BOOK I. XIX. 4-1O
What follows, then? Are these things superior to me? No, but they render me some service, and therefore I pay attention to them. Again, do I not pay attention to my donkey? 5Do I not wash his feet? Do I not curry him? Do you not know that every man pays attention to himself, and to you just as he does to his donkey? For who pays attention to you as to a man? Point him out to me. Who wishes to become like you? Who becomes a zealous follower of yours as men did of Socrates? "But I can cut off your head." Well said! I had forgotten that I ought to pay attention to you, as to fever or cholera, and set up an altar to you, just as in Rome there is an altar to the God Fever.
What is it, then, that disturbs and bewilders the multitude? Is it the tyrant and his bodyguards? How is that possible? Nay, far from it! It is not possible that that which is by nature free should be disturbed or thwarted by anything but itself. But it is a man's own judgements that disturb him. For when the tyrant says to a man, "I will chain your leg," the man who has set a high value on his leg replies, "Nay, have mercy upon me," while the man who has set a high value on his moral purpose replies, "If it seems more profitable to you to do so, chain it." "Do you not care?" "No, I do not care." "I will show you that I am master." "How can you be my master? Zeus has set me free. Or do you really think that he was likely to let his own son be made a slave? You are, however, master of my dead body, take it." 10"You mean, then, that when you approach me you will not pay attention to me?" "No, I pay attention only to myself. But if you wish me to say that I pay attention to
