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

BOOK I. xxviu. 10-17rightly or wronglyif ; rightly, the man is blameless ;if wrongly, the man himself pays the penalty for it;impossible that the man who has gone astray, isisone person., while the man who suffers is another l ),whoever remembers this, I say,will not be enragedat anyone, will not be angry with an} r oiie, will notrevile anyone, will not blame, nor hate, nor takeoffence at anyone. So you conclude that such greatand terrible things have their origin in this theimpression of one's senses ? In this and nothingelse. The Iliad isnothing but a sense-impressionand a poet's use of sense-impressions. There cameto Alexander an impression to carry off the wife ofMenelaus, and an impression came to Helen tofollow him. Now if an impression had led Menelausto feel that it was a gain to be deprived of such awife, what would have happened? We should havelost not merely the Iliad, but the Odyssey as well.Then do matters of such great import depend uponone that is so small ? But what do you mean by" " matters of such great import ? Wars and factionsand deaths of many men and destructions of cities?And what is there great in all this? What, nothinggreat in this? Why, what is there great in thedeath of many oxen and many sheep and theburning and destruction of many nests of swallowsor storks?between this andIs there any similaritythat? A great similarity. Men's bodies perishedin the one case, and bodies of oxen and sheep in theother. Petty dwellings of men were burned, and sowere nests of storks. What is there great ordreadful about that? Or else show me in whatdoes actually cause to another as not real evils (cf. 26-~8),but a5*a