Page:All the works of Epictetus - which are now extant; consisting of his Discourses, preserved by Arrian, in four books, the Enchiridion, and fragments (IA allworksofepicte00epic).pdf/67

RV 15 (Chap. 4.) desires, or is averse to, Things out of his own Power, can neither be faithful nor free, but must necessarily be changed and tossed up and down with them; must necessarily too be subject to others, to such as can procure or prevent what he desires or is averse to: if, rising in the Morning, he observes and keeps to these Rules; bathes and eats as a Man of Fidelity and Honour; and thus, on every Subject of Action, exercises himself in his principal Duty; as a Racer, in the Business of Racing; as a public Speaker, in the Business of exercising his Voice: this is he, who truly improves this is he, who hath not travelled in vain. But if he is wholly intent on reading Books, and hath laboured that Point only, and travelled for that: I bid him go home immediately, and not neglect his domestic Affairs; for what he travelled for, is nothing. The only real Thing is, studying how to rid his Life of Lamentation, and Complaint, and Alas! and I am undone, and Misfortune, and Disappointment; and to learn what Death, what Exile, what Prison, what Poison is: That he may be able to say in a Prison, like Socrates, "My dear Crito; if it thus pleases the Gods, thus let it be;" and not "Wretched old Man, have I kept my grey Hairs for this!" Who speaks thus? Do you suppose I will name some mean and despicable Person? Is it not Priam who says it? Is it not Oedipus? Nay, how many Kings say it? For what else is Tragedy, but the Sufferings of Men, struck by an Admiration of Externals, represented in that Kind of Poetry? If one was to be taught by Fictions, that Externals independent upon Choice are nothing to us; I, for my Part, should wish for such a Fiction, as that, by which I might