Kitap 1
12
What, then, was it granted you to come beforehand, and make your own terms, and say, Let such and such persons, at this hour, be the authors of my birth? It was not granted; for it was necessary that your parents should exist before you, and so you be born afterwards. Of whom? Of just such as they were. What, then, since they are such, is there no remedy afforded you? Surely, you would be wretched and miserable if you knew not the use of sight, and shut your eyes in presence of colors; and are not you more wretched and miserable in being ignorant that you have within you the needful nobleness and manhood wherewith to meet these accidents? Events proportioned to your reason are brought before you; but you turn your mind away, at the very time when you ought to have it the most open and discerning. Why do not you rather thank the gods that they have made you superior to those events which they have not placed within your own control, and have rendered you accountable for that only which is within your own control? They discharge you from all responsibility for your parents, for your brothers, for your body, possessions, death, life. For what, then, have they made you responsible? For that which is alone in your own power,—a right use of things as they appear. Why, then, should you draw those cares upon yourself for which you are not accountable? This is giving one’s self vexation without need.
How everything may be performed to the divine acceptance.
13
When a person inquired how any one might eat to the divine acceptance, If he eats with justice, said Epictetus, and with gratitude, and fairly, and temperately, and decently, must he not also eat to the divine acceptance? And if you call for hot water, and your servant does not hear you, or, if he does, brings it only warm, or perhaps is not to be found at home, then to abstain from anger or petulance, is not this to the divine acceptance?
13
But how is it possible to bear such things?
