Consider the matter thus: you have fine clothes; your neighbour has not you have a window; you wish to air the clothes. The thief does not know wherein man's good consists, but he thinks that it consists in having fine clothes, the very thing which you also think. Must he not then come and take them away? When you show a cake to greedy persons, and swallow it all yourself, do you expect them not to snatch it from you? Do not provoke them do not have a window: do not air your clothes. I also lately had an iron lamp placed by the side of my household gods: hearing a noise at the door, I ran down, and found that the lamp had been carried off. I reflected that he who had taken the lamp had done nothing strange. What then? To-morrow, I said, you will find an earthen lamp: for a man only loses that which he has. I have lost my garment. The reason is that you had a garment. I have pain in my head. Have you any pain in your horns? Why then are you troubled? for we only lose those things, we have only pains about those things which we possess.[1]
But the tyrant will chain—what? the leg. He will take away—what? the neck. What then will he not chain and not take away? the will. This is why the antients taught the maxim, Know thyself.[2] Therefore we ought to exercise ourselves in small[3] things, and beginning with them to proceed to the greater. I have pain in the head. Do not say, alas! I have pain in the ear. Do not say, alas! And I do not say, that you are not allowed to groan, but do not groan inwardly; and if your slave is slow in bringing a bandage, do not cry out and torment yourself, and say, Every body hates me" for who would not hate such a man? For the
- ↑ The conclusion explains what precedes. A man can have no pain in his horns, because he has none. A man cannot be vexed about the loss of a thing if he does not possess it. Upton says that Epictetus alludes to the foolish quibble: "If you have not lost a thing, you have it but you have not lost horns; therefore you have horns" (Seneca, Ep. 45). Epictetus says, "You do not lose a thing when you have it not." See Schweig.'s note.
- ↑ Compare what is said in Xenophon, Mem. iv. 2; 24, on the expression Know thyself.
- ↑ This ought to be the method in teaching children."
