Discourses by Epictetus

Author:Epictetus [Epictetus]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Ethics, Ancient, Conduct of Life--Early works to 1800
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2020-04-07T18:49:07+00:00

XXIV

That We Ought Not to Be Moved by a Desire of Those Things Which Are Not in Our Power

Let not that which in another is contrary to nature be an evil to you: for you are not formed by nature to be depressed with others nor to be unhappy with others, but to be happy with them. If a man is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault: for God has made all men to be happy, to be free from perturbations. For this purpose he has given means to them, some things to each person as his own, and other things not as his own; some things subject to hindrance and compulsion and deprivation, and these things are not a man’s own; but the things which are not subject to hindrances, are his own. And the nature of good and evil, as it was fit to be done by him who takes care of us and protects us like a father, he has made our own.—But you say: I have parted from a certain person, and he is grieved.—Why did he consider as his own that which belongs to another? Why, when he looked on you and was rejoiced, did he not also reckon that you are mortal, that it is natural for you to part from him for a foreign country? Therefore he suffers the consequences of his own folly. But why do you569 or for what purpose bewail yourself? Is it that you also have not thought of these things? but like poor women who are good for nothing, you have enjoyed all things in which you took pleasure, as if you would always enjoy them, both places and men and conversation; and now you sit and weep because you do not see the same persons and do not live in the same places.—Indeed you deserve this, to be more wretched than crows and ravens who have the power of flying where they please and changing their nests for others, and crossing the seas without lamenting or regretting their former condition.—“Yes, but this happens to them because they are irrational creatures.”—Was reason then given to us by the gods for the purpose of unhappiness and misery, that we may pass our lives in wretchedness and lamentation? Must all persons be immortal and must no man go abroad, and must we ourselves not go abroad, but remain rooted like plants; and if any of our familiar friends goes abroad, must we sit and weep; and on the contrary, when he returns, must we dance and clap our hands like children?

Shall we not now wean ourselves and remember what we have heard from the philosophers? If we did not listen to them as if they were jugglers: they tell us that this world is one city,570 and the substance out of which it has been formed is one, and that there must be a certain period, and that some things must give way to others, that

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