o desist and not to receive blows.

But in the other matter if we give up philosophy, what shall we gain?
What then should a man say on the occasion of each painful thing? It was
for this that I exercised myself, for this I disciplined myself. God
says to you: Give me a proof that you have duly practised athletics,
that you have eaten what you ought, that you have been exercised, that
you have obeyed the aliptes (the oiler and rubber). Then do you show
yourself weak when the time for action comes? Now is the time for the
fever. Let it be borne well. Now is the time for thirst, bear it well.
Now is the time for hunger, bear it well. Is it not in your power? Who
shall hinder you? The physician will hinder you from drinking; but he
cannot prevent you from bearing thirst well: and he will hinder you from
eating; but he cannot prevent you from bearing hunger well.

But I cannot attend to my philosophical studies. And for what purpose do
you follow them? Slave, is it not that you may be happy, that you may be
constant, is it not that you may be in a state conformable to nature and
live so? What hinders you when you have a fever from having your ruling
faculty conformable to nature? Here is the proof of the thing, here is
the test of the philosopher. For this also is a part of life, like
walking, like sailing, like journeying by land, so also is fever. Do you
read when you are walking? No. Nor do you when you have a fever. But if
you walk about well, you have all that belongs to a man who walks. If
you bear a fever well, you have all that belongs to a man in a fever.
What is it to bear a fever well? Not to blame God or man; not to be
afflicted at that which happens, to expect death well and nobly, to do
what must be done: when the physician comes in, not to be frightened at
what he says; nor if he says you are doing well, to be overjoyed. For
what good has he told you? and when you were in health, what good was
that to you? And even if he says you are in a bad way, do not despond.
For what is it to be ill? is it that you are near the severance of the
soul and the body? what harm is there in this? If you are not near now,
will you not afterwards be near? Is the world going to be turned upside
down when you are dead? Why then do you flatter the physician? Why do
you say if you please, master, I shall be well? Why do you give him an
opportunity of raising his eyebrows (being proud; or showing his
importance)? Do you not value a p