Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 1 Oldfather 1925.djvu/273

 either endure to be beaten until you die, or give in at once. Far be it from you to receive many blows and yet at the last give in! But if that is disgraceful, begin this very moment to decide the question, "Where is the nature of good and evil to be found? Where truth also is. Where truth and where nature are, there is caution; where truth is, there is confidence, where nature is."

Why, do you think that if Socrates had wished to maintain his external possessions he would have come forward and said, "Anytus and Meletus are able indeed to kill me, but they cannot harm me"? Was he so foolish as not to see that this course does not lead to that goal, but elsewhere? Why is it unreasonable, then, to add also a word of provocation? Just as my friend Heracleitus, who had an unimportant lawsuit about a small piece of land in Rhodes; after he had pointed out the justice of his claim he went on to the peroration in which he said, "But neither will I entreat you, nor do I care what your decision is going to be, and it is you who are on trial rather than I." And so he ruined his case. What is the use of acting like that? Merely make no entreaties, but do not add the words "Yes, and I make no entreaties," unless the right time has come for you, as it did for Socrates, deliberately to provoke your judges. If you, for your part, are preparing a peroration of that sort, why do you mount the platform at all, why answer the summons? For if you wish to be crucified, wait and the cross 229