tting an end to my pains?
She has excluded me; she recalls me: shall I return? No, not if she
would implore me." Observe the servant, not a little wiser: "O master,
that which has neither moderation nor conduct, can not be guided by
reason or method. In love these evils are inherent; war [one while],
then peace again. If any one should endeavor to ascertain these things,
that are various as the weather, and fluctuating by blind chance; he
will make no more of it, than if he should set about raving by right
reason and rule." What--when, picking the pippins from the Picenian
apples, you rejoice if haply you have hit the vaulted roof; are you
yourself? What--when you strike out faltering accents from your
antiquated palate, how much wiser are you than [a child] that builds
little houses? To the folly [of love] add bloodshed, and stir the fire
with a sword. I ask you, when Marius lately, after he had stabbed
Hellas, threw himself down a precipice, was he raving mad? Or will you
absolve the man from the imputation of a disturbed mind, and condemn him
for the crime, according to your custom, imposing, on things named that
have an affinity in signification?

There was a certain freedman, who, an old man, ran about the streets in
a morning fasting, with his hands washed, and prayed thus: "Snatch me
alone from death" (adding some solemn vow), "me alone, for it is an easy
matter for the gods:" this man was sound in both his ears and eyes; but
his master, when he sold him, would except his understanding, unless he
were fond of law-suits. This crowd too Chrysippus places in the fruitful
family of Menenius.

O Jupiter, who givest and takest away great afflictions, (cries the
mother of a boy, now lying sick abed for five months), if this cold
quartan ague should leave the child, in the morning of that day on which
you enjoy a fast, he shall stand naked in the Tiber. Should chance or
the physician relieve the patient from his imminent danger, the
infatuated mother will destroy [the boy] placed on the cold bank, and
will bring back the fever. With what disorder of the mind is she
stricken? Why, with a superstitious fear of the gods.

These arms Stertinius, the eighth of the wise men, gave to me, as to a
friend, that for the future I might not be roughly accosted without
avenging myself. Whosoever shall call me madman, shall hear as much from
me [in return]; and shall learn to look back upon the bag that hangs
behind him.

O Stoic,