Epictetus

[poliphilo]

methexis has been posting extracts from Epictetus. Epictetus is cool. He argued that we shouldn't worry about things that are beyond our control, only about things we are directly responsible for- like our moods and actions. Disease, poverty, death? There's nothing we can do about any of these, so why worry? He was a bit Zen, a bit Spock, a bit Alfred E Neumann.

I remembered that I had a volume of Epictetus on my shelves. It's one of the books I inherited from my grandfather.  I went and got it and opened it up and received a mellow blast of my grandfather's tobacco. Dead for 25 years and the reek of his cigars is still with us!

It's an old Everyman edition. Everyman was a cut-price brand. They didn't/couldn't/wouldn't pay translators, instead they reprinted "classic" translations from the 18th and 19th centuries. This then is Elizabeth Carter's translation from 1758-9. It comes with an Editor's Note (c. 1920) which informs us that "Miss 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."

How's that for a sale's pitch?

OK, this book is pretty rubbish, but it's the best we can do, so be grateful.

Miss Carter's own Introduction gets very worried about whether Epictetus was aware of Christianity or not. She fears he may have stolen ideas from the Gospels and considers it very much to the discredit of his judgement if, knowing them well, he didn't convert. The idea that the influence might have run the other way- from the Stoic tradition to Christianity- doesn't cross her mind- is, in fact, literally unthinkable. That some Greek philosopher might have anticipated the Son of God- no, banish the thought!

We forget how positively Stalinist the grip of Christianity used to be.

So Carter's Epictetus joins the pile of books on the table beside my armchair. I like how Epictetus writes in short discreet paragraphs- not developing an argument but distilling wisdom- like Nietzsche, like the Reader's Digest. You can take him like a pill. So when there's a commercial break in the middle of the Simpsons there's time for a quick, uplifting dose of stoic wisdom.

"Require not things to happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well."

Thank you, methexis

Comments

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

We forget how positively Stalinist the grip of Christianity used to be.


Used to be?

I like Epictetus too. Although my man will have a heart attack when he hears you likened Nietzsche to the Reader's Digest. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"Used to be"- well, I'm writing from a European perspective.....

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I think I read an Everyman book a long time ago. It was the diary of Vasco da Gama's *brother*. He wrote about going to India, and finding it remarkable that people knew Jesus there. (People were holding up pictures of Shiva.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I shouldn't knock Everyman- they brought a vast range of classic literature within the reach of the man or woman in the street. If it hadn't been for Everyman a writer like Epicetus would never have been available to a working-class lad like my Grandad-

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Yes--there's a LOT of value in that. I wasn't knocking them, just echoing your appreciation of the Stalinist grip of Christianity.:)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness, no, I wasn't accusing you of knocking them. I was the one who had been doing the knocking.

Yes, up until quite recently most people in the west were incapable of stepping, even in their imaginations, outside the Christian world view.

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

He was a bit Zen, a bit Spock, a bit Alfred E Neumann.

*giggle*

I have a little softbound book of quotations from Epictetus. Definitely a good place to go for a dose of perspective.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Perspective- yes, that's what it's all about. A person can be perfectly happy (says Epictetus) just so long as they don't entertain unreasonable expectations.

[methexis.livejournal.com]

My humble pleasure- I am but the messenger.

One thing to point out, though: None of what we have is actually written by Epictetus, but rather by Arrian, a student of his who was (among many other things) an historian. The Discourses are transcripts (for lack of a better term, it's hard to estimate how much of it is verbatim) of his lectures. Hence the lively style and the frequent lapses into dialectic exchanges. The Manual is Arrian's version of the distilled wisdom of Epictetus: something that could be carried about and consulted when a difficult situation arose (the actual title of the work, 'Enchiridion', refers to the small dagger that would be hidden on oneself and used in case of sudden danger- and/or perhaps to commit suicide if it came to that).

Cordially,
J.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

No, I didn't know any of that. Fascinating.

Enchiridion = small dagger. That's classy!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

"Require not things to happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well."



But then Epictetus didn't have a daughter who couldn't find a teaching job, who will probably live with me until I am ninety and she is seventy, and we will carp at each other all day long and I will begin to kick the dog. (I have been forebearant--oh, yes, I have been.)

Wish for that? And for what?

Screamingly yours, Jackie

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's a story about how Epictetus's master was beating him on the leg.

"If you continue to do that," said Epictetus smilingly, "you will break my leg."

The master continued with the beating.

"There," said Epictetus, still smiling, "I told you that would happen."

That's the sort of man he was!

I'm so sorry Kate can't get a job. I thought it was going to be straightforward.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Well, he is the Zennist Zen there ever was, is all.

I think his Zen master was a sadist and he a Zen Masochist.

If one is a masochist, I suppose it helps to be resigned to it.

Oh, dear, I am beginning to sound just a little bitter and brittle!

My, my.

When the Back to School ads come on television, I feel a knife twisting in my stomach. Kate went to her last class yesterday, and she made another A. She has straight As now in everything from School Law to statistics, and she even won a t-shirt for Best Essay on Multiple Intelligence.

All this may mean is that she can no longer find a job at McDonalds unless she hides her resume and must continue (and her managerie continue) to live with me forever, old Mamsie Pepper, Good Mother.

Mamsie Pepper is on the verge of a Nervous Collapse, but she can't afford to have one...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's awful.

You've been very good about Jasper and all. I know how I would feel. I find dogs disgusting- all that slobber and fluff.

So all this education has just helped make Kate less employable. Bah!

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

My sister doesn't have a teaching job yet, either. As another sister keeps repeating, "The best teachers get hired in August."

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

he sounds cool.
i will endeavour to be more like epictetus.

'if you keep ignoring my english lessons like this, you won't learn any english..'

end of term after the exams-

'i told you that would happen. punk.'

epictetus may not have added 'punk' tho. that's my own idea.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Epictetus would have said something like "dear boy" or "dear girl".

I see him as an old fashioned English gentleman.

But maybe that's just the translation I'm using....

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

that's pretty sweet, i'll have to remember that...

'punk' feels good tho...