BOOK I. XXIX. 65-XXX. 5
excused the jailor who wept for him when he was about to drink the poison, and said, "How generously he has wept for us!"[1] Does he, then, say to the jailor, "This is why we sent the women away"?[2] No, but he makes this latter remark to his intimate friends, to those who were fit to hear it; but the jailor he treats with consideration like a child.
CHAPTER XXX
What aid ought we to have ready at hand in difficulties?
When you come into the presence of some prominent man, remember that Another[3] looks from above on what is taking place, and that you must please Him rather than this man. He, then, who is above asks of you, "In your school what did you call exile and imprisonment and bonds and death and disrepute?" "I called them 'things indifferent.'" "What, then, do you call them now? Have they changed at all?" "No." "Have you, then, changed?" "No." "Tell me, then, what things are 'indifferent.'" "Those that are independent of the moral purpose." "Tell me also what follows." "Things independent of the moral purpose are nothing to me." "Tell me also what you thought were 'the good things.'" "A proper moral purpose and a proper use of external impressions." "And what was the 'end'?" "To follow Thee." 5"Do you say all that even now?" "I say the same things even now." Then enter in, full of confidence and mindful of all this, and you shall see
- ↑ Slightly modified from Plato, Phaedo, 116D.
- ↑ Slightly modified from Plato, Phaedo, 117D.
- ↑ That is, God. Compare note on I. 25, 13.
