Thursday, November 21, 2024
The Means of Living Easily
Diogenes Laertius, 6.2.44 (on Diogenes the Cynic; tr. R.D. Hicks):
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He would often insist loudly that the gods had given to men the means of living easily, but this had been put out of sight, because we require honeyed cakes, unguents and the like. Hence to a man whose shoes were being put on by his servant, he said, "You have not attained to full felicity, unless he wipes your nose as well; and that will come, when you have lost the use of your hands."This is fragment 322 of Diogenes the Cynic in Gabriele Giannantoni, ed., Socraticorum Reliquiae, Vol. II (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1983), p. 537.
ἐβόα πολλάκις λέγων τὸν τῶν ἀνθρώπων βίον ῥᾴδιον ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν δεδόσθαι, ἀποκεκρύφθαι δ' αὐτὸν ζητούντων μελίπηκτα καὶ μύρα καὶ τὰ παραπλήσια. ὅθεν πρὸς τὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ οἰκέτου ὑποδούμενον, "οὔπω," εἶπε, "μακάριος εἶ, ἂν μή σε καὶ ἀπομύξῃ· τοῦτο δ' ἔσται πηρωθέντι σοι τὰς χεῖρας."
