The Sale of Lives (20-21)

Call up another-that scowling fellow with the shaved head from the Porch.

Very well. At all events, a great crowd of those who have come to the sale seem to be waiting for him. I offer for sale virtue herself, the most perfect of lives. Who wishes to know everything, alone of all men?

What do you mean?

This man alone is wise, he alone is beautiful, he alone is just, manly, a king, an orator, a millionaire, a legislator, and everything else.

Then, friend, is he alone a cook, and a tanner, by Jove! and a carpenter, and everything of that sort?

Apparently.

Come, my friend, and tell me, your purchaser, what sort of person you are, and, to begin with, whether it is not an affliction to you to be sold and in slavery.

Not at all; for those things are not under our control, and what is not under our control is therefore indifferent.

I don't understand just what you mean.

What, do you not understand that in such matters some things are preferred and some again rejected?

I don't understand even yet.

Naturally, for you are not accustomed to our terminology, nor have you the perceptive imagination. But the virtuous man, he who has mastered logical theory, knows not only

In the name of wisdom, kindly take the trouble to tell me this, too: what accidents and secondary accidents are. I am indescribably impressed by the roll of the words.

No trouble at all. If a lame man, stumbling with that lame foot itself against a stone gets unexpectedly hurt, this man's lameness is evidently a primary accident to which he adds a secondary accident in the way of the wound.