Ar. I correct them with all the plagues, till I force them to serve me
properly. But, Socrates, to return to your pupil educated in the royal
art,[21] which, if I mistake not, you hold to be happiness: how, may I
ask, will he be better off than others who lie in evil case, in spite
of themselves, simply because they suffer perforce, but in his case
the hunger and the thirst, the cold shivers and the lying awake at
nights, with all the changes he will ring on pain, are of his own
choosing? For my part I cannot see what difference it makes, provided
it is one and the same bare back which receives the stripes, whether
the whipping be self-appointed or unasked for; nor indeed does it
concern my body in general, provided it be my body, whether I am
beleaguered by a whole armament of such evils[22] of my own will or
against my will--except only for the folly which attaches to self-
appointed suffering.

[21] Cf. below, IV. ii. 11; Plat. "Statesm." 259 B; "Euthyd." 291 C;
K. Joel, op. cit. p. 387 foll. "Aristippus anticipates Adeimantus"
("Rep." 419), W. L. Newman, op. cit. i. 395.

[22] Cf. "suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

Soc. What, Aristippus, does it not seem to you that, as regards such
matters, there is all the difference between voluntary and involuntary
suffering, in that he who starves of his own accord can eat when he
chooses, and he who thirsts of his own free will can drink, and so for
the rest; but he who suffers in these ways perforce cannot desist from
the suffering when the humour takes him? Again, he who suffers
hardship voluntarily, gaily confronts his troubles, being buoyed on
hope[23]--just as a hunter in pursuit of wild beasts, through hope of
capturing his quarry, finds toil a pleasure--and these are but prizes