nst fortune; but on the contrary, knowing
that the rotten and perishable part of man, wherein alone he lies open
to fortune, is small, while we ourselves are masters of the better part,
wherein are situated our greatest blessings, as good opinions and
teaching and virtuous precepts, all which things cannot be abstracted
from us or perish, we ought to look on the future with invincible
courage, and say to fortune, as Socrates is supposed to have said to his
accusers Anytus and Melitus before the jury, "Anytus and Melitus can
kill me, but they cannot hurt me." For fortune can afflict us with
disease, take away our money, calumniate us to the people or king, but
cannot make a good and brave and high-souled man bad and cowardly and
low and ignoble and envious, nor take away that disposition of mind,
whose constant presence is of more use for the conduct of life than the
presence of a pilot at sea. For the pilot cannot make calm the wild wave
or wind, nor can he find a haven at his need wherever he wishes, nor can
he await his fate with confidence and without trembling, but as long as
he has not despaired, but uses his skill, he scuds before the gale,
"lowering his big sail, till his lower mast is only just above the sea
dark as Erebus," and sits at the helm trembling and quaking. But the
disposition of a wise man gives calm even to the body, mostly cutting
off the causes of diseases by temperance and plain living and moderate
exercise; but if some beginning of trouble arise from without, as we
avoid a sunken rock, so he passes by it with furled sail, as Asclepiades
puts it; but if some unexpected and tremendous gale come upon him and
prove too much for him, the harbour is at hand, and he can swim away
from the body, as from a leaky boat.

Sec. XVIII. For it is the fear of death, and not the desire of life, that
makes the foolish person to hang to the body, clinging to it, as
Odysseus did to the fig-tree from fear of Charybdis that lay below,

"Where the wind neither let him stay, or sail,"

so that he was displeased at this, and afraid of that. But he who
understands somehow or other the nature of the soul, and reflects that
the change it will undergo at death will be either to something better
or at least not worse, he has in his fearlessness of death no small help
to ease of mind in life. For to one who can enjoy life when virtue and
what is congenial to him have the upper hand, and that can fearlessly
depart from lif