Chapter XXVI Memorabilia1
Hold in readiness for every need, these—
“Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me to go, and may I follow fearlessly. But if in an evil mind I be unwilling, still must I follow.”
“That man is wise among us, and hath understanding of things divine, who hath nobly agreed with Necessity.”
But the third also—
“O Crito, if so it seem good to the Gods so let it be. Anytus and Meletus are able to kill me indeed, but to harm me, never.”
The End
Notes
Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus
1. Professor Mahaffy, in his Greek Life and Thought, quotes the full text of this noble Hymn, which, he thinks, “would alone redeem the Hellenistic age, as it stands before us, from the charge of mere artificiality and pedantry.”
2. ἰῆς μίμημα λαχόντες μοῦνον. This is Zeller’s reading, but not Professor Mahaffy’s who has ἑνὸς μίμημα.
Book I
Chapter I
1. “Enter by the door” (cf. S. John, x. 1). The parallelisms in thought and expression between Epictetus and the New Testament have often been noticed, and the reader will discover many others, to which I have not thought it necessary to draw attention.
2. “Conceit:” οἴησις, Einbildung.
3. “To be elated:” ἐπαίρεσθαι. One might translate, “to be puffed up,” except that that expression is only used in a bad sense, and one may be “elated” in anything that is truly of the nature of the good. The Stoics distinguished between χαρά, joy, and ἡδονή, pleasure; not rejecting or despising the former.