Kitap 1
9
This is the work, if any, that ought to employ your master and preceptor if you had one, that you should come to him and say: Epictetus, we can no longer bear being tied down to this poor body,—feeding, and resting, and cleaning it, and vexed with so many low cares on its account. Are not these things indifferent, and nothing to us, and death no evil? Are we not of kindred to God; and did we not come from him? Suffer us to go back thither from whence we came. Suffer us at length to be delivered from these fetters that bind and weigh us down. Here thieves and robbers, courts and tyrants, claim power over us, through the body and its possessions. Suffer us to show them that they have no power.
9
And in this case it would be my part to answer: My friends, wait for God, till he shall give the signal and dismiss you from this service; then return to him. For the present, be content to remain at this post where he has placed you. The time of your abode here is short and easy to such as are disposed like you; for what tyrant, what robber, what thief, or what court can be formidable to those who thus count for nothing the body and its possessions. Stay, nor foolishly depart.
