will immediately, by willing to be cautious, have also the power of
avoiding what he chooses: but if he transfer it to the things which
are not in his power and will, and attempt to avoid the things which
are in the power of others, he will of necessity fear, he will be
unstable, he will be disturbed. For death or pain is not formidable,
but the fear of pain or death. For this reason we commend the poet who
said

Not death is evil, but a shameful death.

Confidence then ought to be employed against death, and caution
against the fear of death. But now we do the contrary, and employ
against death the attempt to escape; and to our opinion about it we
employ carelessness, rashness and indifference. These things
Socrates properly used to call "tragic masks"; for as to children
masks appear terrible and fearful from inexperience, we also are
affected in like manner by events for no other reason than children
are by masks. For what is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of
knowledge. For when a child knows these things, he is in no way
inferior to us. What is death? A "tragic mask." Turn it and examine
it. See, it does not bite. The poor body must be separated from the
spirit either now or later, as it was separated from it before. Why,
then, are you troubled, if it be separated now? for if it is not
separated now, it will be separated afterward. Why? That the period of
the universe may be completed, for it has need of the present, and
of the future, and of the past. What is pain? A mask. Turn it and
examine it. The poor flesh is moved roughly, then, on the contrary,
smoothly. If this does not satisfy you, the door is open: if it
does, bear. For the door ought to be open for all occasions; and so we
have no trouble.
What then is the fruit of these opinions? It is that which ought
to he the most noble and the most becoming to those who are really
educated, release from perturbation, release from fear, freedom. For
in these matters we must not believe the many, who say that free
persons only ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the
philosophers, who say that the educated only are free. "How is
this?" In this manner. Is freedom anything else than the power of
living as we choose? "Nothing else." Tell me then, ye men, do you wish
to live in error? "We do not." No one then who lives in error is free.
Do you wish to live in fear? Do you wish to live in sorrow? Do you
wish to live in perturbation? "By no means." No one, then, who is in a
state of fear or sorrow or perturbation is free; but whoever is
delivered from sorrows and fears and perturbations, he is at the
same time also delivered from servitude. How then can we continue to
believe you, most dear legislators, when you say, "We only allow
free persons to be educated?" For philosophers say we allow none to be
free except the educated; that is, God does not allow it. "When then a
man has turned round before the praetor his own slave, has he done
nothing?" He has done something. "What?" He has turned round his own
slave before the praetor. "Has he done nothing, more?" Yes: he is also