have I not been overpowered before? An inclination arises in me to find fault with a person; for have I not found fault with him before? You speak to us as if you had come off (from these things) free from harm, just as if a man should say to his physician who forbids him to bathe, Have I not bathed before? If then the physician can say to him, Well, and what then happened to you after the bath? Had you not a fever, had you not a headache? And when you found fault with a person lately, did you not do the act of a malignant person, of a trifling babbler; did you not cherish this habit in you by adding to it the corresponding acts? And when you were overpowered by the young girl, did you come off unharmed? Why then do you talk of what you did before? You ought, I think, remembering what you did, as slaves remember the blows which they have received, to abstain from the same faults. But the one case is not like the other; for in the case of slaves the pain causes the remembrance: but in the case of your faults, what is the pain, what is the punishment; for when have you been accustomed to fly from evil acts?[1] Sufferings then of the trying character are useful to us, whether we choose or not.
- ↑ Upton supposed that the words Ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὅμοιον . . . . to κακῶς ἐνεργῆσαι, in the translation, 'But the one case is not, . . . to 'fly from evil acts,' are said by the adversary of Epictetus, and Mrs. Carter has followed Upton in the translation. But then there is no sense in the last sentence Οἱ πόνοι ἄρα etc., in the translation, 'Sufferings then' etc. The reader may consult Schweighaeuser's note. I suppose that Epictetus is speaking the words 'But the one case' etc. to the end of the chapter. The adversary, who is not punished like a slave, and has no pains to remind him of his faults, is supposed so far not to have felt the consequences of his bad acts; but Epictetus concludes that sufferings of a painful character would be useful to him, as they are to all persons who do what they ought not to do. There is perhaps some difficulty in the word πειρατηρίων. But I think that Schweig. has correctly explained the passage.
