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

BOOK I. i. 28-11. 3Wherefore, what was it that Agrippinus used toremark "? I am not standing inmy own 1 way/'Word was brought him,, "Your case isbeing triedin the Senate." " Good luck betide ! But it is thefifth hour now " (he was in the habit of taking hisexercise and then a cold bath at that " hour); letus be off and take our exercise." After he hadfinished his exercise someone came and told him,,"You have been condemned." "To exile/' sayshe, "or to death?" "To exile."" What aboutmy property?" "It has not been confiscated.""Well^then, let us go tb Aricia and take our lunchthere." This is what it means to have rehearsedthe lessons one ought to rehearse, to have setdesire and aversion free from every hindrance andmade them proof against chance. I must die. Ifforthwith, I die ; and if a little later, I will takelunch now, since the hour for lunch has come, andafterwards I will die at the appointed time. How ?As becomes the man who is giving back that whichwas another's.CHAPTER IIHow may a man preserve kis proper character* uponevery occasion ?To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable,but the rational is endurable. Blows arenot by nature unendurable. How so ? Observehow : Lacedaemonians take a scourging 3 once theyhave learned that it is rational. But is it notunendurable to be hanged? Hardly; at all eventswhenever a man feels that it is rational he goes and