BOOK II. XVI. 34-41
school? What was it you heard and learned? Why did you record yourself as a philosopher when you might have recorded the truth in these words: "I studied a few introductions, and did some reading in Chrysippus, but I did not even get past the door of a philosopher?[1] 35Since what part have I in that business in which Socrates, who died so nobly, and so nobly lived, had a part? Or in that in which Diogenes had a part?" Can you imagine one of these men crying or fretting because he is not going to see such-and-such a man, or such-and-such a woman, or to live in Athens or in Corinth, but, if it so happen, in Susa or in Ecbatana? What, does he who is at liberty to leave the banquet when he will, and to play the game no longer, keep on annoying himself by staying? Does he not stay, like children,[† 1] only as long as he is entertained? Such a man would be likely, forsooth, to endure going into exile for life or the exile of death, if this were his sentence.
Are you not willing, at this late date, like children, to be weaned and to partake of more solid food, and not to cry for mammies and nurses—old wives' lamentations? 40"But if I leave, I shall cause those women sorrow?" You cause them sorrow? Not at all, but it will be the same thing that causes sorrow to you yourself—bad judgement.[2] What, then, can you do? Get rid of that judgement, and, if they do well, they will themselves get rid of their judgement; otherwise, they will come to grief and have only themselves to thank for it. Man, do something desperate, as the expression goes, now if never before, to achieve peace, freedom, and high-
- ↑ Did no serious work in philosophy. For the figure of speech compare IV. 1, 177.
- ↑ This point is especially well brought out in Encheiridion, 5.
- ↑ παιδία Gataker (supported by Bentley and Upton), παιδίᾷ S. Compare the very close parallel in I. 24, 20, and for the frequent use by Epictetus of illustrations from the character and behaviour of children see E. Renner: Das Kind. Ein Gleichnis-mittel bei Epiktet, München, 1905, 54 ff.
