1I admit that a love for our body is implanted in us; 1I admit that we have the charge of its guardianship. 1I do not deny that we should indulge it; 1I deny that we should be its slaves. 1For he will be slave to many who is slave to his body, who fears too much for it, who refers everything to it. 2We ought to conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the sake of the body, but as if we could not live without the body. 2Excessive love of it disturbs us with fears, burdens us with anxieties, exposes us to insults. 2What is honourable is cheap to the man to whom the body is too dear.
2Let the care of it be taken most diligently, but in such a way that, when reason, when dignity, when loyalty demands, it must be sent into the flames. 3Nevertheless, as far as we can, let us avoid discomforts as well, not only dangers, and withdraw into safety, constantly thinking out how the things to be feared can be driven off. 3There are, unless I am mistaken, three kinds of these: want is feared, diseases are feared, and what happens through the violence of someone more powerful is feared. 4Of all these nothing shakes us more than what hangs over us from another's power. 4For it comes with great noise and uproar.
4The natural evils I mentioned, want and disease, steal upon us in silence and strike no terror into eyes or ears. 4The other evil comes with a huge procession. 4It has around it sword and fire and chains and a pack of wild beasts to let loose on human entrails. 5Think in this connection of the prison and crosses and racks and the hook, and the stake driven right through a man so that it comes out through his mouth, and limbs torn apart by chariots driven in opposite directions, that tunic both smeared and woven with things that feed fire, and whatever else cruelty has devised besides these. 6It is not surprising, then, if the fear of this is greatest, since its variety is great and its apparatus terrible.
6For just as the torturer achieves more the more instruments of pain he has laid out (for people are overcome by the sight who would have held out through endurance); 6so of the things that subdue and tame our minds, those achieve more which have something to show. 6Those other plagues are no less serious, I mean hunger and thirst and abscesses of the chest and fever that scorches the very entrails. 6But they lie hidden; they have nothing to brandish, nothing to display; 6these, like great wars, have conquered by their look and their array. 7Let us take pains, then, to keep clear of giving offence. 7Sometimes it is the people whom we ought to fear; 7sometimes, if the constitution of the state is such that most business is transacted through the senate, the men of influence in it; 7sometimes individuals to whom the power of the people, and power over the people, has been given.
7To have all these as friends is laborious; it is enough not to have them as enemies. 7And so the wise man will never provoke the anger of the powerful; rather he will steer clear of it, just as of a storm in sailing. 8When you were making for Sicily, you crossed the strait. 8The reckless pilot scorned the threats of the south wind, for that is the wind that roughens the Sicilian sea and drives it into whirlpools; 8he makes not for the left-hand shore but for the one near which Charybdis churns up the seas. 8But the more cautious one asks those who know the area what the tide is, what signs the clouds give; 8he holds his course far from that region notorious for whirlpools.
8The wise man does the same; 8he avoids power that will harm him, taking care above all not to be seen to avoid it. 8For part of safety lies in this too: not seeking it openly, because what a man flees, he condemns. 9We must look about us, then, to see how we can be safe from the mob. 9First, let us covet nothing that others covet; 9there is strife between rivals. 9Next, let us have nothing that could be snatched away to the great profit of one lying in wait. 9Let there be as little plunder as possible on your person. 9No one goes after human blood for its own sake, or very few do.
9More men calculate than hate. 9The robber lets the naked man pass; 9even on a beset road the poor man has peace. 10Next, there are three things that, according to an old precept, must be guarded against: hatred, envy, contempt. 10How this is to be done, wisdom alone will show. For the balance is hard to strike, and we must beware lest fear of envy carry us over into contempt, lest, while we do not wish to trample on others, we seem able to be trampled on. 10For many, the fact that they could be feared has brought reasons for fearing. 10Let us draw back on every side; 10to be despised does no less harm than to be looked up to.
11We must take refuge, then, in philosophy; 11these studies, I will not say among good men, but among the moderately bad, serve as a priest's sacred fillets. 11For eloquence in the courts, and whatever else stirs the people, has opponents; 11this quiet study, minding its own business, cannot be despised, for it is honoured by all the arts, even among the worst of men. 11Never will wickedness grow so strong, never will there be such a conspiracy against the virtues, that the name of philosophy does not remain venerable and sacred. 11But philosophy itself must be pursued quietly and with restraint. 12'What then?' 12you say. 'Does Marcus Cato seem to you to practise philosophy with restraint, when he checks a civil war by his vote?
12When he steps in between the arms of raging chieftains? 12When, while some offend Pompey and others Caesar, he provokes both at once?' 13One could debate whether at that time a wise man ought to have taken part in public life. 13'What do you want, Marcus Cato? 13It is no longer a question of liberty; 13that was ruined long ago. 13The question is whether Caesar or Pompey is to possess the state; 13what have you to do with that contest? 13No side is yours; 13a master is being chosen. 13What does it matter to you which of them wins? 13The better man may win; the one who has won cannot fail to be the worse.' 13I have touched on Cato's last role.
13But not even the earlier years were such as to admit a wise man to that plundering of the state; 13what else did Cato do but shout and utter empty words, when at one time, lifted up by the hands of the mob and covered with spittle, he was dragged off to be carried out of the forum, and at another was led from the senate to prison? 14But we shall see later whether the wise man should give his efforts to the state; 14meanwhile I call you to those Stoics who, shut out of public life, withdrew to cultivate their lives and to lay down laws for the human race without any offence to the more powerful.
14The wise man will not disturb public customs, nor will he turn the people's eyes upon himself by the novelty of his life. 15'What then? 15Will he who follows this plan be safe in every case?' 15I can no more promise you this than good health in a temperate man, and yet temperance does produce good health. 15Some ship perishes in harbour; 15but what do you think happens in the open sea? 15How much more ready would danger be for this man if he were doing and undertaking many things, when not even leisure is safe for him? 15The innocent sometimes perish; 15who denies it? 15Yet the guilty more often.
15A man's skill holds good even if he has been struck through his armour. 16In short, the wise man looks at the purpose of all things, not at their outcome. 16Beginnings are in our power; 16of the outcome fortune is the judge, and I do not grant her the right to pass sentence on me. 16'But it will bring some trouble, some misfortune.' 16A robber does not condemn when he kills. 17Now you are holding out your hand for your daily coin. 17I shall fill you up with a golden coin, and since mention has been made of gold, learn how its use and enjoyment can be more pleasing to you.
17'He enjoys riches most who needs riches least.' 17'Name the author,' you say. 17So that you may know how generous we are, it is our policy to praise what belongs to others; 17it is from Epicurus, or Metrodorus, or someone from that workshop. 18And what does it matter who said it? 18He said it for everyone. 18He who needs riches fears for them. 18But no one enjoys a good that brings anxiety; 18he is eager to add something to it. 18While he thinks about increasing it, he has forgotten how to use it. 18He receives accounts, wears out the forum, pores over his ledger; 18from master he becomes steward. 18Farewell.