BOOK VIII
to confess. Remind thyself further that it is not the future nor the past but the present always that brings thee its burden. But this is reduced to insignificance if thou isolate it, and take thy mind to task[1] if it cannot hold out against this mere trifle.
37. Does Pantheia[2] now watch by the urn of her lord, or Pergamus? What, does Chabrias or Diotimus by Hadrian's? Absurd! And had they sat there till now, would the dead have been aware of it? and, if aware of it, would they have been pleased? and, if pleased, would that have made the mourners immortal? Was it not destined that these like others should become old women and old men and then die? What then, when they were dead, would be left for those whom they had mourned to do? It is all stench and foul corruption in a sack of skin.[3]
38. Hast thou keenness of sight? Use it with judgment ever so wisely, as the saying goes.
39. In the constitution of rational creatures I see no virtue incompatible with justice, but incompatible with pleasure I see—continence.
40. Take away thy opinion[4] as to any imagined pain, and thou thyself art set in surest safety. What is 'thyself'? Reason. But I am not reason. Be it so. At all events let the Reason not cause itself pain, but if any part in thee is amiss, let it form its own opinion about itself.[5]
- ↑ See on vi. 29.
- ↑ Lucian (?) (Imag. §§ 10, 22), mentions Pantheia as the matchless concubine of τῷ μεγάλῳ βασιλεῖ χρήστῳ καὶ ἡμέρῳ ὄντι (meaning apparently Lucius Verus). Lucian (Nigr. §31) speaks of οἱ κελεύοντες καὶ παραμένειν τινὰς οἰκέτας τοῖς τάφοις.
- ↑ Epict. Frag. 94. cp. Diog. Laert. Anaxarchus, § 2; Zeno Eleat. § 5. Howell, Familiar Letters, viii. 2, 50, speaks of "this small skinful or bagful of bones."
- ↑ vii. 10; viii. 47.
- ↑ vii. 33.
