ve been very fond of quoting our poets, and
where I cannot be supplied from them, I translate from the Greek, that the
Latin language may not want any kind of ornament in this kind of
disputation.

But do you not see how much harm is done by poets? They introduce the
bravest men lamenting over their misfortunes: they soften our minds, and
they are besides so entertaining, that we do not only read them, but get
them by heart. Thus the influence of the poets is added to our want of
discipline at home, and our tender and delicate manner of living, so that
between them they have deprived virtue of all its vigour and energy. Plato
therefore was right in banishing them from his commonwealth, where he
required the best morals, and the best form of government. But we, who
have all our learning from Greece, read and learn these works of theirs
from our childhood; and look on this as a liberal and learned education.

XII. But why are we angry with the poets? we may find some philosophers,
those masters of virtue, who have taught that pain was the greatest of
evils. But you, young man, when you said but just now that it appeared so
to you, upon being asked by me what appeared greater than infamy, gave up
that opinion at a word. Suppose I ask Epicurus the same question. He will
answer, that a trifling degree of pain is a greater evil than the greatest
infamy; for that there is no evil in infamy itself, unless attended with
pain. What pain then attends Epicurus, when he says this very thing, that
pain is the greatest evil; and yet nothing can be a greater disgrace to a
philosopher than to talk thus. Therefore, you allowed enough when you
admitted that infamy appeared to you to be a greater evil than pain. And
if you abide by this admission, you will see how far pain should be
resisted: and that our inquiry should be not so much whether pain be an
evil; as how the mind may be fortified for resisting it. The Stoics infer
from some petty quibbling arguments, that it is no evil, as if the dispute
was about a word, and not about the thing itself. Why do you impose upon
me, Zeno? for when you deny what appears very dreadful to me to be an
evil; I am deceived, and am at a loss to know why that which appears to me
to be a most miserable thing, should be no evil. The answer is, that
nothing is an evil but what is base and vicious. You return to your
trifling, for you do not remove what made me uneasy. I know that pain is
not vice,--you need