BOOK IV. VIII. 24-30
pupils? Not at all. Those who have set their hearts on it shall see to that.[1] Well, is it to set forth difficult principles with great precision? Other men shall see to these things also. 25In what field was he, then, somebody, and wished so to be? In the field where there was hurt and help. "If," says he, "a man can hurt me, what I am engaged in amounts to nothing; if I wait for somebody else to help me, I am myself nothing. If I want something and it does not happen, it follows that I am miserable." This was the mighty ring[2] to which he challenged every man whomsoever, and therein he would not, I believe, have given way before anyone in—what do you suppose?—in proclaiming and asserting "I am such and such a man"? Far from it! but in being such and such a man. For, again, it is the part of a fool and blowhard to say, "I am tranquil and serene; be not ignorant, O men, that while you are tossed about and are in turmoil over worthless things, I alone am free from every perturbation." So is it not enough for you yourself to feel no pain without proclaiming, "Come together, all you who are suffering from gout, headaches, and fever, the halt, and the blind, and see how sound I am, and free from every disorder"? That is a vain and vulgar thing to say, unless, like Asclepius, you are able at once to show by what treatment those others will also become well again, and for this end are producing your own good health as an example.
30Such is the way of the Cynic who is deemed worthy of the sceptre and diadem of Zeus, and
- ↑ See note on IV. 6, 23.
- ↑ Strictly speaking, the loosened and smoothed earth on which wrestling matches were held, the ancient equivalent of our ring.
