Volume 1 - Discourses - Books I - II - College of Stoic Philosophers

BOOK I. ix. 27-x. iterms in his behalf. But when he had read theletter he handed it back to me, and said," I wantedyour help, not your pity ; my plight is not an evilone/* So likewise Rufus was wont to say, to testme, "Your master 1 isgoing to do such-and-such athing to you." And when 1 would say in answer." 'Tis but the lot of man," he would reply, Whatthen ? Am I to go on and petition him, when I canget the same result from you " ? 2For,, in fact, itis foolish and superfluous to try to obtain fromanother that which one can get from oneself. Since,therefore, am I able to get greatness of soul andnobility of character from myself, am I to get afarm,, and money, or some from office, you? Farfrom it ! I will not be so unaware of what Imyselfpossess. But when a man iscowardly and abject,what else can one possibly do but write letters inhis behalf as we do in behalf of a corpse: "Pleaseto grant us the carcase of so-and-so and a pint ofpaltry blood " 3 ? For really, such a personis buta carcase and a pint of paltry blood, and nothingmore. But if he were anything more he would perceivethat one man is not unfortunate because ofanother.CHAPTER XTo those who ham set their hearts on prefermentat RomeIF we philosophers had applied ourselves to ourown work as zealously as the old men at Romehumanly borne, I need not petition your master to remitit, for you have within yourself the power to endure it.3As when a friend might ask for the body of an executedcriminal.73