BOOK II. XXII. 7-12
and at one moment praise them, while at another you blame them?—Yes, I am subject to exactly these emotions.—What then? Do you think that the man who has been deceived about someone can be his friend?—No, indeed.—And can the man whose choice of a friend is subject to change show good will to that friend?—No, neither can he.—And the man who now reviles someone, and later on admires him?—No, neither can he.—What then? Did you never see dogs fawning on one another and playing with one another, so that you say, "Nothing could be more friendly"? But to see what their friendship amounts to, throw a piece of meat between them and you will find out. 10Throw likewise between yourself and your son a small piece of land, and you will find out how much your son wants to bury you, the sooner the better, and how earnestly you pray for your son's death. Then you will change your mind again and say, "What a child I have brought up! All this time he has been ready to carry me to my grave." Throw between you a pretty wench, and the old man as well as the young one falls in love with her; or, again, a bit of glory. And if you have to risk your life you will say what the father of Admetus did:
Do you imagine that he did not love his own child when it was small, and that he was not in agony when it had the fever, and that he did not say over and over again, "If only I had the fever instead"? And then, when the test comes and is upon him,
- ↑ Euripides, Alcetis, 691, Browning's translation. Cf. the critical note. Admetus had been reproaching his father for not being willing to die in his stead.
- ↑ Quoted from memory. That of Euripides give χαίρεις ὁρῶν . . . χαίρειν δοκεῖς. That of Epictetus gives both versions, but the correct version preceding the incorrect, was bracketed by Elter.
