Encheiridion — Epictetus

If you would have your children and your wife and your friends to live for ever, you are silly ; for you would have the things which are not in your power to be in your power, and the things which belong to others to be yours. So if you would have your slave to be free from faults, you are a fool ; for you would have badness not to be badness, but something else. But if you wish not to fail in your desires, you are able to do that. Practise then this which you are able to do. He is the master of every man who has the power over the things which another person wishes or does not wish, the power to confer them on him or to take them away. Whoever then wishes to be free let him neither wish for anything nor avoid anything which depends on others : if he does not observe this rule, he must be a slave.

Remember that in life you ought to behave as at a banquet. Suppose that something is carried round and is opposite to you. Stretch

228 Gbe BncbeiriOion out your hand and take a portion with decency. Suppose that it passes by you. Do not detain it. Suppose that it is not yet come to you. Do not send your desire forward to it, but wait till it is opposite to you. Do so with respect to children, so with respect to a wife, so with respect to magisterial offices, so with respect to wealth, and you will be some time a worthy partner of the banquets of the gods. But if you take none of the things which are set before you, and even despise them, then you will be not only a fellow banqueter with the gods, but also a partner with them in power. For by acting thus Diogenes and Heracleitus and those like them were deservedly divine, and were so called.

When you see a person weeping in sorrow either when a child goes abroad or when he is dead, or when tbe man has lost his property, take care that the appearance do not hurry you away with it, as if he were suffering in external things. But straightway make a distinction in your own mind, and be in readiness to say, it is not that which has happened that afflicts this man, for it does not afflict another, but it is the opinion about this thing which afflicts the man. So far as words then do not be un-

Gbe Encbetrtfcton 229 willing to show him sympathy, and even if it happens so, to lament with him. But take care that you do not lament internally also. XVII. Remember that thou art an actor iu a play, of such a kind as the teacher (author) may choose ; if short, of a short one ; if long, of a long one : if he wishes you to act the part of a poor man, see that you act the part naturally ; if the part of a lame man, of a magistrate, of a private person, (do the same). For this is your duty, to act well the part that is given to you ; but to select the part, belongs to another.

When a raven has croaked inauspiciously, let not the appearance hurry you away with it ; but straightway make a distinction in your mind and say, None of these things is signified to me, but either to my poor body, or to my small property, or to my reputation, or to my children, or to my wife : but to me all significations are auspicious if I choose. For whatever of these things results, it is in my power to derive benefit from it. XIX. You can be invincible, if you enter into no contest in which it is not in your power to

230 Gbe BncbciriDion conquer. Take care then when you observe a man honored before others or possessed of great power or highly esteemed for any reason, not to suppose him happy, and be not carried away by the appearance. For if the nature of the good is in our power, neither envy nor jealousy will have a place in us. But you yourself will not wish to be a general or senator {Ttpvravti) or consul, but a free man : and there is only one way to this, to despise (care not for) the things which are not in our power.

Remember that it is not he who reviles you or strikes you, who insults you, but it is your opinion about these things as being insulting. When then a man irritates you, you must know that it is your own opinion which has irritated you. Therefore especially try not to be carried away by the appearance. For if you once gain time and delay, you will more easily master yourself. XXI. Let death and exile and every other thing which appears dreadful be daily before your eyes ; but most of all death : and you will never tliiti* o\ anything mean nor will you desire anything extravagantly.

Zbe BncbeiriDion 231

If you desire philosophy, prepare yourself from the beginning to be ridiculed, to expect that many will sneer at you, and say, He has all at once returned to us as a philosopher ; and whence does he get this supercilious look for us ? Do you not show a supercilious look ; but hold on to the things which seem to you best as one appointed by God to this station. And remember that if you abide in the same principles, these men who first ridiculed will afterwards admire you ; but if you shall have been overpowered by them, you will bring on yourself double ridicule.