BOOK II. I. 31-36
and aversion, whether you do not fail to get what you wish, or do not fall into what you do not wish. As for those trifling periods of yours, if you are wise, you will take them away somewhere and blot them out.—What then? Did not Socrates write?—Yes, who wrote as much as he?[1] But how? Since he could not have always at hand someone to test his judgements, or to be tested by him in turn, he was in the habit of testing and examining himself, and was always in a practical way trying out some particular primary conception. That is what a philosopher writes; but trifling phrases, and "said he," "said I"[2][† 1] he leaves to others, to the stupid or the blessed, those who by virtue of their tranquillity live at leisure, or those who by virtue of their folly take no account of logical conclusions.
And now, when the crisis calls, will you go off and make an exhibition of your compositions, and give a reading from them, and boast, "See, how I write dialogues"? 35Do not so, man, but rather boast as follows: "See how in my desire I do not fail to get what I wish. See how in my aversions I do not fall into things that I would avoid. Bring on death and you shall know; bring on hardships, bring on imprisonment, bring on disrepute, bring on condemnation." This is the proper exhibition of a young man come from school. Leave other things to other people; neither let anyone ever hear a word from you about them, nor, if anyone praises you for them, do you tolerate it, but let yourself be accounted a no-body and a know-nothing. Show
- ↑ A very strange passage, for it was generally believed that Socrates did not write. Still there seems to have been some doubt on the question (Diog. Laert. I. 16 makes the statement that he did not write as resting "on the authority of some"), and the style of writing which Epictetus here describes seems not to have been intended for publication, so that it may be possible that Socrates wrote copiously, but only as a philosophical exercise, and not for others to read.
- ↑ Characteristic expressions in dialogue, an especially popular type of composition for philosophy which aspired to a refined literary form; compare the critical note.
- ↑ "ἦ δ᾽ ὄς," "ἦν δ᾽ ἑγώ," Kronenberg: ἡ ὁδός, ἢν λέγ** S (λέγω Sc).
