Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 1 Oldfather 1925.djvu/241

 you learn them for? I fancy that someone among these who are sitting here is in travail within his own soul and is saying, "Alas, that such a difficulty does not come to me now as that which has come to this fellow! Alas, that now I must be worn out sitting in a corner, when I might be crowned at Olympia! When will someone bring me word of such a contest?" You ought all to be thus minded. But among the gladiators of Caesar there are some who complain because no one brings them out, or matches them with an antagonist, and they pray God and go to their managers, begging to fight in single combat; and yet will no one of you display a like spirit? I wanted to sail to Rome for this very purpose and to see what my athlete is doing, what practice he is following in his task. "I do not want," says he, "this kind of a task." What, is it in your power to take any task you want? You have been given such a body, such parents, such brothers, such a country, such a position in it; and then do you come to me and say, "Change the task for me"? What, do you not possess resources to enable you to utilize that which has been given? You ought to say, "It is yours to set the task, mine to practise it well." No, but you do say, "Do not propose to me such-and-such a hypothetical syllogism, but rather such-and-such a one; do not urge upon me such-and-such a conclusion, but rather such-and-such a one." A time will soon come when the tragic actors will think that their masks and buskins and the long robe are themselves. Man, all these things you have as a subject-matter and a task. Say something, so that we may know whether you are a tragic actor or a buffoon; for both of these have 197