BOOK I. IV. 23-30
he has travelled is nothing; but not so that other goal—to study how a man may rid his life of sorrows and lamentations, and of such cries as "Woe is me!" and "Wretch that I am!" and of misfortune and failure, and to learn the meaning of death, exile, prison, hemlock;[1] that he may be able to say in prison, "Dear Crito, if so it pleases the gods, so be it,"[2] rather than, "Alas, poor me, an old man, it is for this that I have kept my grey hairs!" 25Who says such things? Do you think that I will name you some man held in small esteem and of low degree? Does not Priam say it? Does not Oedipus? Nay more, all kings say it! For what are tragedies but the portrayal in tragic verse of the sufferings of men who have admired things external? If indeed one had to be deceived[3] into learning that among things external and independent of our free choice none concerns us, I, for my part, should consent to a deception which would result in my living thereafter serenely and without turmoil; but as for you, you will yourselves see to your own preference.
What, then, does Chrysippus furnish us? "That you may know," he says, "that these things are not false from which serenity arises and tranquillity comes to us, take my books and you shall know how conformable and harmonious with nature are the things which render me tranquil." O the great good fortune! O the great benefactor who points the way! 30To Triptolemus, indeed, all men have
- ↑ The poison with which Socrates was put to death.
- ↑ Plato, Crito, 43 D.
- ↑ Probably by witnessing tragedies, the plots of which, although fictitious, may teach moral lessons.
