dom from
pain is not increased;--and why you call that pleasure I do not know.

IV. Is it possible, said he, for anything to be more delightful than
freedom from pain? Well, said I, but grant that nothing is preferable to
that, (for that is not the point which I am inquiring about at present,)
does it follow on that account, that pleasure is identical with what I may
call painlessness? Undoubtedly it is identical with it, said he; and that
painlessness is the greatest of pleasures which no other can possibly
exceed. Why, then, said I, do you hesitate, after you have defined the
chief good in this manner, to uphold, and defend, and maintain the
proposition, that the whole of pleasure consists in freedom from pain? For
what necessity for your introducing pleasure among the council of the
virtues, any more than for bringing in a courtezan to an assembly of
matrons? The very name of pleasure is odious, infamous, and a just object
of suspicion: therefore, you are all in the constant habit of saying that
we do not understand what Epicurus means when he speaks of pleasure. And
whenever such an assertion is made to me,--and I hear it advanced pretty
often,--although I am usually a very peaceful arguer, still I do on such
occasions get a little angry. Am I to be told that I do not know what that
is which the Greeks call {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}, and the Latins _voluptas_? Which language
is it, then, that I do not understand? Then, too, how comes it about that
I do not understand, though every one else does, who chooses to call
himself an Epicurean? when the disciples of your school argue most
excellently, that there is no need whatever for a man, who wishes to
become a philosopher, to be acquainted with literature. Therefore, just as
our ancestors tore Cincinnatus away from his plough to make him Dictator,
in like manner you collect from among the Greeks all those men, who may in
truth be respectable men enough, but who are certainly not over-learned.

Do they then understand what Epicurus means, and do I not understand it?
However, that you may know that I do understand, first of all I tell you
that _voluptas_ is the same thing that he calls {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}. And,