Wretch,
are you so blind, and don't you see the road to which the want of
necessaries leads?--Well, where does it lead?--to the same place to
which a fever leads, or a stone that falls on you, to death. Have you
not often said this yourself to your companions? have you not read much
of this kind, and written much? and how often have you boasted that you
were easy as to death?
Learn then first what are the things which are shameful, and then tell
us that you are a philosopher: but at present do not, even if any other
man calls you so, allow it.
Is that shameful to you which is not your own act, that of which you are
not the cause, that which has come to you by accident, as a headache, as
a fever? If your parents were poor, and left their property to others,
and if while they live, they do not help you at all, is this shameful to
you? Is this what you learned with the philosophers? Did you never hear
that the thing which is shameful ought to be blamed, and that which is
blamable is worthy of blame? Whom do you blame for an act which is not
his own, which he did not do himself? Did you then make your father such
as he is, or is it in your power to improve him? Is this power given to
you? Well then, ought you to wish the things which are not given to you,
or to be ashamed if you do not obtain them? And have you also been
accustomed while you were studying philosophy to look to others and to
hope for nothing from yourself? Lament then and groan and eat with fear
that you may not have food to-morrow.
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