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037 - VI Of Indifference · Discourses of Epictetus

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  Speaker 1: Section thirty six of Discourses of Epictetus by Epictetus, translated
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  Speaker 1: by George Long. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Read by Christine Rucker, December one, twenty twenty one, Westford, Massachusetts,
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  Speaker 1: Book two, Section six of indifference. The hypothetical proposition is indifferent.
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  Speaker 1: The judgment about it is not indifferent, but it is
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  Speaker 1: either knowledge or opinion or error. Thus life is indifferent.
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  Speaker 1: The use is not indifferent. When any man then tells
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  Speaker 1: you that these things are also indifferent, do not become negligent.
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  Speaker 1: And when a man invites you to be careful about
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  Speaker 1: such things, do not become abject and struck with admiration
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  Speaker 1: of material things. And it is good for you to
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  Speaker 1: know your own preparation and power, that in those matters
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  Speaker 1: where you have not been prepared, you may keep quiet
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  Speaker 1: and not be vexed if others have the advantage over you.
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  Speaker 1: For you, too, in syllogisms, will claim to have the
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  Speaker 1: advantage over them. And if others should be vexed at this,
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  Speaker 1: you will console them by saying I have learned them
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  Speaker 1: and you have not. Thus, also, where there is need
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  Speaker 1: of any practice, seek not that which is acquired from
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  Speaker 1: the need of such practice. But yield in that matter
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  Speaker 1: to those who have had practice, and be yourself content
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  Speaker 1: with firmness of mind. Go and salute a certain person.
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  Speaker 1: How not meanly. But I've been shut out, for I
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  Speaker 1: have not learned to make my way through the window.
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  Speaker 1: And when I have found the door shut, I must
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  Speaker 1: either come back or enter through the window. But still
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  Speaker 1: speak to him in one way, not meanly. But suppose
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  Speaker 1: that you have not got what you wanted. Was this
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  Speaker 1: your business and not his? Why then do you claim
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  Speaker 1: that which belongs to another? Always remember what is your
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  Speaker 1: own and what belongs to another, and you will not
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  Speaker 1: be disturbed. Chrysippus therefore said, well, so long as future
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  Speaker 1: things are uncertain, I always cling to those which are
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  Speaker 1: more adapted to the conservation of that which is according
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  Speaker 1: to nature. For God himself has given me the faculty
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  Speaker 1: of such choice. But if I knew that it was
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  Speaker 1: faded in the order of things for me to be sick,
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  Speaker 1: I would even move towards it. For the foot, also,
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  Speaker 1: if it had intelligence, would move to go into the mud.
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  Speaker 1: For why are the ears of corn produced? Is it
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  Speaker 1: not that they may become dry? And do they not
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  Speaker 1: become dry? That they may be reaped, for they are
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  Speaker 1: not separate from communion with other things. If then they
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  Speaker 1: had perception ought, they wished never to be reaped. But
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  Speaker 1: this is a curse upon the ears of corn, never
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  Speaker 1: to be reaped. So we must know that in the
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  Speaker 1: case of men, too, it is a curse not to die,
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  Speaker 1: just the same as not to be ripened and not
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  Speaker 1: to be reaped. But since we must be reaped, and
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  Speaker 1: we also know that we are reaped, we are vexed
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  Speaker 1: at it. For we neither know what we are, nor
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  Speaker 1: have we studied what belongs to man, as those who
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  Speaker 1: have studied horses know what belongs to horses. But Chrysantas,
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  Speaker 1: when he was going to strike the enemy, checked himself
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  Speaker 1: when he heard the trumpet sounding a retreat. So it
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  Speaker 1: seemed better to him to obey the general's command than
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  Speaker 1: to follow his own inclination. But not one of us chooses,
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  Speaker 1: even when necessity summons readily to obey it. But weeping, groaning,
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  Speaker 1: we suffer what we do suffer, and we call them circumstances.
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  Speaker 1: What kind of circumstances? Man? If you give the name
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  Speaker 1: of circumstances to the things which are around you, all
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  Speaker 1: things are circumstances. But if you call hardships by this name,
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  Speaker 1: what hardship is there in dying of that which has
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  Speaker 1: been produced? But that which destroys is either a sword
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  Speaker 1: or a wheel, or the sea, or a tile or
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  Speaker 1: a tyrant? Why do you care about the way of
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  Speaker 1: going down? To hades always are equal? But if you
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  Speaker 1: will listen to the truth, the way which the tyrant
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  Speaker 1: sends you is shorter. A tyrant never killed a man
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  Speaker 1: in six months, but a fever is often a year.
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  Speaker 1: About it, All these things are only sound and the
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  Speaker 1: noise of empty names. I am in danger of my
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  Speaker 1: life from Caesar? And am I not in danger? Hoo?
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  Speaker 1: Dwell in Acopolis where there are so many earthquakes. And
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  Speaker 1: when you are crossing the Adriatic, what hazard do you run?
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  Speaker 1: Is it not the hazard of your own life? But
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  Speaker 1: I am in danger? Also as to opinion? Do you
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  Speaker 1: mean your own? How? Or who can compel you to
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  Speaker 1: have any opinion which you do not choose? But is
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  Speaker 1: it as to another man's opinion? And what kind of
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  Speaker 1: danger is yours? If others have false opinions? But I
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  Speaker 1: am in danger of being banished? What is it to
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  Speaker 1: be banished? To be somewhere else than Rome. Yes, what
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  Speaker 1: then if I should be sent to Guyara, If that
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  Speaker 1: suits you, you will go there. But if it does not,
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  Speaker 1: you can go to another place instead of Guyara, whether
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  Speaker 1: he also will go Who sends you to Guyara, whether
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  Speaker 1: he chooses or not, Why then do you go up
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  Speaker 1: to Rome as if it were something great. It is
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  Speaker 1: not worth all this preparation that an ingenuous youth should
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  Speaker 1: say it was not worthwhile to have heard so much,
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  Speaker 1: and to have written so much, and to have sat
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  Speaker 1: so long by the side of an old man who
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  Speaker 1: was not worth much. Only remember that the vision by
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  Speaker 1: which your own and not your own are distinguished. Never
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  Speaker 1: claim anything which belongs to others. A tribunal and a
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  Speaker 1: prison are each a place, one high and the other low.
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  Speaker 1: But the will can be maintained equal if you choose
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  Speaker 1: to maintain an equal in each. And we shall then
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  Speaker 1: be imitators of Socrates when we are able to write
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  Speaker 1: paeans in prison. But in our present disposition, consider if
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  Speaker 1: we could endure in prison another person saying to us,
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  Speaker 1: would you like me to read paeans to you? Why
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  Speaker 1: do you trouble me? Do you not know the evils
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  Speaker 1: which hold me, Can I in such circumstances listen to payans?
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  Speaker 1: What circumstances I am going to die? And will other
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  Speaker 1: men be immortal? End of Put two, Section six