and which was just now called frugality, which will not suffer you to
do anything base or bad--for what is worse or baser than an effeminate
man? Not even justice will suffer you to act in this manner, though she
seems to have the least weight in this affair; but still,
notwithstanding, even she will inform you that you are doubly unjust
when you both require what does not belong to you, inasmuch as though
you who have been born mortal demand to be placed in the condition of
the immortals, and at the same time you take it much to heart that you
are to restore what was lent you. What answer will you make to
prudence, who informs you that she is a virtue sufficient of herself
both to teach you a good life and also to secure you a happy one? And,
indeed, if she were fettered by external circumstances, and dependent
on others, and if she did not originate in herself and return to
herself, and also embrace everything in herself, so as to seek no
adventitious aid from any quarter, I cannot imagine why she should
appear deserving of such lofty panegyrics, or of being sought after
with such excessive eagerness. Now, Epicurus, if you call me back to
such goods as these, I will obey you, and follow you, and use you as my
guide, and even forget, as you order me, all my misfortunes; and I will
do this the more readily from a persuasion that they are not to be
ranked among evils at all. But you are for bringing my thoughts over to
pleasure. What pleasures? Pleasures of the body, I imagine, or such as
are recollected or imagined on account of the body. Is this all? Do I
explain your opinion rightly? for your disciples are used to deny that
we understand at all what Epicurus means. This is what he says, and
what that subtle fellow, old Zeno, who is one of the sharpest of them,
used, when I was attending lectures at Athens, to enforce and talk so
loudly of; saying that he alone was happy who could enjoy present
pleasure, and who was at the same time persuaded that he should enjoy
it without pain, either during the whole or the greatest part of his
life; or if, should any pain interfere, if it was very sharp, then it
must be short; should it be of longer continuance, it would have more
of what was sweet than bitter in it; that whosoever reflected on these
things would be happy, especially if satisfied with the good things
which he had already enjoyed, and if he were without fear of death or
of the Gods.

XVIII. You have here a represen