BOOK VI
thou wouldst pay due service to the former, and yet thy constant recourse would be to thy mother. So hast thou now the court and philosophy for stepmother and mother. Cease not then to come to the latter and take thy rest in her,[1] whereby shall both thy court life seem more tolerable[2] to thee, and thou to thy court life.
13. As in the case of meat and similar eatables the thought strikes us, this is the dead body of a fish, this of a fowl or pig; and again that this Falernian is merely the juice of a grape-cluster, and this purple-edged robe is nought but sheep's wool[3] steeped in the blood of a shell-fish; or, of sexual intercourse, that it is merely internal attrition and the spasmodic excretion of mucus[4]—such, I say, as are these impressions that get to grips with the actual things and enter into the heart of them, so as to see them as they really are, thus should it be thy life through, and where things look to be above measure convincing, laying them quite bare, behold their paltriness and strip off their conventional prestige. For conceit is a past master in fallacies and, when thou flatterest thyself most that thou art engaged in worthy tasks, then art thou most of all deluded by it. At any rate, see what Crates has to say about none other than Xenocrates.[5]
14. Objects admired by the common sort come chiefly under things of the most general kind, which are held together by physical coherence,[6] such as stones and wood, or by a natural unity, such as figs,
- ↑ Sen. Ep. 103.
- ↑ For life in kings' courts see Lucian, Calumn. 10, and Icaro-Men. 16.
- ↑ cp. Lucian, Dem. § 41.
- ↑ cp. Tzetz. Chil. vii. 801. He reads νευρίου for ἐντερίου.
- ↑ It is not known what Marcus here refers to.
- ↑ cp. Sext. Emp. adv. Math. viii. 2; ix. 81, τὰ μὲν ὑπὸ ψιλῆςἕξεως συνέχεται, τὰ δὲ ὑπὸ φύσεως, τὰ δὲ ὑπὸ ψυχῆς· καὶ ἕξεως μὲν ὡς λίθοι καὶ ξύλα, φύσεως δὲ καθάπερ τὰ φυτά, ψυχῆς δὲ τὰ ζῷα.
