BOOK II. XVI. 41-45
mindedness. Lift up your neck at last like a man escaped from bondage, be bold to look towards God and say, "Use me henceforward for whatever Thou wilt; I am of one mind with Thee; I am Thine; I crave exemption from nothing that seems good in Thy sight; where Thou wilt, lead me; in what raiment Thou wilt, clothe me. Wouldst Thou have me to hold office, or remain in private life; to remain here or go into exile; to be poor or be rich? I will defend all these Thy acts before men; I will show what the true nature of each thing is." Nay, you will not; sit rather in the house as girls do[1][† 1] and wait for your mammy until she feeds you! If Heracles had sat about at home, what would he have amounted to? He would have been Eurystheus[2] and no Heracles. Come, how many acquaintances and friends did he have with him as he went up and down through the whole world? Nay, he had no dearer friend than God. That is why he was believed to be a son of God, and was. It was therefore in obedience to His will that he went about clearing away wickedness and lawlessness. 45But you are no Heracles, you say, and you cannot clear away the wickedness of other men, nay, nor are you even a Theseus, to clear away the ills of Attica merely. Very well, clear away your own then. From just here, from out your own mind, cast not Procrustes and Sciron,[3] but grief, fear, desire, envy, joy at others' ills; cast out greed, effeminacy, incontinency. These
- ↑ Compare the critical note.
- ↑ The craven, stay-at-home king, under whose orders Heracles performed his "labours."
- ↑ Two famous robbers who infested the road between Athens and Megara and were given their just deserts by Theseus.
- ↑ ἔνδον ὠς κοράσια Capps: ἐν βοὸς κοιλίᾳ S (retained by Schenkl), "in a cow's belly," which might conceivably be a contemptuous expressions for a cradle, or baby-basket, but I know of no evidence to support this view.
