his design was only to make people laugh; for he affirms somewhere that
if a wise man were to be burned or put to the torture--you expect,
perhaps, that he is going to say he would bear it, he would support
himself under it with resolution, he would not yield to it (and that by
Hercules! would be very commendable, and worthy of that very Hercules
whom I have just invoked): but even this will not satisfy Epicurus,
that robust and hardy man! No; his wise man, even if he were in
Phalaris's bull, would say, How sweet it is! how little do I regard it!
What, sweet? Is it not sufficient, if it is not disagreeable? But those
very men who deny pain to be an evil are not in the habit of saying
that it is agreeable to any one to be tormented; they rather say that
it is cruel, or hard to bear, afflicting, unnatural, but still not an
evil: while this man who says that it is the only evil, and the very
worst of all evils, yet thinks that a wise man would pronounce it
sweet. I do not require of you to speak of pain in the same words which
Epicurus uses--a man, as you know, devoted to pleasure: he may make no
difference, if he pleases, between Phalaris's bull and his own bed; but
I cannot allow the wise man to be so indifferent about pain. If he
bears it with courage, it is sufficient: that he should rejoice in it,
I do not expect; for pain is, beyond all question, sharp, bitter,
against nature, hard to submit to and to bear. Observe Philoctetes: We
may allow him to lament, for he saw Hercules himself groaning loudly
through extremity of pain on Mount Oeta. The arrows with which Hercules
presented him were then no consolation to him, when

The viper's bite, impregnating his veins
With poison, rack'd him with its bitter pains.

And therefore he cries out, desiring help, and wishing to die,