It is because of this kinship with the flesh that those of us who incline toward it become like wolves, faithless and treacherous and hurtful, and others like lions, wild and savage and untamed; but most of us become foxes, that is to say, rascals of the animal kingdom. For what else is a slanderous and malicious man but a fox, or something even more rascally and degraded? Take heed, therefore, and beware that you become not one of these rascally creatures.
διὰ ταύτην τὴν συγγένειαν οἱ μὲν ἀποκλίναντες λύκοις ὅμοιοι γινόμεθα, ἄπιστοι καὶ ἐπίβουλοι καὶ βλαβεροί, οἱ δὲ λέουσιν, ἄγριοι καὶ θηριώδεις καὶ ἀνήμεροι, οἱ πλείους δ ̓ ἡμῶν ἀλώπεκες καὶ ὡς ἐν ζῴοις ἀτυχήματα. τί γάρ ἐστιν ἄλλο λοίδορος καὶ κακοήθης ἄνθρωπος ἢ ἀλώπηξ ἤ τι ἄλλο ἀτυχέστερον καὶ ταπεινότερον; ὁρᾶτε οὖν καὶ προσέχετε, μή τι τούτων ἀποβῆτε τῶν ἀτυχημάτων.
"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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Friday, August 21, 2026
Our Bestial Natures
Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 1.3.7-9 (tr. W.A. Oldfather):