Oration 8

Diogenes of Sinope, having been cast out of his fatherland, in nothing differing from the very meanest of men, came to Athens, and found there still many of the companions of Socrates—Plato, that is, and Aristippus and Aeschines and Antisthenes and Euclides the Megarian; but Xenophon was in exile on account of his campaign with Cyrus. Now the rest he soon despised, but Antisthenes he made his companion—not so much praising the man as the words he spoke, holding them alone to be true and best able to benefit a man.

Since Antisthenes himself, when he compared him to his own words, he sometimes convicted of being much softer, and said, in his rebuke, that the man was a trumpet; for the trumpet does not hear itself sounding, loud though it be. And Antisthenes endured to hear these things from him; for he greatly admired the man's nature.

So in his defense, in return for the trumpet, he said Diogenes was like the wasps; for of the wasps the buzzing of the wings is small, but the sting most pungent. He delighted, then, in the frank speech of Diogenes, just as horsemen, when they get a spirited horse, but otherwise brave and fond of toil, accept the horse's hardness none the less; but the sluggish and slow they hate and reject.

So sometimes he tightened him up, and sometimes tried to slacken him, just as gut-twisters stretch the strings, taking care lest one snap. But when Antisthenes died, and Diogenes thought none of the rest worthy of his company, he moved to Corinth, and there he passed his time neither renting a house nor lodging with any host, but living in the open in the Craneum.

For he saw that very many men came together there, because of the harbors and the courtesans, and that the city lay, as it were, at the crossroads of Greece. The prudent man, then, like the good physician, must go where the most are sick to give aid; and so where the most are foolish, there above all must he sojourn, refuting and chastising their folly.

And when the time of the Isthmian games came, and all were at the Isthmus, he too went down. For he was wont to observe at the festal gatherings the earnest pursuits of men and their desires, and for what they are in distress, and on what they pride themselves.

And he offered himself to whoever wished to meet with him, and said he wondered that, if he had said he could heal teeth, all who needed to have a tooth drawn would have come to him, and, by Zeus, if he had promised to treat eyes, all the sore-eyed would have presented themselves; and likewise, if he claimed to know a drug for the spleen or for gout or for a head-cold;

but since he said he would rid those who obeyed him of ignorance and wickedness and licentiousness, no one heeded him nor bade him heal himself, not even if he were going to gain much money thereby—as though he were less troubled by these things than those men, or as though it were harder for a man to bear a swollen spleen or a decayed tooth than a soul that is foolish and ignorant and cowardly and rash and pleasure-loving and unfree and irascible and querulous and knavish and in every way corrupted.

And indeed at that time, about the temple of Poseidon, one could hear many wretched sophists shouting and reviling one another, and their so-called disciples fighting one with another, and many writers reading out senseless writings, and many poets singing their poems, and others praising these, and many jugglers showing their wonders, and many fortune-tellers interpreting portents, and countless orators twisting lawsuits, and not a few hucksters hawking whatever each chanced to have.

So at once some came to him too—of the Corinthians none, for they thought they would gain no benefit, since they saw him daily in Corinth; but the strangers were those who approached, and each of these, after saying or hearing some little thing, went off, fearing the refutation.

On this account Diogenes said he resembled the Laconian hounds; for these too, when they stand in the festal gatherings, have many who stroke them and play with them, but no one readily buys them, because they do not know how to use them. And when someone asked whether he too had come to behold the contest, "No," he said, "but to take part in it." And the man laughed and asked him whom he had for his antagonists.

And he, glaring as was his wont, said, "The most formidable and most invincible, whom none of the Greeks can face—not, however, runners or wrestlers or jumpers, nor boxers and javelin-throwers and discus-hurlers, but those who chastise men into temperance."

"Who, then?" he asked. "The toils," he said, "very strong and unconquered by men who are gorged and conceited and who eat whole days through and snore in the nights, but defeated by men lean and fleshless, with bellies pinched in more than the wasps'.

Or do you think any of these are of use, who have great paunches?—whom one ought to lead about and purge and cast out, or rather, having slaughtered and cut them up, feast on, just as I think men of sense do with the flesh of sea-monsters, boiling it with salt and sea-water, and melting down the fat, as among us in Pontus the blubber of the dolphins, with which those who need it anoint themselves. For I think they have a soul inferior to the swine's.

But the noble man holds the toils to be his greatest antagonists, and with these he ever loves to fight, both night and day—not for a sprig of parsley, like the goats, nor for wild olive and pine, but for happiness and virtue throughout all his life, not when the Eleans proclaim it, or the Corinthians, or the common council of the Thessalians, fearing none of them nor praying that another be drawn by lot,

but challenging all in turn, and contending against hunger and enduring cold and thirst, and, if need be, bearing up under the scourge and being cut and burned, yielding nothing soft; but poverty and exile and ill repute and such things he holds nothing terrible to himself, but altogether light, and often the perfect man sports among them, as children with their dice and their many-colored balls.

For indeed," he said, "these antagonists seem formidable and irresistible to all base men; but if anyone despise them and approach boldly, it is not hard for cowardly and feeble men to master the strong—men most like dogs, which pursue and bite those who flee, and have torn to pieces some they overtook, but fear and retreat from those who come on and fight, and in the end fawn, when they have grown familiar.

But the many men, dismayed at them and always fleeing, so judge them, never looking them in the face. For indeed, just as those who know how to box, if they get the start of their antagonist, are not struck at the outset, and often have come off having thrown him; but if they retreat in fear, then they take the strongest blows—so if a man receive the toils with contempt and approach them eagerly, they have no great strength against him; but if he stand off and retreat, they seem altogether greater and more violent.

This you may see happening with fire too: if you tread on it firmly, you put the fire out; but if suspiciously and in fear, you are badly burned—just as children sometimes in play put out fire with their tongue. These antagonists, then, are nearly like the all-in fighters, striking and choking and tearing apart and sometimes killing.

But there is another more formidable battle and contest, no small one, but far greater than this and more perilous—that against pleasure, which does not openly use force, but deceives and bewitches with terrible drugs; not such as Homer says: 'Again a bitter battle was joined beside the ships. With keen axes and hatchets they fought,

and with great swords'—not this is the manner of that battle; for pleasure does not openly use force, but deceives and bewitches with terrible drugs, as Homer says that Circe drugged the companions of Odysseus, and then some of them became swine, others wolves, and others some other beasts—such a thing is pleasure, plotting not simply, but in every way, through sight and hearing or smell or taste or touch,

and besides trying to corrupt men with foods and drinks and the things of love, alike awake and alike asleep. For one cannot, as against enemies, set watches and sleep, but then most of all it attacks,

partly withering and enslaving men by sleep itself, partly sending in dreams knavish and treacherous, reminding them of itself. Toil, then, comes for the most part through touch, and approaches by this; but pleasure through every sense that man has; and one must meet and grapple with the toils,

but flee pleasure as far off as possible, and have no dealings with it at all save the necessary. And here the strongest man—and he is nearly the strongest who can most flee the pleasures; for it is not possible for one consorting with pleasure, or even continually making trial of it, not to be utterly taken. Whenever, then, it masters and gets the better of the soul with its drugs, what follows is now the work of Circe:

striking easily with her wand, she drives a man into some sty and shuts him in, and from then on the man continues being a swine or a wolf;

and there come to be also, through pleasure, serpents motley and deadly and other creeping things, and these ever tend her, being at her doors and desiring the pleasure and serving her, but otherwise having countless toils. For pleasure, having mastered and taken them, hands them over to the toils, the most hateful and harsh.

To this contest of mine, then, as I hold out and pit myself against pleasure and toil, none of the wretched men gives heed, but to the slaves who jump and run and dance. For neither did they behold Heracles contending and toiling, nor did they care; but even then perhaps they admired certain athletes, Zetes and Calais and Peleus and other such runners and wrestlers; and some they admired for beauty, others for wealth, like Iasion and Cinyras;

and of Pelops they said that he had an ivory shoulder, as though it were any benefit to a man to have a golden hand or an ivory one, or eyes of adamant or of emerald; but his soul, of what sort it was, they did not recognize. But Heracles, toiling and contending, they pitied, and said he was the most wretched of men; and on this account they called his toils and works 'labors' (athloi), as though the toilsome life were a wretched (athlios) one; but when he was dead they honor him above all and hold him a god and say he dwells with Hebe, and to him all pray—the man who toiled most—that they themselves may not be wretched.

But Eurystheus they think rules over him and gives him orders—Eurystheus, whom they have counted worth nothing, and no one ever prayed or sacrificed to Eurystheus. Yet Heracles went about all Europe and Asia, being in nothing like these athletes—

for how could he have gone forward with so much flesh, or needing so much meat, or sleeping so deep a sleep?—but sleepless and lean, like the lions, keen of sight, keen of hearing, taking thought neither for winter nor for heat, needing no bedding or fine cloaks or carpets, but clad in a filthy hide, breathing hunger, aiding the good, chastising the wicked.

And Diomedes the Thracian, because he had embroidered raiment and sat upon a throne drinking the day through and living in luxury, and wronged strangers and those under him, keeping much cavalry—Heracles, striking him with his club, smashed him like an old wine-jar. And Geryon, having the most cattle and being the wealthiest and most arrogant of all the men of the West, he both slew, himself and his brothers, and drove off the cattle.

And Busiris, finding him very diligently practicing his exercise and eating all day long and priding himself greatly on his wrestling, he tore asunder, dashing him to the ground like sacks very full. And the girdle of the Amazon he loosed, when she gave herself airs to him and thought she would master him by her beauty; but having lain with her he went off, showing that he would never be vanquished by beauty, nor remain for a woman's sake far from his own possessions, ever.

And Prometheus, some sophist, as it seems to me, finding him perishing of vainglory—now, when he was praised, his liver swelling and growing, and again wasting, when they blamed him—pitying him and frightening him, he put a stop to his conceit and his contentiousness; and so he went off having made him whole. These things, then, he did, in no way to gratify Eurystheus.

And the golden apples which he fetched, those of the Hesperides, he took and gave to Eurystheus; for he had no need of them, but bade him weep over them as he held them. For golden apples are of no use to a man; nor were they to the Hesperides. And at the last, when he grew slower and weaker than himself, fearing lest he should be unable to live as before, and then, I think, some disease seizing him, he tended himself most nobly of all men, heaping up a pyre in the courtyard of the driest wood, and showing that he reckoned the fever nothing worth.

But before this, that he might not seem to accomplish only august and great works, he went off to the dung that lay by Augeas—a vast quantity of many years—and carried it out and cleansed the place. For he held that he must no less do battle and war against glory than against the beasts and the malefactors among men.

While Diogenes said these things, many stood around and listened to his words with great pleasure. But then, bethinking himself, I suppose, of Heracles' deed, he let go his words and, sitting down on the ground, did one of the unseemly things. At once, then, the many despised him and said he was mad, and again the sophists raised an uproar, like frogs in a marsh that do not see the water-snake.