Discourses - Book IV   

for this power of being free from check is given by God to every
man. For these opinions make love in a house, concord in a state,
among nations peace, and gratitude to God; they make a man in all
things cheerful in externals as about things which belong to others,
as about things which are of no value. We indeed are able to write and
to read these things, and to praise them when they are read, but we do
not even come near to being convinced of them. Therefore what is
said of the Lacedaemonians, "Lions at home, but in Ephesus foxes,"
will fit in our case also, "Lions in the school, but out of it foxes."

CHAPTER 6

Against those who lament over being pitied

"I am grieved," a man says, "at being pitied." Whether, then, is the
fact of your being pitied a thing which concerns you or those who pity
you? Well, is it in your power to stop this pity? "It is in my
power, if I show them that I do not require pity." And whether,
then, are you in the condition of not deserving pity, or are you not
in that condition? "I think I am not: but these persons do not pity me
for the things for which, if they ought to pity me, it would be
proper, I mean, for my faults; but they pity me for my poverty, for
not possessing honourable offices, for diseases and deaths and other
such things." Whether, then, are you prepared to convince the many
that not one of these things is an evil, but that it is possible for a
man who is poor and has no office and enjoys no honour to be happy; or
to show yourself to them as rich and in power? For the second of these
things belong, to a man who is boastful, silly and good for nothing.
And consider by what means the pretense must be supported. It will
be necessary for you to hire slaves and to possess a few silver
vessels, and to exhibit them in public, if it is possible, though they
are often the same, and to attempt to conceal the fact that they are
the same, and to have splendid garments, and all other things for
display, and to show that you are a man honoured by the great, and
to try to sup at their houses, or to be supposed to sup there, and
as to your person to employ some mean arts, that you may appear to
be more handsome and nobler than you are. These things you must
contrive, if you choose to go by the second path in order not to be
pitied. But the first way is both impracticable and long, to attempt
the very thing which Zeus has not been able to do, to convince all men
what things are good and bad. Is this power given to you? This only is
given to you, to convince yourself; and you have not convinced
yourself. Then I ask you, do you attempt to persuade other men? and
who has lived so long with you as you with yourself? and who has so
much power of convincing you as you have of convincing yourself; and
who is better disposed and nearer to you than you are to yourself?
How, then, have you not convinced yourself in order to learn? At
present are not things upside down? Is this what you have been earnest
about doing, to learn to be free from grief and free from disturbance,
and not to be humbled, and to be free? Have you not heard, then,