"But shall we not meet with troubles in life? Yes, undoubtedly; and are there none at Olympia? Are you not burnt with heat, and pressed for room, and wetted with showers when it rains? Is there not more than enough clamour, and shouting, and other troubles? Yet I suppose you tolerate and endure all these when you balance them against the magnificence of the spectacle? And, come now, have you not received powers wherewith to bear whatever occurs? Have you not received magnanimity, courage, fortitude? And why, if I am magnanimous, should I care for anything that can possibly happen? what shall alarm or trouble me, or seem painful? Shall I not use the faculty for the ends for which it was granted me, or shall I grieve and groan at all the accidents of life? On the contrary, these troubles and difficulties are strong antagonists pitted against us, and we may conquer them, if we will, in the Olympic game of life.
"But if life and its burdens become absolutely intolerable, may we not go back to God, from whom we came? may we not show thieves and robbers, and tyrants who claim power over us by means of our bodies and possessions, that they have _no power_? In a word, may we not commit suicide?" We know how Shakespeare treats this question:--
"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns Which patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, _But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourne No traveller returns, puzzles the will: And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of_?"
But Epictetus had no materials for such an answer. I do not remember a single passage in which he refers to immortality or the life to come, and it is therefore probable either that he did not believe in it at all, or that he put it aside as one of those things which are out of our own power. Yet his answer is not that glorification of suicide which we find throughout the tragedies of Seneca, and which was one of the commonplaces of Stoicism. "My friends," he says, "wait God's good time till He gives you the signal, and dismisses you from this service; then dismiss yourself to go to Him. But for the present restrain yourselves, inhabiting the spot which He has at present assigned you. For, after all, this time of your sojourn here is short, and easy for those who are thus disposed; for what tyrant, or thief, or judgment-halls, are objects of dread to those who thus absolutely disesteem the body and its belongings? Stay, then, and do not depart without due cause."