Book 3
22
Do you, too, carefully deliberate upon this undertaking; it is not what you think it. I wear an old cloak now, and I shall have one then. I sleep upon the hard ground now, and I shall sleep so then. I will moreover take a wallet and a staff, and go about, and beg of those I meet, and begin by rebuking them; and if I see any one using effeminate practices, or arranging his curls, or walking in purple, I will rebuke him. If you imagine this to be the whole thing, avaunt; come not near it; it belongs not to you. But if you imagine it to be what it really is, and do not think yourself unworthy of it, consider how great a thing you undertake.
22
First, with regard to yourself; you must no longer, in any instance, appear as now. You must accuse neither God nor man. You must altogether control desire, and must transfer aversion to such things only as are controllable by Will. You must have neither anger, nor resentment, nor envy, nor pity. Neither boy, nor girl, nor fame, nor dainties must have charms for you. For you must know that other men indeed fence themselves with walls and houses and darkness, when they indulge in anything of this kind, and have many concealments; a man shuts the door, places somebody before the apartment: Say that he is out; say that he is engaged. But the Cynic, instead of all this, must fence himself with virtuous shame; otherwise he will be improperly exposed in the open air. This is his house, this his door, this his porter, this his darkness. He must not wish to conceal anything relating to himself; for if he does, he is gone; he has lost the Cynic character, the openness, the freedom; he has begun to fear something external; he has begun to need concealment, nor can he get it when he will. For where shall he conceal himself, or how? For if this tutor, this pedagogue of the public, should happen to slip, what must he suffer? Can he, then, who dreads these things, be thoroughly bold within, and prescribe to other men? Impracticable, impossible.
