a great soul, endued with patience and steadiness above the frowns of
fortune? or Philoctetes? for I choose to instance him, rather than
yourself, for he certainly was not a brave man, who lay in his bed,
which was watered with his tears,

Whose groans, bewailings, and whose bitter cries,
With grief incessant rent the very skies.

I do not deny pain to be pain--for were that the case, in what would
courage consist?--but I say it should be assuaged by patience, if there
be such a thing as patience: if there be no such thing, why do we speak
so in praise of philosophy? or why do we glory in its name? Does pain
annoy us? Let it sting us to the heart: if you are without defensive
armor, bare your throat to it; but if you are secured by Vulcanian
armor, that is to say by resolution, resist it. Should you fail to do
so, that guardian of your honor, your courage, will forsake and leave
you.--By the laws of Lycurgus, and by those which were given to the
Cretans by Jupiter, or which Minos established under the direction of
Jupiter, as the poets say, the youths of the State are trained by the
practice of hunting, running, enduring hunger and thirst, cold and
heat. The boys at Sparta are scourged so at the altars that blood
follows the lash in abundance; nay, sometimes, as I used to hear when I
was there, they are whipped even to death; and yet not one of them was
ever heard to cry out, or so much as groan. What, then? Shall men not
be able to bear what boys do? and shall custom have such great force,
and reason none at all?

XV. There is some difference between labor and pain; they border upon
one another, but still there is a certain difference between them.
Labor is a certain exercise of the mind or body, in some employment or