Latest / Discourses of Epictetus / 038 - VII How We Ought to Use Divination

Transcript

038 - VII How We Ought to Use Divination · Discourses of Epictetus

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section thirty seven of Discourses of Epictetus by Epictetus, translated
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: by George Long. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Read by Christine Rucker, December second, twenty twenty one, Westford, Massachusetts,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter seven, How we ought to use divination?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Through an unreasonable regard to divination? Many of us omit
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: many duties. For what more can the diviner see than death,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: or danger, or disease, or generally things of that kind?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: If then I must expose myself to danger for a friend,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and if it is my duty even to die for him,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: what need have I then? For divination? Have I not
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: within me a diviner who has told me the nature
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of good and of evil, and has explained to me
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the signs or marks of both. What need have I
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: then to consult the viscera of victims or the flight
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: of birds? And why do I submit when he says,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: is it for your interest? For does he know what
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: is for my interest? Does he know what is good?
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: And as he has learned the signs of the viscera,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: has he also learned the signs of good and evil?
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: For if he knows the signs of these, he knows
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the signs of both the beautiful and of the ugly,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and of the just and of the unjust. Do you
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: tell me, man, what is the thing which is signified
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: for me? Is it life or death, poverty or wealth?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: But whether these things are for my interest or whether
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: they are not, I do not intend to ask you.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Why don't you give your opinion on matters of grammar?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: And why do you give it here about things on
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: which we are all in error and disputing with one another.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: The woman, therefore, who intended to send by a vessel
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a month's provisions to Curtia in her banishment, made a
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: good answer to him who said that Domitian would seize
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: what she sent I would rather, She replied, that Domitian
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: should seize all than that I should not send it.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: What then leads us to frequent use of divination, cowardice,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the dread of what will happen. This is the reason
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: why we flattered the diviners. Pray, Master, shall I succeed
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: to the property of my father? Let us see, let
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: us sacrifice on the occasion. Yes, Master, as fortune chooses,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: when he has said you shall succeed to the inheritance,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: we thank him as if we received the inheritance from him.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: The consequence is that they play upon us. What then
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: should we do? We ought to come to divination without
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: desire or aversion, as the wayfarer asks of the man
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: whom he meets of the two roads, leads to his
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: journey's end, without any desire for that which leads to
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the right rather than to the left, For he has
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: no wish to go by any road except the road
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: which leads to his end. In the same way, we
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: ought to come to God also as a guide, as
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: we use our eyes, not asking them to show us
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: rather such things as we wish, but receiving the appearances
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: of things such as the eyes present them to us.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: But now we trembling, take the Auger bird interpreter by
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the hand, and while we invoke God, we entreat the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: auger and say, Master, have mercy on me, suffer me
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: to come safe out of this difficulty. Wretch, would you
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: have than anything other than what is best? Is there then,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: anything better than what pleases God? Why do you, as
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: far as is in your power, corrupt your judge and
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: lead astray your advisor? End of Book two, Chapter seven