BOOK III. XXII. 16-23
within him, the man of outdoor life, the free man; he has begun to fear something external, he has begun to need something to conceal him), nor can he keep it concealed when he wishes to do so. For where will he conceal himself, or how? And if this instructor of us all, this "pedagogue,"[1] chance to get caught,[2] what must he suffer! Can, then, a man who is afraid of all this continue with all his heart to supervise the conduct of other men? It cannot be done, it is impossible.
In the first place, then, you must make your governing principle pure, and you must make the following your plan of life: 20"From now on my mind is the material with which I have to work, as the carpenter has his timbers, the shoemaker his hides; my business is to make the right use of my impressions. My paltry body is nothing to me; the parts of it are nothing to me. Death? Let it come when it will, whether it be the death of the whole or some part. Exile? And to what place can anyone thrust me out? Outside the universe he cannot. But wherever I go, there are sun, moon, stars, dreams, omens, my converse with gods."
In the next place, the true Cynic, when he is thus prepared, cannot rest contented with this, but he must know that he has been sent by Zeus to men,
- ↑ That is, the trusted servant who attended constantly the boys of the well-to-do families, and in particular watched over their deportment and morals.
- ↑ ἐμπεσεῖν seems to me to be used as in III. 7, 12. This is a rare meaning, indeed, but supported to some extent also by the gloss in Hesychius: ἐμπεσεῖν· εἰς δεσμωτήριον ἀχθῆναι. The word is also used of getting caught in a trap, Xenophon Mem. II. 1, 4: τοῖς θηράτροῖς ἐμπίπτουσι. That is probably the original form of expression from which the intransitive use derives. Schenkl (not Schweighäuser, to whom I owe the above references to Hesychius and Xenophon) appears to me to be wrong in rendering the word "decipior," although Matheson is inclined to follow him. Capps suggests that "the κοινὸς παιδευτής is God," and that ἐμπέσῃ means "break in upon." But that might be somewhat inconsistent with ὰπὸ τυχῆς, which seems hardly appropriate of an action on the part of God.
