BOOK III. XIII. 2-7
house with us, and sometimes even though we have a multitude of slaves. For according to the nature of the concept the 'forlorn' means the person who is without help, and exposed to those who wish to injure him. That is why, when we go on a journey, we call ourselves forlorn most especially at the moment that we encounter robbers. For it is not the sight of a human being as such which puts an end to our forlorn condition, but the sight of a faithful, and unassuming, and helpful human being. Why, if being alone is enough to make one forlorn, you will have to say that even Zeus himself is forlorn at the World-Conflagration,[1] and bewails himself: "Wretched me! I have neither Hera, nor Athena, nor Apollo, nor, in a word, brother, or son, or grandson, or kinsman." 5There are even those who say that this is what he does when left alone at the World-Conflagration; for they cannot conceive of the mode of life of one who is all alone, starting as they do from a natural principle, namely, the facts of natural community of interest among men, and mutual affection, and joy in intercourse. But one ought none the less to prepare oneself for this also, that is, to be able to be self-sufficient, to be able to commune with oneself; even as Zeus communes with himself, and is at peace with himself, and contemplates the character of his governance, and occupies himself with ideas appropriate to himself, so ought we also to be able to converse with ourselves, not to be in need of others, not to be at a loss for
- ↑ The periodic consumption of the universe by fire, and its rebirth, a doctrine which the Stoics inherited from Heracleitus. Even the deities, with the exception of Zeus, succumb in the Götterdämmerung. Precisely the same situation as that described here is referred to by Seneca, Ep. Mor. 9, 16: Qualis est Iovis (vita), cum resoluto mundo et dis in unum confusis paulisper cessante natura adquiescit sibi cogitationibus suis traditus.
