Kitap 1
29
A man must keep this in mind; and when he is called to any such difficulty, he should know that the time is come for showing if he has been instructed. For he who is come into a difficulty is like a young man from a school who has practised the resolution of syllogisms; and if any person proposes to him an easy syllogism, he says, rather propose to me a syllogism which is skilfully complicated that I may exercise myself on it. Even athletes are dissatisfied with slight young men, and say, He cannot lift me.—This is a youth of noble disposition.See Schweighaeuser’s note. This appears to be the remark of Epictetus. If it is so, what follows is not clear. Schweighaeuser explains it, But most of you act otherwise.[You do not so]; but when the time of trial is come, one of you must weep and say, I wish that I had learned more. A little more of what? If you did not learn these things in order to show them in practice, why did you learn them I think that there is some one among you who are sitting here, who is suffering like a woman in labour, and saying, Oh, that such a difficulty does not present itself to me as that which has come to this man; oh, that I should be wasting my life in a corner, when I might be crowned at Olympia. When will any one announce to me such a contest? Such ought to be the disposition of all of you. Even among the gladiators of Caesar (the Emperor) there are some who complain grievously that they are not brought forward and matched, and they offer up prayers to God and address themselves to their superintendents intreating that they may fight.The Roman emperors kept gladiators for their own amusement and that of the people (Lipsius, Saturnalia, ii. 16). Seneca says ( De Provid. c. 4), I have heard a mirmillo (a kind of gladiator) in the time of C. Caesar (Caligula) complaining of the rarity of gladiatorial exhibitions: What a glorious period of life is wasting. Virtue, says Seneca, is eager after dangers; and it considers only what it seeks, not what it may suffer.—Upton. And will no one among you show himself such? I would willingly take a voyage [to Rome] for this purpose and see what my athlete is doing, how he is studying his subject.The word is Hypothesis (ὑπόθεσις), which in this passage means matter to work on, material, subject, as in ii. 5, 11, where it means the business of the pilot. In i. 7 hypothesis has the sense of a proposition supposed for the present to be true, and used as the foundation of an argument.—I do not choose such a subject, he says. Why, is it in your power to take what subject you choose? There has been given to you such a body as you have, such parents, such brethren, such a country, such a place in your country: —then you come to me and say, Change my subject. Have you not abilities which enable you to manage the subject which has been given to you? [You ought to say]: It is your business to propose; it is mine to exercise myself well. However, you do not say so, but you say, Do not propose to me such a tropic,Tropic (τροπικόν), a logical term used by Stoics, which Schweighaeuser translates propositio connexa in syllogismo hypothetico. The meaning of the whole is this. You do not like the work which is set before you: as we say, you are not content to do your duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call you. Now this is as foolish, says Wolf, as for a man in any discussion to require that his adversary should raise no objection except such as may serve the man’s own case. but such [as I would choose]: do not urge against me such an objection, but such [as I would choose]. There will be a time perhaps when tragic actors will suppose that they are [only] masks and buskins and the long cloak.There will be a time when Tragic actors shall not know what their business is, but will think that it is all show. So, says Wolf, philosophers will be only beard and cloak, and will not show by their life and morals what they really are; or they will be like false monks, who only wear the cowl, and do not show a life of piety and sanctity. I say, these things, man, are your material and subject. Utter something that we may know whether you are a tragic actor or a buffoon; for both of you have all the rest in common. If any one then should take away the tragic actor’s buskins and his mask, and introduce him on the stage as a phantom, is the tragic actor lost, or does he still remain? If he has voice, he still remains.
