Discourses - Book III   

DISCOURSES

BOOK THREE

CHAPTER 1

Of finery in dress

A certain young man a rhetorician came to see Epictetus, with his
hair dressed more carefully than was usual and his attire in an
ornamental style; whereupon Epictetus said: Tell me you do not think
that some dogs are beautiful and some horses, and so of all other
animals. "I do think so," the youth replied. Are not then some men
also beautiful and others ugly? "Certainly." Do we, then, for the same
reason call each of them in the same kind beautiful, or each beautiful
for something peculiar? And you will judge of this matter thus.
Since we see a dog naturally formed for one thing, and a horse for
another, and for another still, as an example, a nightingale, we may
generally and not improperly declare each of them to be beautiful then
when it is most excellent according to its nature; but since the
nature of each is different, each of them seems to me to be
beautiful in a different way. Is it not so? He admitted that it was.
That then which makes a dog beautiful, makes a horse ugly; and that
which makes a horse beautiful, makes a dog ugly, if it is true that
their natures are different. "It seems to be so." For I think that
what makes a pancratiast beautiful, makes a wrestler to be not good,
and a runner to be most ridiculous; and he who is beautiful for the
Pentathlon, is very ugly for wrestling. "It is so," said he. What,
then, makes a man beautiful? Is that which in its kind makes both a
dog and a horse beautiful? "It is," he said. What then makes a dog
beautiful? The possession of the excellence of a dog. And what makes a
horse beautiful? The possession of the excellence of a horse. What
then makes a man beautiful? Is it not the possession of the excellence
of a man? And do you, then, if you wish to be beautiful, young man,
labour at this, the acquisition of human excellence. But what is this?
Observe whom you yourself praise, when you praise many persons without
partiality: do you praise the just or the unjust? "The just."
Whether do you praise the moderate or the immoderate? "The
moderate." And the temperate or the intemperate? "The temperate."
If, then, you make yourself such a person, you will know that you will
make yourself beautiful: but so long as you neglect these things,
you must be ugly, even though you contrive all you can to appear
beautiful.
Further I do not know what to say to you: for if I say to you what I
think, I shall offend you, and you will perhaps leave the school and
not return to it: and if I do not say what I think, see how I shall be
acting, if you come to me to be improved, and I shall not improve
you at all, and if you come to me as to a philosopher, and I shall say
nothing to you as a philosopher. And how cruel it is to you to leave
you uncorrected. If at any time afterward you shall acquire sense, you