First say to yourself, who you wish to be: then do accordingly what you are doing; for in nearly all other things we see this to be so. Those who follow athletic1 exercises first determine what they wish to be, then do accordingly what follows. If a man is a runner in the long course, there is a certain kind of diet, of walking, rubbing and exercise: if a man is a runner in the stadium, all these things are different; if he is a Pentathlete, they are still more different. So you will find it also in the arts. If you are a carpenter, you will have such and such things: if a worker in metal, such things. For everything that we do, if we refer it to no end, we shall do it to no purpose; and if we refer it to the wrong end, we shall miss the mark. Further, there is a general end or purpose, and a particular purpose. First of all, we must act as a man. What is comprehended in this? We must not be like a sheep, though gentle, nor mischievous2, like a wild beast. But the particular cud has reference to each person’s mode of life and his will. The lute3-player acts as a lute-player, the carpenter as a carpenter, the philosopher as a philosopher, the rhetorician as a rhetorician. When then you say, “Come and hear me read to you”: take care first of all that you are not doing this without a purpose; then, if you have discovered that you are doing this with reference to a purpose, consider if it is the right purpose. Do you wish to do good or to be praised? Immediately you hear him saying, “To me what is the value of praise from the many?” and he says well, for it is of no value to a musician, so far as he is a musician, nor to a geometrician. Do you then wish to be useful? in what? tell us that we may run to your audience-room. Now can a man do anything useful to others, who has not received something useful himself? No, for neither can a man do anything useful in the carpenter’s art, unless he is a carpenter; nor in the shoemaker’s art, unless he is a shoemaker.
Do you wish to know then if you have received any advantage? Produce your opinions, philosopher. What is the thing which desire promises? Not to fall in the object. What does aversion promise? Not to fall into that which you would avoid. Well; do we fulfill4 their promise? Tell me the truth; but if you lie, I will tell you. Lately when your hearers came together rather coldly, and did not give you applause, you went away humbled5. Lately again when you had been praised, you went about and said to all, “What did you think of me?” “Wonderful, master, I swear by all that is dear to me.” “But how did I treat of that particular matter?” “Which?” “The passage in which I described Pan and the nymphs?” “Excellently.” Then do you tell me that in desire and in aversion you are acting6 according to nature? Begone; try to persuade somebody else. Did you not praise a certain person contrary to your opinion? and did you not flatter a certain person who was the son of a senator? Would you wish your own children to be such persons? “I hope not.” Why then did you praise and flatter him? “He is an ingenuous7 youth and listens well to discourses8.” How is this? “He admires me.” You have stated your proof. Then what do you think? do not these very people secretly despise you? When, then, a man who is conscious that he has neither done any good nor ever thinks of it, finds a philosopher who says, “You have a great natural talent, and you have a candid10 and good disposition11,” what else do you think that he says except this, “This man has some need of me?” Or tell me what act that indicates a, great mind has he shown? Observe; he has been in your company a long time; he has listened to your discourses, he has heard you reading; has he become more modest? has he been turned to reflect on himself? has he perceived in what a bad state he is? has he cast away self-conceit? does he look for a person to teach him? “He does.” A man who will teach him to live? No, fool, but how to talk; for it is for this that he admires you also. Listen and hear what he says: “This man writes with perfect art, much better than Dion.” This is altogether another thing. Does he say, “This man is modest, faithful, free from perturbations?” and even if he did say it, I should say to him, “Since this man is faithful, tell me what this faithful man is.” And if he could not tell me, I should add this, “First understand what you say, then speak.”
You, then, who are in a wretched plight12 and gaping13 after applause and counting your auditors14, do you intend to be useful to others? “To-day many more attended my discourse9.” “Yes, many; we suppose five hundred.” “That is nothing; suppose that there were a thousand.” “Dion never had so many hearers.” “How could he?” “And they understand what is said beautifully.” “What is fine, master, can move even a stone.” See, these are the words of a philosopher. This is the disposition of a man who will do good to others; here is a man who has listened to discourses, who has read what is written about Socrates as Socratic, not as the compositions of Lysias and Isocrates. “I have often wondered by what arguments.” Not so, but “by what argument”: this is more exact than that. What, have you read the words at all in a different way from that in which you read little odes? For if you read them as you ought, you would not have been attending to such matters, but you would rather have been looking to these words: “Anytus and Meletus are able to kill me, but they cannot harm me”: and “I am always of such a disposition as to pay regard to nothing of my own except to the reason which on inquiry15 seems to me the best.” Hence who ever heard Socrates say, “I know something and I teach”; but he used to send different people to different teachers. Therefore they used to come to him and ask to be introduced to philosophy by him; and he would take them and recommend them. Not so; but as he accompanied them he would say, “Hear me to-day discoursing16 in the house of Quadratus.” Why should I hear you? Do you wish to show me that you put words together cleverly? You put them together, man; and what good will it do you? “But only praise me.” What do you mean by praising? “Say to me, “Admirable, wonderful.” Well, I say so. But if that is praise whatever it is which philosophers mean by the name of good, what have I to praise in you? If it is good to speak well, teach me, and will praise you. “What then? ought a man to listen to such things without pleasure?” I hope not. For my part I do not listen even to a lute-player without pleasure. Must I then for this reason stand and play the lute? Hear what Socrates says, “Nor would it be seemly for a man of my age, like a young man composing addresses, to appear before you.” “Like a young man,” he says. For in truth this small art is an elegant thing, to select words, and to put them together, and to come forward and gracefully17 to read them or to speak, and while he is reading to say, “There are not many who can do these things, I swear by all that you value.”
Does a philosopher invite people to hear him? As the sun himself draws men to him, or as food does, does not the philosopher also draw to him those who will receive benefit? What physician invites a man to be treated by him? Indeed I now hear that even the physicians in Rome do invite patients, but when I lived there, the physicians were invited. “I invite you to come and hear that things are in a bad way for you, and that you are taking care of everything except that of which you ought to take care, and that you are ignorant of the good and the bad and are unfortunate and unhappy.” A fine kind of invitation: and yet if the words of the philosopher do not produce this effect on you, he is dead, and so is the speaker. Rufus was used to say: “If you have leisure to praise me, I am speaking to no purpose.” Accordingly he used to speak in such a way that every one of us who were sitting there supposed that some one had accused him before Rufus: he so touched on what was doing, he so placed before the eyes every man’s faults.
The philosopher’s school, ye men, is a surgery: you ought not to go out of it with pleasure, but with pain. For you are not in sound health when you enter: one has dislocated his shoulder, another has an abscess, a third a fistula, and a fourth a headache. Then do I sit and utter to you little thoughts and exclamations18 that you may praise me and go away, one with his shoulder in the same condition in which he entered, another with his head still aching, and a third with his fistula or his abscess just as they were? Is it for this then that young men shall quit home, and leave their parents and their friends and kinsmen19 and property, that they may say to you, “Wonderful!” when you are uttering your exclamations. Did Socrates do this, or Zeno, or Cleanthes?
What then? is there not the hortatory style? Who denies it? as there is the style of refutation, and the didactic style. Who, then, ever reckoned a fourth style with these, the style of display? What is the hortatory style? To be able to show both to one person and to many the struggle in which they are engaged, and that they think more about anything than about what they really wish. For they wish the things which lead to happiness, but they look for them in the wrong place. In order that this may be done, a thousand seats must be placed and men must be invited to listen, and you must ascend20 the pulpit in a fine robe or cloak and describe the death of Achilles. Cease, I entreat21 you by the gods, to spoil good words and good acts as much as you can. Nothing can have more power in exhortation22 than when the speaker shows to the hearers that he has need of them. But tell me who when he hears you reading or discoursing is anxious about himself or turns to reflect on himself? or when he has gone out says, “The philosopher hit me well: I must no longer do these things.” But does he not, even if you have a great reputation, say to some person, “He spoke23 finely about Xerxes”; and another says, “No, but about the battle of Thermopylae”? Is this listening to a philosopher?
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athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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lute
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| n.琵琶，鲁特琴 | |
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fulfill
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| vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意 | |
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humbled
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| adj. 卑下的，谦逊的，粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下，贬低 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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discourses
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| 论文( discourse的名词复数 )； 演说； 讲道； 话语 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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auditors
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| n.审计员，稽核员( auditor的名词复数 )；（大学课程的）旁听生 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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discoursing
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| 演说（discourse的现在分词形式） | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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exclamations
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| n.呼喊( exclamation的名词复数 )；感叹；感叹语；感叹词 | |
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kinsmen
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| n.家属，亲属( kinsman的名词复数 ) | |
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ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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entreat
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| v.恳求，恳请 | |
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exhortation
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| n.劝告，规劝 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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