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

BOOK I. xxiv. 10-16go away again and observe more accurately,, withoutthis cowardice ?What am I to do, then ? What do you do whenyou disembark from a ship? You do not pick up therudder, do you, or the oars ? What do you pickup, then? Your own luggage, your oil-flask, yourwallet. So now, if you are mindful of what is yourown property, youwill never lay claim to that whichis another's. He 1 says to you, "Lay aside yourbroad scarlet hem " 2Behold, the narrow hem. 3" Lay aside this also." Behold, the plain toga.4"Lay aside your toga." Behold, I am naked."But you arouse my envy." Well, then, take thewhole of my paltry body. Do Iany longer fearthe man to whom I can throw my?body But hewill not leave me as his heir. What then ? DidIforget that none of these things is my own ?How, then, do we call them "my own"? Merelyas we call the bed in the inn "my own." If, then,the inn-keeper dies and leaves you the beds, youwill have them ;but if he leaves them to someoneelse, he will have them, and you will look for anotherbed. If, then, you do not find one, you will haveto sleep on the ground only do so with good;courage, snoring and remembering that tragediesfind a place among the rich and among kings andtyrants, but no poor man fills a tragic role exceptas a member of the chorus. Now the kings commencein a state of prosperity:" "Hang5the palace with garlandsthen, about the third or fourth act, comesflffAlas, Cithaeron, why didst thou receive me ? " 6Sophocles, Otidipns Ilex., 1300. Cithaeron was the mountainon which the infant Oedipus had been exposed to die. 155;