t can befal man, and look on it as a trifle.
Add to this temperance, which is moderation, 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 amongst 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
enjo