“None trusts in vain my irrevocable word.”—Il. i. 526.
Such will I show myself to you—faithful, reverent, generous, untroubled. Not also, then, deathless, ageless, deceaseless? Nay, but dying as God, sickening as a God. These I have, these I can; but other things I neither have nor can. I will show you the thews of a philosopher. And what are these? A pursuit that never fails, an avoidance that never miscarries, seemly desire, studious resolve, cautious assent.[3] These shall ye see.
CHAPTER V.
of divination.[1]
1. When thou goest to inquire of an oracle, remember that what the event will be thou knowest not, for this is the thing thou art come to learn from the seer; but of what nature it is (if haply thou art a philosopher), thou knewest already in coming. For if it be any of those things that are not in our own power, it follows of necessity that it can be neither good nor evil.
2. Bring, therefore, to the seer neither pursuit nor avoidance, nor go before him with trembling, but well knowing that all events are indifferent and nothing to thee. For whatever it may be, it shall lie with thee to use it nobly; and this no man can prevent. Go, then, with a good courage to the Gods as to counselors; and for the rest, when anything hath been counseled thee, remember of whom thou hast taken counsel, and whom thou wilt be slighting if thou art not obedient.
3. Therefore, as Socrates would have it, go to the oracle for those matters only where thy whole inquiry bendeth solely towards the event, and where there are no means either from reason or any other art for knowing beforehand what is to happen. Thus, when it may be needful to share some peril with thy friend or thy country, inquire of no oracle whether thou shouldst do the thing. For if the seer should declare that the sacrifices are inauspicious, this signifies clearly either death, or the loss of some limb, or banishment; yet doth Reason decree that even so thou must stand by thy friend, and share thy country’s danger.
4. Mark, therefore, that greater seer, the Pythian, who cast out of his temple one that, when his friend was being murdered, did not help him.[2]