Ch. 2
Of tranquillity (freedom from perturbation).
CONSIDER, you who are going into court, what you wish to
maintain and what you wish to succeed in. For if you
wish to maintain a will conformable to nature, you have
every security, every facility, you have no troubles. For
if you wish to maintain what is in your own power and
is naturally free, and if you are content with these, what
else do you care for? For who is the master of such
things? Who can take them away? If you choose to be
modest and faithful, who shall not allow you to be so?
If you choose not to be restrained or compelled, who shall
compel you to desire what you think that you ought not
to desire? who shall compel you to avoid what you do not
think fit to avoid? But what do you say? The judge
will determine against you something that appears formidable; but that you should also suffer in trying to avoid it,
how can he do that? When then the pursuit of objects and
the avoiding of them are in your power, what else do you
care for? Let this be your preface,230 this your narrative,
this your confirmation, this your victory, this your peroration, this your applause (or the approbation which you
will receive).
Therefore Socrates said to one who was reminding him
to prepare for his trial,231 Do you not think then that I
have been preparing for it all my life? By what kind of
preparation? I have maintained that which was in my
own power. How then? I have never done anything
unjust either in my private or in my public life.
[p. 104]
But if you wish to maintain externals also, your poor
body, your little property and your little estimation, I
advise you to make from this moment all possible preparation, and then consider both the nature of your judge
and your adversary. If it is necessary to embrace his
knees, embrace his knees; if to weep, weep; if to groan,
groan. For when you have subjected to externals what is
your own, then be a slave and do not resist, and do not
sometimes choose to be a slave, and sometimes not choose,
but with all your mind be one or the other, either free or
a slave, either instructed or uninstructed, either a well
bred cock or a mean one, either endure to be beaten until
you die or yield at once; and let it not happen to you
to receive many stripes and then to yield. But if these
things are base, determine immediately. Where is the
nature of evil and good? It is where truth is: where
truth is and where nature is, there is caution: where
truth is, there is courage where nature is.232
For what do you think? do you think that, if Socrates
had wished to preserve externals, he would have come
forward and said: Anytus and Melitus can certainly kill
me, but to harm me they are not able? Was he so foolish
as not to see that this way leads not to the preservation
of life and fortune, but to another end? What is the
reason then that he takes no account of his adversaries,
and even irritates them?233 Just in the same way my
friend Heraclitus, who had a little suit in Rhodes about a
bit of land, and had proved to the judges (δικασταῖς) that
his case was just, said when he had come to the peroration
of his speech, I will neither intreat you nor do I care
what judgment you will give, and it is you father than I
who are on your trial. And thus he ended the business.234
What need was there of this? Only do not intreat; but
do not also say, 'I do not intreat;' unless there is a fit
occasion to irritate purposely the judges, as was the case
with Socrates. And you, if you are preparing such a
peroration, why do you wait, why do you obey the order
[p. 105]
to submit to trial? For if you wish to be crucified, wait
and the cross will come: but if you choose to submit and
to plead your cause as well as you can, you must do what
is consistent with this object, provided you maintain what
is your own (your proper character).
For this reason also it is ridiculous to say, Suggest
something to me235 (tell me what to do). What should I
suggest to you? Well, form my mind so as to accommodate itself to any event. Why that is just the same as
if a man who is ignorant of letters should say, Tell me
what to write when any name is proposed to me. For if
I should tell him to write Dion, and then another should
come and propose to him not the name of Dion but that of
Theon, what will be done? what will he write? But if
you have practised writing, you are also prepared to
write (or to do) any thing that is required. If236 you are
not, what can I now suggest? For if circumstances require something else, what will you say, or what will you
do? Remember then this general precept and you will
need no suggestion. But if you gape after externals, you
must of necessity ramble up and down in obedience to
the will of your master. And who is the master? He
who has the power over the things which you seek to
gain or try to avoid.237
[p. 106]