Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 1 Oldfather 1925.djvu/67

 places, and had not merely been rubbed down with oil in Bato's wrestling school. But another would have had even his neck cut off, if he could have lived without his neck. This is what we mean by regard for one's proper character; and such is its strength with those who in their deliberations habitually make it a personal contribution. "Come then, Epictetus, shave off your beard." If I am a philosopher, I answer, "I will not shave it off" "But I will take off your neck." If that will do you any good, take it off.

Someone inquired, "How, then, shall each of us become aware of what is appropriate to his own proper character?" How comes it, replied he, that when the lion charges, the bull alone is aware of his own prowess and rushes forward to defend the whole herd? Or is it clear that with the possession of the prowess comes immediately the consciousness of it also? And so, among us too, whoever has such prowess will not be unaware of it. Yet a bull does not become a bull all at once, any more than a man becomes noble, but a man must undergo a winter training, he must prepare himself and must not plunge recklessly into what is inappropriate for him.

Only consider at what price you sell your freedom of will. If you must sell it, man, at least do not sell it cheap. But the great and pre-eminent deed, perhaps, befits others, Socrates and men of his stamp.—Why then, pray, if we are endowed by nature for such 23