Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 1 Oldfather 1925.djvu/447

 a long time and are comrades; but though this is the only knowledge you have concerning them, you may confidently declare them "friends," just as you may declare them "faithful" and "upright." For where else is friendship to be found than where there is fidelity, respect, a devotion to things honourable and to naught beside?

"But he has paid attention to me all these years; and did he not love me?" How do you know, slave, whether he has paid attention to you just as he sponges his shoes, or curries his horse? How do you know but that, when you have lost your utility, as that of some utensil, he will throw you away like a broken plate? "But she is my wife and we have lived together all these years." But how long did Eriphyle live with Amphiaraus, yes, and bore him children, and many of them? But a necklace came in between them. And what does a necklace signify? One's judgement about things like a necklace. That was the brutish element, that was what sundered the bond of love, what would not allow a woman to be a wife, a mother to remain a mother. So let every one of you who is eager to be a friend to somebody himself, or to get somebody else for a friend, eradicate these judgements, hate them, banish them from his own soul. When this is done, first of all, he will not be reviling himself, fighting with himself, repenting, tormenting himself: and, in the second place, in relation to his comrade, he will be always straightforward to one who is like him himself, while to one who is unlike he will be tolerant, gentle, kindly, forgiving, as to one who is ignorant 403