1The strongest bond towards a sound mind is this: you have promised to be a good man, you have been sworn in by the oath. 1Anyone who tells you that this service is soft and easy will be making fun of you. 1I do not want you to be deceived. 1The words of this most honourable engagement and of that most shameful one are the same: 'To be burned, to be bound, and to be killed by the sword.' 2From those who hire out their hands to the arena, and who eat and drink what they must pay back with their blood, a guarantee is taken that they will endure these things even against their will; 2from you, that you will endure them willingly and gladly.
2They may lower their arms and appeal to the pity of the people; 2you will neither lower yours nor beg for your life. 2You must die upright and unconquered. 2Besides, what profit is it to gain a few days or years? 2We are born without hope of discharge. 3'How then,' you say, 'shall I get myself free?' 3You cannot escape necessities, but you can overcome them. 3'Force makes a way.' 3And philosophy will give you this way. 3Betake yourself to her if you want to be safe, if untroubled, if happy, and finally, what is greatest, if you want to be free. 3This cannot come about in any other way.
4Folly is a low thing, abject, mean, servile, subject to many passions, and those most savage. 4These masters, so oppressive, sometimes ruling in turn, sometimes together, are dismissed from you by wisdom, which alone is freedom. 4One road leads to her, and a straight one at that; 4you will not go astray. 4Walk with a sure step; 4if you wish to subject all things to yourself, subject yourself to reason; 4you will rule many, if reason has ruled you. 4From her you will learn what you should undertake and in what way; 4you will not blunder into things. 5You will not show me anyone who knows how he came to wish for what he wishes; 5he was not led to it by deliberation, but driven by impulse.
5Fortune runs into us no less often than we run into her. 5It is shameful not to walk but to be carried along, and suddenly, in the midst of the whirlwind of affairs, to ask in bewilderment: 'How did I come here?' 5Farewell.