CHAPTER IV.
on slavery.
1. A certain man having inquired how one may make his meals in a manner pleasing to the Gods, If he do it uprightly, said Epictetus, and considerately, and equably, and temperately, and orderly, shall it not also be thus pleasing to the Gods? But when you ask for hot water, and the boy does not hear, or, hearing, brings it only luke-warm; or if he is not even to be found in the house, then is it not pleasing to the Gods if you refrain from indignation, and do not burst with passion? How shall one endure such fellows? Wretch, wilt thou not bear with thine own brother, who is of the progeny of Zeus, like a son sprung of the same seed as thyself, and of the same heavenly descent, but thou must straightway make thyself a tyrant, for the place of command in which thou art set? Wilt thou not remember who thou art, and whom thou rulest—that they are kinsmen, brethren by nature, the progeny of Zeus? But I have bought them, and they have not bought me! Seest thou, then, whither thou art looking—towards the earth, towards the pit of perdition, towards these miserable laws of dead men? but towards the laws of the Gods thou dost not look.
2. That which thou wouldst not suffer thyself, seek not to lay upon others. Thou wouldst not be a slave—look to it that others be not slaves to thee. For if thou endure to have slaves, it seems that thou thyself art first of all a slave. For virtue hath no communion with vice nor freedom with slavery.
3. As one who is in health would not choose to be served by the sick, nor that those dwelling with him should be sick, so neither would one that is free bear to be served by slaves, or that those living with him should be slaves.[1]
CHAPTER V.
to the administrator of the free cities, who was an epicurean.
1. The Administrator[1] having visited him (and this man was an Epicurean), It is proper, said Epictetus, that ignorant people like us should inquire of you that are philosophers (as men who come into a strange city make inquiry of the citizens and those familiar with the place) what is the chief thing in the world, to the end that, having learned it, we may go in search of it, and behold it, as men do with objects in the cities.
2. Now, that there are three things with which man is concerned—soul, and body, and the outer world—scarce any one will deny. It remaineth, then, for men like ye to answer which is the chief of these things? What shall we declare to men? Is it the flesh? And was it for this that Maximus sent forth his son, and sailed with him through the tempest as far as Cassiope,[2] for somewhat that he should feel in the flesh?