Epictetus, the Discourses as reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments/Book 4/Chapter 6

by Epictetus

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CHAPTER VI

To those who are vexed at being pitied

I am annoyed, says one, at being pitied.—Is it, then, some doing of yours that you are pitied, or the doing of those who show the pity? Or again; is it in your power to stop it?—It is, if I can show them that I do not deserve their pity.—And do you now possess the power of not being deserving of pity, or do you not possess it?—It seems to me, indeed, that I possess it. Yet these people do not pity me for what would deserve pity, if anything does, that is, my mistakes; but for poverty, and for not holding office, and for things like disease, and death, and the like.—Are you, then, prepared to convince the multitude that none of these things is bad, but that it is possible for a poor man, and one who holds no office or position of honour, to be happy; or are you prepared to show yourself off to them as a rich man and an official? Of these alternatives the second is the part of a braggart, and a tasteless and worthless person. Besides, observe the means by which you must achieve your pretence: You will have to borrow some paltry slaves; and possess a few pieces of silver plate, and exhibit these same pieces conspicuously and frequently, if you can, and try not to let people know that they are the same; and possess contemptible bright clothes, and all other kinds of finery, and show yourself off as the one who is honoured by the most distinguished persons; and try to dine with them, or at least make people think that you dine with them; and resort to base arts in the treatment of your person, so as to appear more shapely and of gentler birth than you actually are. ⁵All these contrivances you must adopt, if you wish to take the way of the second alternative and avoid pity.

But the first way is ineffectual and tedious—to attempt the very thing which Zeus himself has been unable to accomplish, that is, to convince all men of what things are good, and what evil. Why, that has not been vouchsafed to you, has it? Nay, this only has been vouchsafed—to convince yourself. And you have not convinced yourself yet! And despite that, bless me! are you now trying to convince all other men? Yet who has been living with you so long as you have been living with yourself? And who is so gifted with powers of persuasion to convince you, as you are to convince yourself? Who is more kindly disposed and nearer to you than you are to yourself? How comes it, then, that you have not persuaded yourself to learn? Are not things now upside down? Is this what you have been in earnest about? Not to learn how to get rid of pain, and turmoil, and humiliation, and so become free? Have you not heard that there is but a single way which leads to this end, and that is to give up the things which lie outside the sphere of the moral purpose, and to abandon them, and to admit that they are not your own? ¹⁰To what class of things, then, does another's opinion about you belong?—To that which lies outside the sphere of the moral purpose.—And so it is nothing to you?—Nothing.—So long, then, as you are stung and disturbed by the opinions of others, do you still fancy that you have been persuaded as to things good and evil?

Will you not, then, let other men alone, and become your own pupil and your own teacher? "All other men shall see to it, whether it is profitable for them to be in a state out of accord with nature and so to live, but as for me no one is closer to myself than I am. What does it mean, then, that I have heard the words of the philosophers and assent to them, but that in actual fact my burdens have become no lighter? Can it be that I am so dull? And yet, indeed, in everything else that I have wanted I was not found to be unusually dull, but I learned my letters rapidly, and how to wrestle, and do my geometry, and analyse syllogisms. Can it be, then, that reason has not convinced me? Why, indeed, there is nothing to which I have so given my approval from the very first, or so preferred, and now I read about these matters, and hear them, and write about them. Down to this moment we have not found a stronger argument than this. What is it, then, that I yet lack? Can it be that the contrary judgements have not all been put away? Can it be that the thoughts themselves are unexercised and unaccustomed to face the facts, and, like old pieces of armour that have been stowed away, are covered with rust, and can no longer be fitted to me? ¹⁵Yet in wrestling, or in writing, or in reading, I am not satisfied with mere learning, but I turn over and over the arguments presented to me, and fashion new ones, and likewise syllogisms with equivocal premisses. However, the necessary principles, those which enable a man, if he sets forth from them, to get rid of grief, fear, passion, hindrance, and become free, these I do not exercise, nor do I take the practice that is appropriate for them. After all that, am I concerned with what everyone else will say about me, whether I shall appear important or happy in their eyes?"

O miserable man, will you not see what you are saying about yourself? What sort of a person are you in your own eyes? What sort of a person in thinking, in desiring, in avoiding; what sort of a person in choice, preparation, design, and the other activities of men? Yet you are concerned whether the rest of mankind pity you?—Yes, but I do not deserve to be pitied.—And so you are pained at that? And is the man who is pained worthy of pity?—Yes.—How, then, do you fail to deserve pity after all? By the very emotion which you feel concerning pity you make yourself worthy of pity. ²⁰What, then, says Antisthenes? Have you never heard? "It is the lot of a king, O Cyrus, to do well, but to be ill spoken of."^[1] My head is perfectly sound and yet everybody thinks I have a headache. What do I care? I have no fever, and yet everybody sympathizes with me as though I had: "Poor fellow, you have had a fever for ever so long." I draw a long face too, and say, "Yes, it truly is a long time that I have been in a bad way." "What is going to happen, then?" As God will, I reply, and at the same time I smile quietly to myself at those who are pitying me.

What, then, prevents me from doing the same thing in my moral life also? I am poor, but I have a correct judgement about poverty. Why, then, am I concerned, if men pity me for my poverty? I do not hold office, while others do. But I have the right opinion about holding office and not holding it. Let those who pity me look to it,^[2] but as for myself, I am neither hungry, nor thirsty, nor cold, but from their own hunger and thirst they think I too am hungry and thirsty. What, then, am I to do for them? Shall I go about and make proclamation, and say, "Men, be not deceived, it is well with me. I take heed neither of poverty, nor lack of office, nor, in a word, anything else, but only correct judgements; these I possess free from hindrance, I have taken thought of nothing further"? And yet, what foolish talk is this? How do I any longer hold correct judgements when I am not satisfied with being the man that I am, but am excited about what other people think of me?

²⁵But others will get more than I do, and will be preferred in honour above me.—Well, and what is more reasonable than for those who have devoted themselves to something to have the advantage in that to which they have devoted themselves? They have devoted themselves to office, you to judgements; and they to wealth, you to dealing with your sense-impressions. See whether they have the advantage over you in what you have devoted yourself to, but they neglect; whether their assent is more in accord with natural standards, whether their desire is less likely to achieve its aim than is yours, whether their aversion is less likely to fall into what it would avoid, whether in design, purpose, and choice they hit the mark better, whether they observe what becomes them as men, as sons, as parents, and then, in order, through all the other terms for the social relations. But if they hold office, will you not tell yourself the truth, which is. that you do nothing in order to get office, while they do everything, and that it is most unreasonable for the man who pays attention to something to come off with less than the man who neglects it?

Nay, but because I greatly concern myself with correct judgements, it is more reasonable for me to rule.—Yes, in what you greatly concern yourself with, that is, judgements; but in that with which other men have concerned themselves more greatly than you have, give place to them. It is as though, because you have correct judgements, you insisted that you ought in archery to hit the mark better than the archers, or to surpass the smiths at their trade. Drop, therefore, your earnestness about judgements, and concern yourself with the things which you wish to acquire, and then lament if you do not succeed, for you have a right to do that. ³⁰But as it is, you claim to be intent upon other things, to care for other things, and there is wisdom in what common people say, "One serious business has no partnership with another."^[3] One man gets up at early dawn and looks for someone of the household of Caesar^{[† 1]} to salute, someone to whom he may make a pleasant speech, to whom he may send a present, how he may please the dancer, how he may gratify one person by maliciously disparaging another. When he prays, he prays for these objects, when he sacrifices, he sacrifices for these objects. The word of Pythagoras,^[4]

Also allow not sleep to draw nigh to your languorous eyelids,

he has wrested to apply here. "'Where did I go wrong—'^[5] in matters of flattery? 'What did I do?' Can it be that I acted as a free man, or as a man of noble character?" And if he find an instance of the sort, he censures and accuses himself: "Why, what business did you have to say that? For wasn't it possible to lie? Even the philosophers say that there is nothing to hinder one's telling a lie."^[6] But if in all truth you have concerned yourself greatly with nothing but the proper use of sense-impressions, then as soon as you get up in the morning bethink you, "What do I yet lack in order to achieve tranquillity? What to achieve calm? What am I? I am not a paltry body, not property, not reputation, am I? None of these. Well, what am I? A rational creature." ³⁵What, then, are the demands upon you? Rehearse your actions. "'Where did I go wrong?' in matters conducive to serenity? 'What did I do' that was unfriendly, or unsocial, or unfeeling? 'What to be done was left undone' in regard to these matters?"

Since, therefore, there is so great a difference between the things which men desire, their deeds, and their prayers, do you still wish to be on an equal footing with them in matters to which you have not devoted yourself, but they have? And after all that, are you surprised if they pity you, and are you indignant? But they are not indignant if you pity them. And why? Because they are convinced that they are getting good things, while you are not so convinced in your own case. That is why you are not satisfied with what you have, but reach out for what they have. Because, if you had been truly convinced that, in the case of the things which are good, you are the one who is attaining them, while they have gone astray, you would not even have taken account of what they say about you.

Footnotes

1. So also Marcus Aurelius, 7, 36; and cf. Diogenes Laertius, 6, 3.
2. As in IV. 7, 23, and 8, 24, and Acts xviii. 15. Probably ὄψει, in S, I. 4, 13, can be defended on the analogy of these other cases.
3. Cf. IV. 10, 24.
4. Golden Verses, 40. See III. 10, 2.
5. The single quotation-marks enclose famous phrases from the Golden Verses, which Epictetus, with bitter irony, represents such a self-seeker as employing in a sense appropriate to his own contemptible behaviour.
6. Cf. Stobaeus, Ecl. II. 7, 11^m (vol. II. p. 111, 13 ff. Wachsmuth): "They (the Stoics) think that he (the wise man) will upon occasion employ falsehood in a number of different ways."

Select critical notes

1. τοῦ Καίσαρος added by Wolf; ἐξιόντα suggested by Reiske.