he man that wished to have an easy mind
ought to have little to do either public or private, first of all makes
ease of mind a very costly article for us, if it is to be bought at the
price of doing nothing, as if he should advise every sick person,

"Lie still, poor wretch, in bed."[714]

And indeed stupor is a bad remedy for the body against despair,[715] nor
is he any better physician of the soul who removes its trouble and
anxiety by recommending a lazy and soft life and a leaving our friends
and relations and country in the lurch. In the next place, it is false
that those that have little to do are easy in mind. For then women would
be easier in mind than men, since they mostly stay at home in
inactivity, and even now-a-days it is as Hesiod says,[716]

"The North Wind comes not near a soft-skinned maiden;"

yet griefs and troubles and unrest, proceeding from jealousy or
superstition or ambition or vanity, inundate the women's part of the
house with unceasing flow. And Laertes, though he lived for twenty years
a solitary life in the country,

"With an old woman to attend on him,
Who duly set on board his meat and drink,"[717]

and fled from his country and house and kingdom, yet had sorrow and
dejection[718] as a perpetual companion with leisure. And some have been
often thrown into sad unrest merely from inaction, as the following,

"But fleet Achilles, Zeus-sprung, son of Peleus,
Sat by the swiftly-sailing ships and fumed,
Nor ever did frequent th' ennobling council,
Nor ever join the war, but pined in heart,
Though in his tent abiding, for the fray."[719]

And full of emotion and distress at this state of things he himself
says,

"A useless burden to the earth I sit
Beside the ships."[720]

So even Epicurus thinks that those who are desirous of honour and glory
should not rust in inglorious ease, but use their natural talents in
public life for the benefit of the community at large, seeing that they
are by nature so constituted that they would be more likely to be
troubled and afflicted at inaction, if they did not get what they
desired. But he is absurd in that he does not urge men of ability to
take part in public life, but only the restless. But we ought not to
estimate ease or unrest of mind by our many or few actions, but by their
fairness or foulness. For the omission of fair actions troubles and
distresses us, as I have said before, quite as much as the actual doing