Monday, October 10, 2022

 

To the Wealthy

Pseudo-Crates, Epistles 7 (tr. Ronald F. Hock):
Go hang yourselves, for although you have lupines, dried figs, water, and Megarian tunics, you engage in trade and cultivate much land, you are guilty of treachery, you exercise tyranny and commit murder, and you perpetrate whatever other such things there are—despite the fact that one should live quietly. But as for us, we observe complete peace since we have been freed from every evil by Diogenes of Sinope, and although we possess nothing, we have everything, but you, though you have everything, really have nothing because of your rivalry, jealousy, fear, and conceit.

ἀπάγξασθε, ὅτι θέρμους καὶ ἰσχάδας καὶ ὕδωρ ἔχοντες καὶ ἐξωμίδας Μεγαρικὰς πλεῖτε καὶ πολλὰ γεωργεῖτε, καὶ προδίδοτε καὶ τυραννεῖτε καὶ φονεύετε καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τοιαῦτα ἐστι ποιεῖτε, δέον ἠρεμεῖν. ἡμεῖς δὲ εἱρήνην ἄγομεν τὴν πᾶσαν, παντὸς κακοῦ ἐλεύθεροι γεγόμενοι, ὑπὸ Σινωπέως Διογένους, καὶ ἔχοντες μηδὲν πάντ' ἔχομεν, ὑμεῖς δὲ πάντ' ἔχοντες οὐδὲν ἔχετε διὰ φιλονεικίαν καὶ φθόνον καὶ φόβον καὶ κενοδοξίαν.



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