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047 - XVI That We Do Not Strive to Use Our Opinions About Good and Evil · Discourses of Epictetus

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  Speaker 1: Section forty 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, January eleventh, twenty twenty two, Westford, Massachusetts,
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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter sixteen, that we do not strive to
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  Speaker 1: use our opinions about good and evil? Where's the good
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  Speaker 1: in the will? Where is the evil in the will?
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  Speaker 1: Where is neither of them in those things which are
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  Speaker 1: independent of the will? Well? Then does anyone among us
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  Speaker 1: think of these lessons? Out of the schools? Does anyone
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  Speaker 1: meditate strive by himself to give an answer to things?
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  Speaker 1: As in the case of questions, is it day? Yes?
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  Speaker 1: Is it night? No? Well? Is the number of stars? Even?
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  Speaker 1: I cannot say? When money is shown offered to you,
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  Speaker 1: have you studied to make the proper answer that money
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  Speaker 1: is not a good thing? Have you practiced yourself in
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  Speaker 1: these answers or only against sophisms? Why do you wonder then,
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  Speaker 1: if in the cases which you have studied, in those
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  Speaker 1: you have improved, but in those which you have not studied,
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  Speaker 1: in those you remain the same. When the rhetorician knows
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  Speaker 1: that he has written well, that he is committed to
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  Speaker 1: memory what he has written and brings an agreeable voice.
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  Speaker 1: Why is he still anxious because he is not satisfied
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  Speaker 1: with having studied? What, then, does he want to be
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  Speaker 1: praised by the audience for the purpose then of being
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  Speaker 1: able to practice declamation? He has been disciplined, But with
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  Speaker 1: respect to praise and blame, he has not been disciplined.
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  Speaker 1: For when did he hear from anyone what praise is,
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  Speaker 1: what blame is, what the nature of each is, what
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  Speaker 1: kind of praise should be sought or what kind of
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  Speaker 1: blame should be shunned? And when did he practice this
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  Speaker 1: discipline which follows these words things? Why then, do you
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  Speaker 1: still wonder if in the matters which a man has learned,
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  Speaker 1: there he surpasses others, and in those in which he
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  Speaker 1: has not been disciplined, there he is the same with
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  Speaker 1: the many. So the loop player knows how to play,
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  Speaker 1: sings well, and has a fine dress, and yet he
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  Speaker 1: trembles when he enters on the stage. For these matters
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  Speaker 1: he understands, but he does not know what a crowd is,
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  Speaker 1: nor the shouts of a crowd, nor what ridicule is.
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  Speaker 1: Neither does he know what anxiety is, whether it is
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  Speaker 1: our work or the work of another, whether it is
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  Speaker 1: possible to stop it or not. For this reason, if
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  Speaker 1: he has been praised, he leaves the theater puffed up.
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  Speaker 1: But if he has been ridiculed, the swollen bladder has
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  Speaker 1: been punctured and subsides. This is the case also with ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: What do we admire externals about? What things? Are we
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  Speaker 1: busy externals? And have we any doubt? Then? Why we
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  Speaker 1: fear or why we are anxious? What then happens when
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  Speaker 1: we think that things which are coming on us to
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  Speaker 1: be evils? It is not in our power not to
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  Speaker 1: be afraid, and it is not in our power not
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  Speaker 1: to be anxious. Then we say, Lord God, how shall
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  Speaker 1: I not be anxious? Fools? Have you not hands? Did
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  Speaker 1: not God make them? For you? Sit down now and
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  Speaker 1: pray that your nose may not run on? Wipe yourself rather,
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  Speaker 1: and do not blame him. Well, then has he given
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  Speaker 1: to you nothing in the present case? Has he not
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  Speaker 1: given you endurance? Has he not given you magnanimity? Has
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  Speaker 1: he not given you to manliness? When you have such hands?
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  Speaker 1: Do you still look for one who shall wipe your nose?
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  Speaker 1: But we neither study these things nor care for them.
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  Speaker 1: Give me a man who cares how he shall do anything,
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  Speaker 1: not for the obtaining of a thing, but who cares
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  Speaker 1: about his own energy. What man, when he is walking
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  Speaker 1: about cares for his own energy, Who, when he is deliberating,
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  Speaker 1: cares about his own deliberation, and not about obtaining that
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  Speaker 1: about which he deliberates. And if he succeeds, he is
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  Speaker 1: elated and says, how well we have deliberated? Did I
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  Speaker 1: not tell you, brother, that it is impossible when we
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  Speaker 1: have thought about anything, that it should not turn out thus?
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  Speaker 1: But if the thing should turn out otherwise, the wretched
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  Speaker 1: man is humbled. He knows not even what to say
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  Speaker 1: about what has taken place. Who among us, for the
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  Speaker 1: sake of this matter has consulted a seer, Who among us,
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  Speaker 1: as to his actions, has not slept in indifference. Who
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  Speaker 1: give name to me one that I may see, the
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  Speaker 1: man whom I have long been looking for, who is
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  Speaker 1: truly noble and ingenuous, whether young or old? Name him?
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  Speaker 1: Why then are we still surprised? If we are well
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  Speaker 1: practiced in thinking about matters any given subject, but in
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  Speaker 1: our acts are low, without decency, worthless, cowardly, impatient of labor,
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  Speaker 1: altogether bad. For we do not care about these things,
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  Speaker 1: nor do we study them. But if we had feared
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  Speaker 1: not death or banishment, but fear itself, we should have
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  Speaker 1: studied not to fall into those things which appear to
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  Speaker 1: us evils. Now in the school we are irritable and wordy,
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  Speaker 1: And if any little question arises about any of these things,
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  Speaker 1: we are able to examine them fully. But drag us
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  Speaker 1: to practice, and you will find us miserably shipwrecked. Let
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  Speaker 1: some disturbing appearance come on us, and you will know
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  Speaker 1: what we have been studying and in what we have
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  Speaker 1: been exercising ourselves. Consequently, through want of discipline, we are
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  Speaker 1: always adding something to the appearance, and representing things to
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  Speaker 1: be greater than what they are. For instance, as to myself,
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  Speaker 1: when I am on a voyage and look down on
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  Speaker 1: the deep sea, or look round on it and see
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  Speaker 1: no land, I am out of my mind and imagine
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  Speaker 1: that I must drink up all all of this water
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  Speaker 1: if I am wrecked. And it does not occur to
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  Speaker 1: me that three pints are enough? What then disturbs me?
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  Speaker 1: The sea? Now? But my opinion again, when an earthquake
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  Speaker 1: shall happen, I imagine that the city is going to
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  Speaker 1: fall on me, But is not one little stone enough
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  Speaker 1: to knock my brains out? What then, are the things
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  Speaker 1: which are heavy on us and disturb us? What else then, opinions?
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  Speaker 1: What else than opinions lies heavy upon him who goes
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  Speaker 1: away and leaves his companions and friends, and places and
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  Speaker 1: habits of life. Now, little children, for instance, when they
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  Speaker 1: cry on the nurse, leaving them for a short time,
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  Speaker 1: forget their sorrow. If they receive a small cake. Do
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  Speaker 1: you choose then that we should compare you to little children? No,
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  Speaker 1: by zeus, For I do not wish to be pacified
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  Speaker 1: by a small but by right opinions. And what are these?
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  Speaker 1: Such as? A man ought to study all day and
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  Speaker 1: not to be affected by anything that is not his own,
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  Speaker 1: neither by companion, nor place, nor gymnasia, and not even
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  Speaker 1: by his own body, But to remember the law, and
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  Speaker 1: to have it before his eyes. And what is the
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  Speaker 1: divine law? To keep a man's own, Not to claim
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  Speaker 1: that which belongs to others, but to use what is given,
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  Speaker 1: and when it is not given, not to desire it.
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  Speaker 1: And when a thing is taken away, to give it
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  Speaker 1: up readily and immediately, and to be thankful for the
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  Speaker 1: time that a man has had the use of it.
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  Speaker 1: If you would not cry for your nurse and mama,
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  Speaker 1: for what matter does it make? By what thing a
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  Speaker 1: man is subdued, and on what he depends? In what respect?
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  Speaker 1: Are you better than he who cries for a girl?
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  Speaker 1: If you grieve for a little gymnasium and little porticos,
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  Speaker 1: and young men in such places of amusement, another comes
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  Speaker 1: and laments that he shall no longer drink the water
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  Speaker 1: of dearcy. Is the Martian water worse than that of Dearcy?
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  Speaker 1: But I was used to the water of Dearcy, and you,
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  Speaker 1: in turn will be used to the other. Then if
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  Speaker 1: you become attached to this, also cry for this too,
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  Speaker 1: and try to make a verse like the verse of Euripides,
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  Speaker 1: the hot baths of Nero and the Martian water. See
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  Speaker 1: how tragedy is made when common things happen to silly men.
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  Speaker 1: When then shall I see Athens again and the acropolis? Wretch?
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  Speaker 1: Are you not content with what you see daily? Have
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  Speaker 1: you anything better or greater to see than the sun,
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  Speaker 1: the moon, the stars, the whole earth, the sea? But
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  Speaker 1: if indeed you comprehend him who administers the hole and
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  Speaker 1: carry him about in yourself? Do you still desire small
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  Speaker 1: stones and a beautiful rock? When then you are going
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  Speaker 1: to leave the sun itself and the moon? What will
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  Speaker 1: you do? Will you sit and weep like children? Well?
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  Speaker 1: What have you been doing in the school? What did
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  Speaker 1: you hear? What did you learn? Why did you write
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  Speaker 1: yourself a philosopher when you might have written the truth?
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  Speaker 1: As I made certain introductions, and I read Chrysippus, But
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  Speaker 1: I did not even approach the door of a philosopher.
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  Speaker 1: For how should I possess anything of the kind which
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  Speaker 1: Socrates possessed, who died as he did, who lived as
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  Speaker 1: he did, or anything such as Diogenes possessed. Do you
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  Speaker 1: think that any one of such men wept or grieved
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  Speaker 1: because he was not going to see a certain man
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  Speaker 1: or a certain woman, nor to be in Athens or
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  Speaker 1: in Corinth. But if it should so happen in Susa
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  Speaker 1: or in Ekpatana. For if a man can quit the
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  Speaker 1: banquet when he chooses and no longer amuse himself, does
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  Speaker 1: he still stay and complain? And does he not stay
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  Speaker 1: as at any amusement, only so long as he is pleased?
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  Speaker 1: Such a man, I suppose, would endure perpetual exile, or
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  Speaker 1: to be condemned to death. Will you not be weaned
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  Speaker 1: like children and take more solid food? And not cry
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  Speaker 1: after mammas and nurses, which are the lamentations of old women.
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  Speaker 1: But if I go away, I shall cause them sorrow.
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  Speaker 1: You cause them sorrow by no means, But that will
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  Speaker 1: cause them sorrow, which also causes you sorrow. Opinion, what
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  Speaker 1: have you to do? Then take away your own opinion?
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  Speaker 1: And if these women are wise, they will take away
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  Speaker 1: their own. If they do not, they will lament through
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  Speaker 1: their own fault. My man, as the proverb says, make
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  Speaker 1: a desperate effort on behalf of tranquility of mind, freedom
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  Speaker 1: and magnanimity. Lift up your head at last, as released
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  Speaker 1: from slavery, dare to look up to God and say,
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  Speaker 1: deal with me for the future. As thou wilt, I
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  Speaker 1: am of the same mind as thou art, I am thine.
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  Speaker 1: I refuse nothing that pleases thee lead me where thou
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  Speaker 1: wilt clothe me in any dress thou choosest? Is it
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  Speaker 1: thy will that I should hold the office of a magistrate,
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  Speaker 1: that I should be in a condition of a private man,
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  Speaker 1: stay here, or be in exile be poor, be rich.
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  Speaker 1: I will make thy to men in behalf of all
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  Speaker 1: these conditions. I will show the nature of each thing
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  Speaker 1: what it is. You will not do so, but sit
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  Speaker 1: in and Ox's belly and wait for your mama till
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  Speaker 1: she shall feed you. Who would Hercules have been? If
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  Speaker 1: he had sat at home? He would have been Eurystheus,
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  Speaker 1: and not Hercules. Well, and in his travels through the world,
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  Speaker 1: how many intimates and how many friends had he but
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  Speaker 1: nothing more dear to him than God. For this reason
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  Speaker 1: it was believed that he was the son of God,
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  Speaker 1: and he was in obedience to God. Then he went
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  Speaker 1: about purging way in justice and lawlessness. But you are
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  Speaker 1: not Hercules, and you are not able to purge away
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  Speaker 1: the wickedness of others. Nor yet are Euthseus able to
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  Speaker 1: purge away the evil things of Attica, clear away your own,
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  Speaker 1: from your self, from your thoughts, cast away instead of
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  Speaker 1: procrustus and sciron sadness, fear, desire, envy, malevolence, avarice, effeminacy,
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  Speaker 1: in temperance. But it is not possible to eject these
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  Speaker 1: things otherwise than by looking to God, only, by fixing
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  Speaker 1: your affections on him only by being consecrated to his commands.
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  Speaker 1: But if you choose anything else, you will, with size
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  Speaker 1: and groans, be compelled to follow what is stronger than yourself,
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  Speaker 1: always seeking tranquility and never able to find it. For
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  Speaker 1: you seek tranquility there where it is not, and to
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  Speaker 1: neglect to seek it where it is. End of Book two,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter sixteen,