"Discourses" - читать интересную книгу автора (Epictetus)

have lost my garment." The reason is that you had a garment. "I have
pain in my head." Have you any pain in your horns? Why then are you
troubled? for we only lose those things, we have only pains about
those things which we possess.

"But the tyrant will chain." What? the leg. "He will take away."
What? the neck. What then will he not chain and not take away? the
will. This is why the ancients taught the maxim, "Know thyself."
Therefore we ought to exercise ourselves in small things and,
beginning with them, to proceed to the greater. "I have pain in the
head." Do not say, "Alas!" "I have pain in the ear." Do not say,
"Alas!" And I do not say that you are not allowed to groan, but do not
groan inwardly; and if your slave is slow in bringing a bandage, do
not cry out and torment yourself, and say, "Everybody hates me": for
who would not hate such a man? For the future, relying on these
opinions, walk about upright, free; not trusting to the size of your
body, as an athlete, for a man ought not to be invincible in the way
that an ass is.

Who then is the invincible? It is he whom none of the things disturb
which are independent of the will. Then examining one circumstance
after another I observe, as in the case of an athlete; he has come off
victorious in the first contest: well then, as to the second? and what
if there should be great heat? and what, if it should be at Olympia?
And the same I say in this case: if you should throw money in his way,
he will despise it. Well, suppose you put a young girl in his way,
what then? and what, if it is in the dark? what if it should be a
little reputation, or abuse; and what, if it should be praise; and
what if it should be death? He is able to overcome all. What then if
it be in heat, and what if it is in the rain, and what if he be in a
melancholy mood, and what if he be asleep? He will still conquer. This
is my invincible athlete.

CHAPTER 19

How we should behave to tyrants

If a man possesses any superiority, or thinks that he does, when
he does not, such a man, if he is uninstructed, will of necessity be
puffed up through it. For instance, the tyrant says, "I am master of
all." And what can you do for me? Can you give me desire which shall
have no hindrance? How can you? Have you the infallible power of
avoiding what you would avoid? Have you the power of moving toward
an object without error? And how do you possess this power? Come, when
you are in a ship, do you trust to yourself or to the helmsman? And
when you are in a chariot, to whom do you trust but to the driver? And
how is it in all other arts? Just the same. In what then lies your
power? "All men pay respect to me." Well, I also pay respect to my
platter, and I wash it and wipe it; and for the sake of my oil
flask, I drive a peg into the wall. Well then, are these things