The Encheiridion of Epictetus/Fragments

by Epictetus

Layout 2

 

Fragments

 

 

We know
That we have power within ourselves to do
And suffer, what, we know not till we try;
But something nobler than to live and die:
So taught the kings of old philosophy.
Shelley.

 

SOME

FRAGMENTS OF EPICTETUS.

 

I.The lover of mankind is not he who loves money, or pleasure, or reputation, but he only who loves that which is fair and good.

 

II.Nothing is more little than love of pleasure, and love of gain, and arrogance; nothing is more great than highmindedness, and gentleness, and love of man, and beneficence.

 

III.If you would have your house well established, then follow the example of Lycurgus the Spartan. For even as he did not fence his city with walls, but fortified the inhabitants with virtue, and so kept the city free for ever, so do you not surround yourself with a great court nor build lofty towers, but confirm the dwellers in your house with goodwill and faith and friendliness, and no harmful thing shall enter it, no, not if the whole army of evil were arrayed against it.

 

IV.Not with tablets and pictures let your house be hung about, but adorn it with soberness. For those are alien to us, and a passing enchantment of the eyes; but that is akin to the soul and indelible, and an eternal ornament of the house.

 

V.Let not the structure of your city walls be variegated by the stones of Sparta and Eubœa, but let the philosophic teaching^[1] that comes from Greece penetrate with order the minds of citizens and ministers. For by the thoughts of men are cities well established, and not with wood and stone.

 

VI.Philosophic training, like gold, passes current in every place.

 

VII.Wealth is not a good thing; extravagance is a bad thing; soberness^[2] is a good thing. And soberness inclines us to frugality and the acquisition of things that are good; but wealth inclines us to extravagance and draws us away from soberness. It is hard then for a sober man to be rich, or for a rich man to be sober.

 

VIII.If you had been born in Persia, you would not have been anxious to live in Greece, but rather to live a happy life where you were; why then, if you have been born in poverty, are you anxious to become rich instead of remaining in poverty and being happy there?

 

IX.Even as the beacon-fires at harbours by a few dry sticks light up a great blaze and work a sufficient help to ships that are wandering on the sea, so a man who shines in a tempest-tossed State may be content with little for himself while he serves the citizens in much.

 

X.'They are mere fops,' said Epictetus, 'who think much of themselves for things that do not depend upon ourselves. I am better than you, says one, for I have large properties while you are dying of hunger. Another says, I am of consular rank; another, I am a Procurator; another, I have curled hair. But a horse does not say to another horse, I am better than you because I have much forage, and barley, and golden bits, and shining trappings, but because I am swifter. Surely every creature is better or worse through his own virtue or his own fault! And has a man alone then no virtue of his own, or must we look away to our locks, and our robes, and our ancestors?'

 

XI.Seek not to lay upon others what you avoid suffering yourself. You seek to avoid slavery, see to it that you do not yourself have slaves. For if you endure to have slaves, it seems that you yourself are first of all a slave. For evil has no communion with virtue, nor freedom with slavery.

 

XII.The cruel chain of the body is circumstance; of the soul, vice. Now he who is loosed in the body but bound in the soul is a slave; but he who is bound in the body but loosed in the soul is free.

 

XIII.As one who is in health would not choose to be served by the sick, nor to have sick people about him, so no one who is free would bear to be served by slaves, or that those living with him should be slaves.^[3]

 

XIV.But this above all is the task of Nature—to bind and harmonise together the forces of the phantasms of the Right and of the Useful.

 

XV.To suppose that we shall render ourselves contemptible in the eyes of others unless we somehow inflict an injury on those who first displayed hostility to us, is the character of most ignoble and thoughtless men. For thus we assert that a man is despised in proportion as he is powerless to do injury. But far rather is he despised according to his inability to do good.

 

XVI.It is better by agreeing with Truth to conquer Opinion, than by agreeing with Opinion to be conquered by Truth.

 

XVII.As the Sun does not wait for prayers and incantations before he rises, but straightway shines forth and is hailed of all, so do not you wait to do good for applause, and noise, and praise, but do it of your own desire, and like the Sun you will be loved.

 

XVIII.What you should not do, you should not entertain the thought of doing.

 

XIX.A pirate was cast ashore and perishing through hunger. And a certain man took clothing and gave it to him, and brought him into his house and supplied the rest of his needs. And some one having reproached him in that he had done good unto the wicked, I had this respect, he answered, not unto the man, but unto mankind.^[4]

 

XX.If you would be good, then first believe that you are evil

 

XXI.It must be understood that a conviction does not easily arise in a man unless he shall every day hear the same things, speak the same things, and at the same time apply them to life.

 

XXII.Grasshoppers are musical, snails are voiceless; these delight in dryness, those in moisture. So the dew calls forth the snails, and for the sake of it they crawl out; but the beaming sun arouses grasshoppers, and in the sunlight they sing. Therefore if you wish to be musical and harmonious, do not, when the soul is bedewed with wine over your cups, send her forth to be polluted; but when men sit together and the soul is fired with Reason, then bid her speak divine things and sing the oracles of righteousness.

 

XXIII.As those who have well constituted bodies are able to endure cold and heat, so those who have well constituted souls are able to bear anger, and grief, and excessive joy, and the other affections of the mind.

 

XXIV.To him that dwells with righteousness every place is safe.

 

XXV.Rather than bread, let understanding (λόγος) concerning God be renewed to you day by day.

 

XXVI.Think of God more unremittingly than you draw your breath.

 

XXVII.The sorrows of the foolish are cured by Time; of the wise, by Reason.

 

XXVIII.He is happily minded who grieves not for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.

 

XXIX.Would you live a life without grief? Then think of future things as though they had already been.

 

XXX.'You are a little soul bearing up a corpse,' said Epictetus

 

THE END.

Footnotes

1. παιδεία. See note on p. 8.
2. σωφροσύνη (σώζω to save, φρήν the mind), inadequately rendered by 'moderation,' 'soberness,' 'temperance,' etc., is one of the most characteristic words of Greek literature, and expresses, as far as any one word can, the spirit of the best Greek art. To be σώφρων was, for a Greek philosopher, to be an ideal, regenerate man. This fragment then is exactly paralleled by Luke xviii. 24, 25. But how differently the truth is taught in each case: in one with all the fire of the Hebrews, in the other with all the light of the Greeks!
3. The parallelisms of thought in Epictetus and the New Testament have often been noticed: it is a pity that the latter contains no parallel to this condemnation of slavery. Note that Epictetus, consistently with his principles, puts the objection to slavery on the side of the masters, not on that of the slaves—showing how one who consents to enslave the bodies of others can himself have no spiritual freedom, and therefore is more deeply enslaved than those of whom he calls himself the master.
4. οὐ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἔφη, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον τετίμηκα. It is not certain that this fragment is by Epictetus.