the men of the bedchamber, and those who exclude them who would enter.

Why then if you bring a boy (child) to the tyrant when he is with his guards, is he not afraid ; or is it because the child does not understand these things ? If then any man does understand what guards are and that they have swords, and comes to the tyrant for this very purpose because he wishes to die on account of some circumstance and seeks to die easily by the hand of another, is he afraid of the guards ?

No, for he wishes for the thing which makes the guards formidable. If then any man neither wishing to die nor to live by all means, but only as it may be permitted, approaches the tyrant, what hinders him from approaching the tyrant without fear ? Nothing.

If then a man has the same opinion about his property as the man whom I have instanced has about his body ; and also about his children and his wife, and in a word is so affected by some madness or despair that he cares not whether he possesses them or not, but like chil-