Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 1 Oldfather 1925.djvu/243

 everything but their lines in common. Therefore, if one should take away from him both his buskins and his mask, and bring him on the stage as a mere shade of an actor, is the tragic actor lost, or does he abide? If he has a voice, he abides.

And so it is in actual life. "Take a governorship." I take it and having done so I show how an educated man comports himself. "Lay aside the laticlave, and having put on rags come forward in a character to correspond." What then? Has it not been given me to display a fine voice. "In what role, then, do you mount the stage now?" As a witness summoned by God. God says, "Go you and bear witness for Me; for you are worthy to be produced by me as a witness. Is any of those things which lie outside the range of the moral purpose either good or evil? Do I injure any man? Have I put each man's advantage under the control of any but himself?" What kind of witness do you bear for God?" I am in sore straits, O Lord, and in misfortune; no one regards me, no one gives me anything, all blame me and speak ill of me? Is this the witness that you are going to bear, and is this the way in which you are going to disgrace the summons which He gave you, in that He bestowed this honour upon you and deemed you worthy to be brought forward in order to bear testimony so important?

But the one who has authority over you declares, "I pronounce you impious and profane." What has happened to you? "I have been pronounced impious and profane." Nothing else? "Nothing." But if he had passed judgement upon some hypothetical syllogism and had made a declaration, "I judge 199