EPISTLE LXXXIII.
sun, at times when I am most robust and when there is not a flaw in my bodily processes. I have very little energy left for bathing. 6. After the bath, some stale bread and breakfast without a table; no need to wash the hands after such a meal. Then comes a very short nap. You know my habit; I avail myself of a scanty bit of sleep,—unharnessing, as it were.[1] For I am satisfied if I can just stop staying awake. Sometimes I know that I have slept; at other times, I have a mere suspicion.
7. Lo, now the din of the Races sounds about me! My ears are smitten with sudden and general cheering. But this does not upset my thoughts or even break their continuity. I can endure an uproar with complete resignation. The medley of voices blended in one note sounds to me like the dashing of waves,[2] or like the wind that lashes the tree-tops, or like any other sound which conveys no meaning.
8. What is it, then, you ask, to which I have been giving my attention? I will tell you. A thought sticks in my mind, left over from yesterday,—namely, what men of the greatest sagacity have meant when they have offered the most trifling and intricate proofs for problems of the greatest importance,—proofs which may be true, but none the less resemble fallacies. 9. Zeno, that greatest of men, the revered founder of our brave and holy school of philosophy, wishes to discourage us from drunkenness. Listen, then, to his arguments proving that the good man will not get drunk: “No one entrusts a secret to a drunken man; but one will entrust a secret to a good man; therefore, the good man will not get drunk.”[3] Mark how ridiculous Zeno is made when we set up a similar syllogism in contrast with his. There are
- ↑ The same word is used by Seneca in De Tranq. An. xvii. 7 quidam medio die interiunxerunt et in postmeridianas horas aliquid levioris operae distulerunt.
- ↑ Cf. Ep. lvi. 3 istum fremitum non magis curo quam fluctum aut deiectum aquae.
- ↑ Zeno, Frag. 229 von Arnim,—quoting also Philo’s εἰ τῷ μεθύοντι οὐκ ἄν τις εὐλόγως λόγον ἀπόρρητον παρακατάθοιτο . . . οὐκ ἄρα μεθύει ὸ ἀστεῖος.
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