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You will find too that they are subject to other passions as well as these, such as distress, anger, jealousy, and all manner of desires. The parasite is far from all this; he does not become angry because he is long-suffering, and also because he has nothing to get angry at; and if he should become indignant at any time, his temper does not give rise to any unpleasantness or gloom, but rather to laughter, and makes the company merry. He is least of all subject to distress, as his art supplies him gratuitously with the advantage of having nothing to be distressed about. For he has neither money nor house nor servant nor wife nor children, over which, if they go to ruin, it is inevitable that their possessor should — be distressed. And he has no desires, either for reputation or money, or even for a_ beautiful favourite.
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TYCHIADES But, Simon, at least he is likely to be distressed by lack of food.
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SIMON You fail to understand, Tychiades, that a priori: one who lacks food is not a parasite. A brave man is not brave if he lacks bravery, nor is a sensible man sensible if he lacks sense. On any other supposition . the parasite would not exist; and the subject of our investigation is an existent, not a non-existent parasite. If the brave man is brave for no other reason than because he has bravery at his command, and the sensible man because he has sense at his command, so, too, the parasite is a parasite because he has food at his command; consequently, if this be denied him, we shall be studying some other sort of man instead of a parasite.
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TYCHIADES Then a parasite will never lack food?
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SIMON So it appears; therefore he cannot be distressed, either by that or by anything else whatsoever.
