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

BOOK II. xx. 11-17do with us? Come, do you interest yourself insheep because they allow themselves to be shorn byus, and milked, and finally to be butchered and cutup? Would it not be desirable if men could becharmed and bewitched into slumber by the Stoicsand allow themselves to be shorn and milked byyou and your kind? Is not this something that youought to have said to your fellow Epicureansonly and to have concealed your views from outsiders.,taking special pains to persuade them, ofall people, that we are by nature born with a senseof fellowship, and that self-control is a good thing,so that everything may be kept for you ? Or oughtwe to maintain this fellowship with some, but notwith others ? With whom, then, ought we to maintainit ? With those who reciprocate by maintainingit with us, or with those who are transgressors of it ?And who are greater transgressors of it than youEpicureans who have set up such doctrines ?What, then, was it that roused Epicurus from hisslumbers and compelled him to write what he did ?What else but that which is the strongest thing inmen nature, which draws a man to do her willthough he groans and is reluctant "? For/* saysshe, "since you hold these anti-social opinions,write them down and bequeathe them to others andgive up your sleep because of them and becomein fact yourself the advocate to denounce your owndoctrines." Shall we speak of Orestes as beingpursued by the Furies and roused from his slumbers ?But are not the Furies and the Avengers thatbeset Epicurus more savage?They roused himfrom sleep and would not let him rest, but compelledhim to herald his own miseries, just as madness and375