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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

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174 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK<br />

28 Think <strong>of</strong> Socrates with the sheepskin round his<br />

loins, when Xanthippe had marched <strong>of</strong>f with his<br />

cloak, and what he said <strong>to</strong> his friends who<br />

modestly beat a retreat when they<br />

such a guise.<br />

saw him in<br />

29 In reading and in writing you cannot give<br />

rules till you have obeyed them. Much more<br />

in life.<br />

30 Slave that thou art, reason is not for thee !<br />

31<br />

And my dear heart laughed<br />

within. 1<br />

32 Virtue they'll taunt and with hard words revile. 2<br />

33 To look for figs in winter is fool's work ; so is<br />

it <strong>to</strong> look for a child, when the time is past.<br />

34 As you fondle your little one, says Epictetus,<br />

murmur <strong>to</strong> yourself *<br />

die.'<br />

*<br />

Ominous,<br />

said the sage, '<br />

To-morrow perchance it will<br />

is it ? ' '<br />

Nothing is ominous,'<br />

that signifies an act <strong>of</strong> nature. Is<br />

35 it ominous <strong>to</strong> harvest the ripe ears ? '<br />

36<br />

The green<br />

grape, the cluster, the raisin, change following<br />

change, not in<strong>to</strong> nothingness but <strong>to</strong> the not yet<br />

realised.<br />

" No man can rob us <strong>of</strong> our will" says Epictetus. 3<br />

37 Epictetus urged the need <strong>of</strong> a sound grammar<br />

1<br />

Homer, Od. ix. 413.<br />

2<br />

Hesiod, Works and Days, v. 184.<br />

3<br />

Arrian, Epict. I. xi. 37, ill. xxii. 105.

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