Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 1 Oldfather 1925.djvu/57

 stretch out your neck as did a certain Lateranus at Rome, when Nero ordered him to be beheaded? For he stretched out his neck and received the blow, but, as it was a feeble one, he shrank back for an instant, and then stretched out his neck again. Yes, and before that, when Epaphroditus, a freedman of Nero, approached a certain man and asked about the ground of his offence, he answered, "If I wish anything, I will speak to your master."

"What aid, then, must we have ready at hand in such circumstances?" Why, what else than the knowledge of what is mine, and what is not mine, and what is permitted me, and what is not permitted me? I must die: must I, then, die groaning too? I must be fettered: and wailing too? I must go into exile: does anyone, then, keep me from going with a smile and cheerful and serene? "Tell your secrets." I say not a word; for this is under my control. "But I will fetter you." What is that you say, man? fetter me? My leg you will fetter, but my moral purpose not even Zeus himself has power to overcome. "I will throw you into prison." My paltry body, rather! "I will behead you." Well, when did I ever tell you that mine was the only neck that could not be severed? These are the lessons that philosophers ought to rehearse, these they ought to write down daily, in these they ought to exercise themselves.

Thrasea used to say: "I would rather be killed to-day than banished to-morrow." What, then, did Rufus say to him? "If you choose death as the heavier of two misfortunes, what folly of choice! But if as the lighter, who has given you the choice? Are you not willing to practise contentment with what has been given you?" 13