BOOK III. X. 2-6
"Also allow not sleep to draw nigh to your languorous eyelids,
Ere you have reckoned up each several deed of the daytime:
'Where went I wrong? Did what? And what to be done was left undone?'
Starting from this point review, then, your acts, and thereafter remember:
Censure yourself for the acts that are base, but rejoice in the goodly."[1]
And keep these verses on hand to use, not by way of exclamations, as we cry, "Paean Apollo!" 5Again, in a fever have ready the judgements which apply to that. Let us not, if we fall into a fever, abandon and forget all our principles, saying: "If I ever study philosophy again, let anything happen that will! I'll have to go away somewhere and take care of my poor body." Yes indeed, if fever does not go there too![2] But what is philosophy? Does it not mean making preparation to meet the things that come upon us? Do you not understand, then, that what you are saying amounts to something like this: "If I ever again prepare to bear quietly the things that come upon me, let anything happen that will"?
- ↑ The Golden Verses, vulgarly ascribed to Pythagoras, 40-44, with several variations in detail.
- ↑ The sense of this difficult and corrupt passage seems to be that Epictetus sarcastically approves the plan, with, however, the proviso, that there be no fever where his interlocutor plans to go; which was impossible, because there was no such place. In other words, one cannot avoid hardships by changing one's residence; therefore, prepare to meet them wherever you are.
