Epictetus · c. 50 – c. 135 CE
Discourses 1.5 ¶3 — Epictetus
From “Against the Academics”
Translation by George Long (1877)
Epictetus, Discourses 1.5 ¶3
Do you comprehend that you are awake? I do not, the man replies, for I do not even comprehend when in my sleep I imagine that I am awake. Does this appearance then not differ from the other? Not at all, he replies. Shall I still argue with this man? And what fire or what iron shall I apply to him to make him feel that he is deadened? He does perceive, but he pretends that he does not. He is even worse than a dead man. He does not see the contradiction: he is in a bad condition. Another does see it, but he is not moved, and makes no improvement: he is even in a worse condition. His modesty is extirpated, and his sense of shame; and the rational faculty has not been cut off from him, but it is brutalised. Shall I name this strength of mind? Certainly not, unless we also name it such in catamites, through which they do and say in public whatever comes into their head.
Cite this passage
Epictetus, Discourses 1.5 ¶3, tr. George Long (1877)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/discourses/1.5.3
Epictetus, Discourses (as recorded by Arrian), tr. George Long (1877). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesSomeone who cannot tell whether he is awake or dreaming cannot be argued with, and one who sees the contradiction in his position and is unmoved is in even worse shape. Losing the sense of shame is not strength of mind but a deadening of it, as when reason is brutalised rather than cut off.
Older wording
- “extirpated”
- — uprooted and destroyed
- “catamites”
- — boys kept for sexual use by men
Themes and situations
- Judgements and impressions
- Virtue and character
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