Is any one preferred before you at an entertainment, or in courtesies, or in confidential intercourse?
If these things are good, you ought to rejoice that he.
has them; and if they are evil, do not be grieved
that you have them not. And remember that you
cannot be permitted to rival others in externals, without using the same means to obtain them. For how
can he who will not haunt the door of any man, will
not attend him, will not praise him, have an equal
share with him who does these things? You are
unjust, then, and unreasonable, if you are unwilling
to pay the price for which these things are sold, and
would have them for nothing. For how much are
lettuces sold? An obolus, for instance. If another,
then, paying an obolus, takes the lettuces, and you,
not paying it, go without them, do not imagine that
he has gained any advantage over you. For as he
has the lettuces, so you have the obolus which you
did not give. So, in the present case, you have not
been invited to such a person's entertainment, because you have not paid him the price for which a
supper is sold. It is sold for praise; it is sold for
attendance. Give him, then, the value, if it be for
your advantage. But if you would at the same time
not pay the one, and yet receive the other, you are
unreasonable and foolish. Have you nothing, then,
in place of the supper? Yes, indeed you have: not
[p. 2228]
to praise him whom you do not like to praise; not
to bear the insolence of his lackeys.
The Works of Epictetus: His Discourses, in Four Books, the Enchiridion, and Fragments. Epictetus. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. translator. New York. Thomas Nelson and Sons. 1890.
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