On Tranquillity of Mind (6)

This, then, we should practice and cultivate first of all, like the man who threw a stone at his dog, but missed her and hit his stepmother, whereupon he exclaimed, Not so bad after all! [*] For it is possible to change the direction of Fortune when she has given us things we do not wish. Diogenes[*] was driven into exile: Not so bad after all! for after his exile he began to lead the life of a philosopher. Zeno[*] of Citium had one merchantman remaining; when he learned that this had been sunk at sea and lost with all its cargo, he cried, Much obliged, Fortune! You also drive me to the philosopher’s cloak. [*]

What, then, prevents our imitating such men as these? Have you failed in your canvass for an office? You will be able to live in the country and look after your own affairs. Were you repulsed in wooing the friendship of some great man? Your life will be free from danger and trouble. Have you, again, become occupied with matters which take all your time and fill you with cares?

Nor shall hot water so soften the limbs,

as Pindar[*] has it, since high repute and honour conjoined with a measure of power make

Labour pleasant and toil to be sweet toil.[*]

Have you, by reason of slander or envy, become the butt of jeers and cat-calls? The breeze is favouring that bears you to the Muses and the Academy,[*] as it was for Plato[*] when he was buffeted by the storm of Dionysius’s friendship.

For this reason it will also help greatly toward tranquillity of mind to observe that famous men have suffered nothing at all from evils the same as yours. Does childlessness, for example, vex you? Consider the kings[*] of Rome, of whom not one was able to bequeath the kingdom to a son. Are you distressed by your present poverty? Well, what Boeotian rather than Epameinondas, what Roman rather than Fabricius, would you have preferred to be? But my wife has been seduced. Have you, then, not read the inscription at Delphi,

The lord of land and sea, King Agis, put me here[*];

and have you not heard that Alcibiades[*] seduced Agis’s wife, Timaea, and that, whispering to her handmaids, she called her child Alcibiades? But this did not prevent Agis from being the most celebrated and the greatest of Greeks. Just as the licentiousness of his daughter did not prevent Stilpo[*] from leading the most cheerful life of all the philosophers of his time; on the contrary, when Metrocles reproached him, he asked, Is this my fault or hers? And when Metrocles replied, Her fault, but your misfortune, he said, What do you mean? Are not faults also slips? Certainly, said Metrocles. And are not slips also mischances of those who have slipped? Metrocles agreed. And are not mischances also misfortunes of those whose mischances they are? By this gentle and philosophic argument he showed the Cynics abuse to be but idle yapping.