Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 2 Oldfather 1928.djvu/23

 my fellow-citizens, inasmuch as you are nearer akin to me." Are you so inquisitive, O Socrates, and meddlesome? And why do you care what we are about? "Why, what is that you are saying? You are my partner and kinsman, and yet you neglect yourself and provide the State with a bad citizen, and your kin with a bad kinsman, and your neighbours with a bad neighbour." "Well, who are you?" Here it is a bold thing to say, "I am he who must needs take interest in men." For no ordinary ox dares to withstand the lion himself; but if the bull comes up and withstands him, say to the bull, if you think fit, "But who are you?" and "What do you care?" Man, in every species nature produces some superior individual, among cattle, dogs, bees, horses. Pray do not say to the superior individual, "Well, then, who are you?" Or if you do, it will get a voice from somewhere and reply to you, "I am the same sort of thing as red in a mantle; do not expect me to resemble the rest, and do not blame my nature because it has made me different from the rest."

What follows? Am I that kind of person? Impossible. Are you, indeed, the kind of person to listen to the truth? I would that you were! But nevertheless, since somehow or other I have been condemned to wear a grey beard and a rough cloak, and you are coming to me as to a philosopher, I shall not treat you cruelly, nor as though I despaired of   13