Latest / Discourses of Epictetus / 033 - II Of Tranquility Freedom from Perturbation

Transcript

033 - II Of Tranquility Freedom from Perturbation · Discourses of Epictetus

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section thirty two of Discourses of Epictetus by Epictetus, translated
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: by George Long. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Read by Christine Rucker, November twenty seventh, twenty twenty one, Westford, Massachusetts,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter two of Tranquility Freedom from Perturbation. Consider you,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: who are going into court, what you wish to maintain
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and what you wish to succeed in. For if you
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: wish to maintain a will conformable to nature, you have
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: every security, every facility. You have no troubles. For if
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: you wish to maintain what is in your power and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: is naturally free, And if you are content with these,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: what else do you care for? For who is the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: master of such things? Who can take them away? If
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: you choose to be modest and faithful? Who shall not
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: allow you to be so? If you choose not to
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: be restrained or compelled? Who should compel you to desire
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: what you think that you ought not to desire? Who
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: shall compel you to avoid what you do not think
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: fit to avoid? But what do you say the judge
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: will determine against you something that appears formidable, but that
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you should also suffer in trying to avoid it. How
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: can he do that, when then the pursuit of objects
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: and the avoiding of them are in your power? What
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: else do you care for? Let this be your preface,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Let this be your narrative, This your confirmation, this your victory,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: this your peroration, this your applause, or the approbation which
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: you will receive. Therefore, Socrates said to one who was
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: reminding him to prepare for his trial? Do you not
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: think then that I have been preparing for it all
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: my life? By what kind of preparation I have maintained
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: that which was in my own power? How then I
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: have never done anything unjust, either in my private or
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: public life. But if you wish to maintain externals also
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: your poor body, your little property, and your little estimation,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I advise you to make from this moment all possible preparation,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and then consider both the nature of your judge and
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: your adversary. If it is necessary to embrace his knees,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: embrace his knees, if to weep weep, if to groan grown.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: For when you have subjected to externals, what is your own?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Then be a slave, and do not resist, and do
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: not sometimes choose to be a slave, and sometimes not choose,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: But with all your mind be one or the other,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: either free or a slave, either instructed or uninstructed, either
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: a well bred cock or a mean one. Either endure
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: to be beaten until you die, or yield at once,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and let it not happen to you to receive many
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: stripes and then to yield. But if these things are base,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: determine immediately where is the nature of evil and good?
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: It is where truth is. Where truth is, and where
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: nature is there is caution. Where truth is, there is courage.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Where nature is. For what do you think Do you
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: think that if Socrates had wished to preserve externals, he
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: would have come forward and said, Annetus and Melitus can
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: certainly kill me, but to harm me they are not able.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Was he so foolish as not to see that this
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: way leads not to the preservation of life and fortune,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: but to another end. What is the reason, then, that
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: he takes no account of his adversaries and even irritates them.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Just in the same way, my friend as Heraclidus, who
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: had a little suit in Rhodes about a bit of land,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: and had proved to the judges Decastias that his case
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: was just said, when he had come to the peroration
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: of his speech. I will neither entreat you, nor do
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I care what judgment you will give. And it is
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: you rather than I, who are on your trial. And
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: thus he ended the business. What need was there of this? Only?
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Do not entreat? But do not also say I do
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: not entreat unless there is a fit occasion to irritate
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: purposely the judges, as was the case with Socrates and you,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: if you are preparing such a peroration, why do you wait?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Why do you obey the order to submit to trial?
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: For if you wish to be crucified, wait and the
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: cross will come. But if you choose to submit and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: to plead your cause as well as you can, you
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: must do what is consistent with this object, provided you
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: maintain what is your own, your proper character. For this reason, also,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: it is ridiculous to say suggest something to me, tell
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: me what to do? What should I suggest to you?
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Well form my mind so as to commodate itself to
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: any event. Why that is the same as if a
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: man who is ignorant of letters should say, tell me
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: what to write when any name is proposed to me.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: For if I should tell him to write Dion, and
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: then another should come and propose to him, not the
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: name of Dion, but that of theon What will be done?
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: What will he write? But if you have practiced writing,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: you are also prepared to write or to do anything
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: that is required. If you are not, what can I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: now suggest? For circumstances require something else? What will you
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: say or what will you do? Remember then this general precept,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: and you will need no suggestion. But if you gape
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: after externals, you must of necessity ramble up and down
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: in obedience to the will of your master. And who
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: is the master, He who has the power over the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: things which you seek to gain or try to avoid.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: End of book to chapter two.