that you have not got what you wanted. Was this your business, and not
his? Why then do you claim that which belongs to another? Always
remember what is your own, and what belongs to another; and you will not
be disturbed. Chrysippus therefore said well, So long as future things
are uncertain, I always cling to those which are more adapted to the
conservation of that which is according to nature; for God himself has
given me the faculty of such choice. But if I knew that it was fated (in
the order of things) for me to be sick, I would even move towards it;
for the foot also, if it had intelligence, would move to go into the
mud. For why are ears of corn produced? Is it not that they may become
dry? And do they not become dry that they may be reaped? for they are
not separated from communion with other things. If then they had
perception, ought they to wish never to be reaped? But this is a curse
upon ears of corn to be never reaped. So we must know that in the case
of men too it is a curse not to die, just the same as not to be ripened
and not to be reaped. But since we must be reaped, and we also know that
we are reaped, we are vexed at it; for we neither know what we are nor
have we studied what belongs to man, as those who have studied horses
know what belongs to horses. But Chrysantas when he was going to strike
the enemy checked himself when he heard the trumpet sounding a retreat:
so it seemed better to him to obey the general's command than to follow
his own inclination. But not one of us chooses, even when necessity
summons, readily to obey it, but weeping and groaning we suffer what we
do suffer, and we call them "circumstances." What kind of circumstances,
man? If you give the name of circumstances to the things which are
around you, all things are circumstances; but if you call hardships by
this name, what hardship is there in the dying of that which has been
produced? But that which destroys is either a sword, or a wheel, or the
sea, or a tile, or a tyrant. Why do you care about the way of going down
to Hades? All ways are equal. But if you will listen to the truth, the