BOOK I. XXIX. 21-29
high price; for a lamp he became a thief, for a lamp he became faithless, for a lamp he became beast-like. This seemed to him to be profitable!
Very well; but now someone has taken hold of me by my cloak and pulls me into the market-place, and then others shout at me, "Philosopher, what good have your judgements done you? See, you are being dragged off to prison; see, you are going to have your head cut off." And what kind of Introduction to Philosophy could I have studied, which would prevent me from being dragged off, if a man who is stronger than I am should take hold of my cloak? Or would prevent me from being thrown into the prison, if ten men should hustle me and throw me unto it? Have I, then, learned nothing else? I have learned to see that everything which happens, if it be outside the realm of my moral purpose, is nothing to me.25—Have you, then, derived no benefit from this principle for the present case?[1] Why, then, do you seek your benefit in something other than that in which you have learned that it is?—Well, as I sit in the prison I say, "The fellow who shouts this at me neither understands what is meant, nor follows what is said, nor has he taken any pains at all to know what philosophers say, or what they do. Don't mind him." "But come out of the prison again." If you have no further need of me in the prison, I shall come out; if you ever need me there again, I shall go back in. For how long? For so long as reason chooses that I remain with my paltry body; but when reason does not so choose, take it and good health to you! Only let me not give up my life irrationally, only let me not give up my life faintheartedly, or from some casual pretext. For
- ↑ Epictetus seems to stop and address himself somewhat abruptly, but the connection of this and the next sentence is not entirely clear. Schweighäuser thought that they were addressed to some one of his pupils.
