g of them are in your power, what else do you
care for? Let this be your preface, 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, 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.

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.

For this reason also it is ridiculous to say, Suggest something to me
(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) anything
that is required. If 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