Kitap 1
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But the tyrant will chain—what? A leg. He will take away—what? A head. What is there, then, chat he .can neither chain nor take away? The free will. Hence the advice of the ancients,—Know thyself.
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What, then, ought we to do?
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Practise yourself, for Heaven’s sake, in little things, and thence proceed to greater. I have a pain in my head. Do not lament. I have a pain in my ear. Do not lament. I do not say you may never groan, but do not groan in spirit; or if your servant be a long while in bringing you something to bind your head, do not croak and go into hysterics, and say, ( Everybody hates me. For who would not hate such a one?
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Relying for the future on these principles, walk erect and free, not trusting to bulk of body, like a wrestler; for one should not be unconquerable in the sense that an ass is.
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Who, then, is unconquerable? He whom the inevitable cannot overcome. For such a person I imagine every trial, and watch him as an athlete in each. He has been victorious in the first encounter. What will he do in the second? What, if he should be exhausted by the heat? What, if the field be Olympia? And so in other trials. If you throw money in his way, he will despise it. Is he proof against the seductions of women? What if he be tested by fame. by calumny, by praise, by death? He is able to overcome them all. If he can bear sunshine and storm, discouragement and fatigue, I pronounce him an athlete unconquered indeed.
Of the right treatment of tyrants.
