Ay, because you had a coat. I have a pain in my head. Why, can you have a pain in your horns?4 Why, then, are you out of humour? For loss and pain can be only of such things as are possessed.

§ 2. But the tyrant will chain—what?—A leg.—He will take away—what?—A head.—What is there, then, that he can neither chain nor take away?—The will and choice. Hence the advice of the ancients—Know thyself.

What ought to be done, then?

Exercise yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater. "I have a pain in my head."—Do not cry, Alas!—"I have a pain in my ear."—Do not cry, Alas! I do not say you may not groan, but do not groan inwardly; or, if your servant is a long while in bringing you something to bind your head, do not bawl and distort yourself, and say, "Everybody hates me." For who would not hate such a one?

§ 3. Relying for the future on these principles, walk upright and free; not trusting to bulk of body like a wrestler: for one should not be unconquerable in the sense that an ass is.

Who then is unconquerable? He whom nothing, independent on choice, disconcerts. Then I run over every circumstance and consider (say) of an athletic champion, He has been victorious in the first encounter: what will he do in the second? What if the heat should be excessive? What if he were to appear at Olympia? So I say in this case. What if you throw money in his way? He will despise it. What, if a girl? What, if in the dark? What, if he be tried by popular fame, calumny, praise, death? He is able to overcome them all. What then, if he be placed in the heat, or in the rain?5 What if he be hypochondriac, or asleep? [Just the same.] This is my unconquerable athletic champion.

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Chapter XIX

Of the Behaviour to Be Observed Towards Tyrants

§ 1. WHEN a person is possessed of some either real or imagined superiority, unless he hath been well instructed, he will necessarily be puffed up with it. A tyrant, for instance, says: "I am supreme over all."—And what can you do for me? Can you exempt my desires from disappointment? How should you? For do you never incur your own aversions? Are your own pursuits infallible? Whence should you come by that privilege? Pray, on shipboard, do you trust to yourself, or to the pilot? In a chariot, to whom but the driver? And to whom in all other arts? Just the same. In what then, doth your power consist?—"All men pay regard to me."

So do I to my desk. I wash it and wipe it; and drive a nail for the service of my oil flask.—"What then, are these things to be valued beyond me?"—No: but they are of some use to me, and therefore I pay regard to them. Why, do not I pay regard to an ass? Do not I wash his feet? Do not I clean him? Do not you know that every one pays regard to himself, and to you, just as he doth to an ass? For who pays regard to you as a man? Show that. Who would wish to be like you? Who would desire to imitate you, as he would Socrates?—"But I can take off your head."—You say right. I had forgot that one is to pay regard to you as to a fever or the colic, and that there should be an altar erected to you, as there is to the goddess Fever at Rome.

§ 2. What is it, then, that disturbs and strikes terror into the multitude? The tyrant and his guards? By no means. What is by nature free, cannot be disturbed or restrained by anything but itself. But its own principles disturb it. Thus, when the tyrant says to any one: "I will chain your leg": he who values his leg, cries out for pity: while he who sets the value on his own will and choice, says: "If you imagine it for your interest, chain it."—"What! do not you care?"—No; I do not care.—"I will show you that I am master."—You? How should you? Jupiter has set me free. What! do you think he would suffer his own son to be enslaved? You are master of my carcase. Take it.—"So that when you come into my presence, you pay no regard to me?"—No; but to myself; or, if you will have me say, to you also: I tell you; the same to you as to a pipkin. This is not selfish vanity; for every animal is so constituted as to do everything for its own sake. Even the sun doth all for his own sake: nay, and to name no more, even Jupiter himself. But when he would be styled the Dispenser of Rain and Plenty, and the Father of Gods and Men, you see that he cannot attain these offices and titles unless he contributes to the common utility. And he hath universally so constituted the nature of every reasonable creature, that no one can attain any of its own proper advantages without contributing something to the use of society. And thus it becomes not unsociable to do everything for one's own sake. For, do you expect that a man should desert himself and his own interest? How, then, can all beings have one and the same original instinct, attachment to themselves? What follows, then? That where those absurd principles concerning things dependent on choice, as if they were either good or evil, are at the bottom, there must necessarily be a regard paid to tyrants: and I wish it were to tyrants only, and not to the very officers of their bed-chamber too.