Epictetus · c. 50 – c. 135 CE
Fragments 94 — Epictetus
Translation by George Long (1877)
Epictetus, Fragments 94
Admirable is nature, and, as Xenophon says, a lover of animated beings. The body then, which is of all things the most unpleasant and the most foul (dirty), we love and take care of; for if we were obliged for five days only to take care of our neighbour’s body, we should not be able to endure it. Consider then what a thing it would be to rise in the morning and rub the teeth of another, and after doing some of the necessary offices to wash those parts. In truth it is wonderful that we love a thing to which we perform such services every day. I fill this bag, and then I empty it; what is more troublesome? But I must act as the servant of God. For this reason I remain (here), and I endure to wash this miserable body, to feed it and to clothe it. But when I was younger, God imposed on me also another thing, and I submitted to it. Why then do you not submit, when Nature who has given us this body takes it away? I love the body, you may say. Well, as I said just now, Nature gave you also this love of the body: but Nature says, Leave it now, and have no more trouble (with it).
Cite this passage
Epictetus, Fragments 94, tr. George Long (1877)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/epictetus-fragments/94
Epictetus, Enchiridion and Fragments, tr. George Long (1877). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesThe body is about the most unpleasant thing we look after, yet we love and tend it daily because nature gave us that attachment and we have a duty to carry out. When nature takes the body back, we should submit as readily as we accepted the task, and stop clinging to it.
Older wording
- “servant of God”
- — someone carrying out a duty assigned by the divine order
Themes and situations
- Death and mortality
- Illness and the body
- Acceptance and fate
- Nature and the cosmos
- Duty and roles
- Fear of death
- Illness or diagnosis
- Getting older
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