Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 1 Oldfather 1925.djvu/295

 to pray that they should never at all be harvested? But never to be harvested at all is a curse for heads of grain. In like manner I would have you know that in the case of men as well it is a curse never to die; it is like never growing ripe, never being harvested. But, since we are ourselves those who must both be harvested and also be aware of the very fact that we are being harvested, we are angry on that account. For we neither know who we are, nor have we studied what belongs to man, as horsemen study what belongs to horses. But Chrysantas, when he was on the point of striking the foe, refrained because he heard the bugle sounding the recall; it seemed so much more profitable to him to do the bidding of his general than to follow his own inclination. Yet no one of us is willing, even when necessity calls, to obey her readily, but what we suffer we suffer with fears and groans, and call it "circumstances." What do you mean by "circumstances," man? If you call "circumstances" your surroundings, all things are "circumstances"; but if you use the word of hardships, what hardship is involved when that which has come into being is destroyed? The instrument of destruction is a sword, or a wheel, or the sea, or a tile, or a tyrant. What concern is it to you by what road you descend to the House of Hades? They are all equal. But if you care to hear the truth, the road by which the tyrant sends you is the shorter. No tyrant ever took six months to cut a man's throat, but a fever often takes more than a year. All these things are a mere noise and a vaunting of empty names. 251