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."
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."
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Thursday, November 21, 2024
The Means of Living Easily
Diogenes Laertius, 6.2.44 (on Diogenes the Cynic; tr. R.D. Hicks):