Concerning Those Who Grieve at Being Pitied

 

VII. Of Fearlessness

 

VIII. Concerning Such as Hastily Run into the Philosophic Dress

 

IX. Concerning a Person Who Was Grown Immodest

 

X. What Things We Are to Despise, and on What to Place a Distinguished Value

 

XI. Of Purity and Cleanliness

 

XII. Of Attention

 

XIII. Concerning Such as Readily Discover Their Own Affairs

 

The Enchiridion

 

Fragments

 

Notes

 

Glossary

 

 

 

Editor's Note

Nothing need be added to Mrs. Carter's sketch of the Stoic philosophy and its most interesting expounder. It is strange indeed that English readers have been content to neglect Epictetus, who is superior to Marcus Aurelius intellectually as morally. Intellectually, indeed, there is no comparison between them; but Marcus Aurelius seems to have become a fashion, with Omar Khayyam, whereas the keen pungent wit of Epictetus is less to the taste of an age of sentimentalists. Epictetus has the philosopher's dry light. He is so human, too, and his life was so true to his faith, that the reader can both love and respect him. In this, as in literary qualities, he has the advantage over Seneca, who was too diffuse, and not free from the suspicion of temporising.

Mrs. Carter's own style is not the style of Epictetus; but it is a style, which is more than can be said of most writers at this time. At least she has represented the author's ideas faithfully and coherently.

W. H. D. Rouse.

 

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Bibliography

Encheiridion, with Simplicius Commentary, 1st edition, Jo. Ant. et fratres de Sabio, Venice, July, MDXXVIII. First Complete Text, Norenbergae, 1529,

TRANSLATIONS: Translation of complete works by Elizabeth Carter, 1758, 1759, 4th edition, 1807; T. W. Higginson, based on E. Carter, 1865, Boston, 1897. Encheiridion, T.W.H. Rolleston, 1881 (Camelot Classics, 1886; Lubbock's Hundred Books, No. 4); with golden verses of Pythagoras, T. Talbot, 1881; Discourses, Encheiridion, and fragments, G. Long (Bohn), 1848, etc.; Discourses, G.