reference to which you ought to be cautious, courageous in that which
does not depend on your will, cautious in that which does depend on it.

* * * * *

OF TRANQUILLITY (FREEDOM FROM PERTURBATION).--Consider, you who are
going into court, what you wish to maintain and what you wish to succeed
in. For if you wish to maintain a will conformable to nature, you have
every security, every facility, you have no troubles. For if you wish to
maintain what is in your own power and is naturally free, and if you are
content with these, what else do you care for? For who is the master of
such things? Who can take them away? If you choose to be modest and
faithful, who shall not allow you to be so? If you choose not to be
restrained or compelled, who shall compel you to desire what you think
that you ought not to desire? who shall compel you to avoid what you do
not think fit to avoid? But what do you say? The judge will determine
against you something that appears formidable; but that you should also
suffer in trying to avoid it, how can he do that? When then the pursuit
of objects and the avoiding of them are in your power, what else do you
care for? Let this be your preface, this your narrative, this your
confirmation, this your victory, this your peroration, this your
applause (or the approbation which you will receive).

Therefore Socrates said to one who was reminding him to prepare for his
trial, Do you not think then that I have been preparing for it all my
life? By what kind of preparation? I have maintained that which was in
my own power. How then? I have never done anything unjust either in my
private or in my public life.

But if you wish to maintain externals also, your poor body, your little