own body as with a horse; wash it, wipe it, take care that no man
turns away from it, that no one gets out of the way for it. But who
does not get out of the way of a dirty man, of a stinking man, of a
man whose skin is foul, more than he does out of the way of a man
who is daubed with muck? That smell is from without, it is put upon
him; but the other smell is from want of care, from within, and in a
manner from a body in putrefaction.
"But Socrates washed himself seldom." Yes, but his body was clean
and fair: and it was so agreeable and sweet that tile most beautiful
and the most noble loved him, and desired to sit by him rather than by
the side of those who had the handsomest forms. It was in his power
neither to use the bath nor to wash himself, if he chose; and yet
the rare use of water had an effect. If you do not choose to wash with
warm water, wash with cold. But Aristophanes says:

Those who are pale, unshod, 'tis those I mean.

For Aristophanes says of Socrates that he also walked the air and
stole clothes from the palaestra. But all who have written about
Socrates bear exactly the contrary evidence in his favour; they say
that he was pleasant not only to hear, but also to see. On the other
hand they write the same about Diogenes. For we ought not even by
the appearance of the body to deter the multitude from philosophy; but
as in other things, a philosopher should show himself cheerful and
tranquil, so also he should in the things that relate to the body:
"See, ye men, that I have nothing, that I want nothing: see how I am
without a house, and without a city, and an exile, if it happens to be
so, and without a hearth I live more free from trouble and more
happily than all of noble birth and than the rich. But look at my poor
body also and observe that it is not injured by my hard way of
living." But if a man says this to me, who has the appearance and face
of a condemned man, what God shall persuade me to approach philosophy,
if it makes men such persons? Far from it; I would not choose to do
so, even if I were going to become a wise man. I indeed would rather
that a young man, who is making his first movements toward philosophy,
should come to me with his hair carefully trimmed than with it dirty
and rough, for there is seen in him a certain notion of beauty and a
desire of that which is becoming; and where he supposes it to be,
there also he strives that it shall be. It is only necessary to show
him, and to say: "Young man, you seek beauty, and you do well: you
must know then that it grows in that part of you where you have the
rational faculty: seek it there where you have the movements toward
and the movements from things, where you have the desire toward, ind
the aversion from things: for this is what you have in yourself of a
superior kind; but the poor body is naturally only earth: why do you
labour about it to no purpose? if you shall learn nothing else, you
will learn from time that the body is nothing." But if a man comes
to me daubed with filth, dirty, with a mustache down to his knees,
what can I say to him, by what kind of resemblance can I lead him
on? For about what has he busied himself which resembles beauty,