1Each person must hold firmly to his own qualities, not vicious ones but those peculiar to him, so that the decorum we are seeking may be the more easily maintained. 1For we must act in such a way that we strive for nothing against universal nature, but, while preserving that, follow our own particular nature, so that, even if other pursuits are weightier and better, we still measure our own pursuits by the rule of our own nature; 1for there is no point in fighting against nature or in pursuing anything you cannot attain. 1From this it emerges more clearly what that decorum is, precisely because nothing is fitting 'against Minerva's will', as they say, that is, when nature opposes and resists.
111Certainly, if anything is fitting, nothing surely is more so than consistency, both of one's whole life and of individual actions, and this you cannot preserve if, imitating the nature of others, you abandon your own. 111For as we ought to use the language that is native to us, lest, like certain people, we are quite rightly laughed at for stuffing in Greek words, so we ought to bring no inconsistency into our actions and our whole life. 112And this difference of natures has such force that sometimes one man ought to take his own life and another ought not. 112For was Marcus Cato in one situation, and the others who surrendered to Caesar in Africa in another?
112Yet for the others it might perhaps have been counted a fault if they had killed themselves, because their life had been gentler and their characters more easygoing; but for Cato, since nature had given him an incredible seriousness, and he himself had strengthened it by unbroken consistency and had always remained firm in the purpose and plan he had undertaken, it was necessary to die rather than to look upon the face of a tyrant. 113How much Ulysses endured in that long wandering of his, when he both served women, if Circe and Calypso are to be called women, and wished to be affable to all in all his talk!
113and at home he endured even the insults of male and female slaves, so that he might at last arrive at what he desired. 113But Ajax, with the spirit he is said to have had, would have preferred to meet death a thousand times rather than endure such things. 113Contemplating these examples, we shall have to weigh what each person has of his own, and regulate this, and not wish to try how well someone else's qualities would suit us; 113for what is most fitting for each person is what is most his own. 114Let each man, then, know his own character, and show himself a sharp judge of his own good qualities and faults, lest actors seem to have more good sense than we do.
114For they choose not the best plays but those best suited to themselves; 114those who rely on their voice choose the Epigoni and the Medus, those who rely on gesture the Melanippa and the Clytemnestra; Rupilius, whom I remember, always chose the Antiopa, Aesopus not often the Ajax. 114Will an actor, then, see this on the stage, and a wise man not see it in life? 114We shall therefore work hardest at those things for which we are best suited; 114but if necessity should at some time thrust us into things which do not suit our talents, we shall have to apply all care, thought and diligence so that we can do them, if not with propriety, at least with as little impropriety as possible; 114nor should we strive so much to pursue good qualities which have not been given to us as to avoid faults.