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

BOOK I. xxiv. i7-xxv. 4Slave, where are your crowns, where your diadeni ?Do your guards avail you not at all ? When,therefore, you approach one of those great men,,remember all this that you are approaching a tragiccharacter, not the actor, but Oedipus himself."Nay, but so-and-so is blessed; for he has manycompanions to walk with." So have I I fall in line;with the multitude and have many companions towalk with. But, to sum it all :up remember thatthe door has been thrown open. Do not become agreater coward than the children, but just as they" Isay,,won't play any longer," when the thingdoes not please them, so do you also, when thingsseem to you to have reached that stage, merely say,I won't play any longer," and take your departure;but ifyou stay, stop lamenting.CHAPTER XXVUpon the same themeIF all this is true and we are not sillynor merelyplaying a part when we" say, Man's good andman's evil lies in moral choice, and all other thingsare nothing to us," why are we still distressed andafraid ? Over the things that we seriously care forno one has authority; and the things over whichother men have authority do not concern us. Whatkind of thing have we left to discuss? C(Nay, giveme directions." 1 What directions shall I give you ?Has not Zeus given you directions? Has he notgiven you that which isyour own, unhindered andunrestrained, while that which is not your own issubject to hindrance and restraint? What direc-157