_vir_, a man, and courage is the peculiar
distinction of a man: and this virtue has two principal duties, to
despise death and pain. We must, then, exert these, if we would be men
of virtue, or, rather, if we would be men, because virtue (_virtus_)
takes its very name from _vir_, man.

XIX. You may inquire, perhaps, how? And such an inquiry is not amiss,
for philosophy is ready with her assistance. Epicurus offers himself to
you, a man far from a bad--or, I should rather say, a very good man: he
advises no more than he knows. "Despise pain," says he. Who is it saith
this? Is it the same man who calls pain the greatest of all evils? It
is not, indeed, very consistent in him. Let us hear what he says: "If
the pain is excessive, it must needs be short." I must have that over
again, for I do not apprehend what you mean exactly by "excessive" or
"short." That is excessive than which nothing can be greater; that is
short than which nothing is shorter. I do not regard the greatness of
any pain from which, by reason of the shortness of its continuance, I
shall be delivered almost before it reaches me. But if the pain be as
great as that of Philoctetes, it will appear great indeed to me, but
yet not the greatest that I am capable of bearing; for the pain is
confined to my foot. But my eye may pain me, I may have a pain in the
head, or sides, or lungs, or in every part of me. It is far, then, from
being excessive. Therefore, says he, pain of a long continuance has
more pleasure in it than uneasiness. Now, I cannot bring myself to say
so great a man talks nonsense; but I imagine he is laughing at us. My
opinion is that the greatest pain (I say the greatest, though it may be
ten atoms less than another) is not therefore short, because acute. I
could name to you a great many good men who have been tormented many
years with the acutest pains of the gout. But this cautious man doth
not determine the measure of that greatness or of duration, so as to
enable us to know what he calls excessive with regard to pain, or short
with respect to its continuance. Let us pass him by, then, as one who
says just nothing at all; and let us force him to acknowledge,
notwithstanding he might behave himself somewhat boldly under his colic
and his strangury, that no remedy against pain can be had from him who
looks on pain as the greatest of all evils. We must apply, then, for
relief elsewhere, and nowhere better (if we seek for what is most
consistent