diogenes_of_sinope:julian_oration_6
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==== To the Uneducated Cynics ==== | ==== To the Uneducated Cynics ==== | ||
- | Behold the rivers are flowing backwards, as the proverb says! Here is a Cynic who says that **Diogenes** was conceited, and who refuses to take cold baths for fear they may injure him, though he has a very strong constitution and is lusty and in the prime of life, and this too though the Sun-god is now nearing the summer solstice. Moreover he even ridicules the eating of octopus and says that **Diogenes** paid a sufficient penalty for his folly and vanity in that he perished of this diet as though by a draught of hemlock. So far indeed is he advanced in wisdom that he knows for certain that death is an evil. Yet this even the wise Socrates thought he did not know, yes and after him **Diogenes** as well. At any rate when Antisthenes was suffering from a long and incurable illness **Diogenes** handed him a dagger with these words, "In case you need the aid of a friend." | + | < |
Come now, let me set down for the benefit of the public what I learned from my teachers about the Cynics, so that all who are entering on this mode of life may consider it. And if they are convinced by what I say, those who are now aiming to be Cynics will, I am sure, be none the worse for it; and if they are unconvinced but cherish aims that are brilliant and noble, and set themselves above my argument not in words only but in deeds, then my discourse will at any rate put no hindrance in their way. But if there are others already enslaved by greed or self-indulgence, | Come now, let me set down for the benefit of the public what I learned from my teachers about the Cynics, so that all who are entering on this mode of life may consider it. And if they are convinced by what I say, those who are now aiming to be Cynics will, I am sure, be none the worse for it; and if they are unconvinced but cherish aims that are brilliant and noble, and set themselves above my argument not in words only but in deeds, then my discourse will at any rate put no hindrance in their way. But if there are others already enslaved by greed or self-indulgence, | ||
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And if **Diogenes** did sometimes visit a courtesan though even this happened only once perhaps or not even once let him who would be a Cynic first satisfy us that he is, like **Diogenes**, | And if **Diogenes** did sometimes visit a courtesan though even this happened only once perhaps or not even once let him who would be a Cynic first satisfy us that he is, like **Diogenes**, | ||
- | In our own day, however, the imitators of **Diogenes** have chosen only what is easiest and least burdensome and have failed to see his nobler side. And as for you, in your desire to be more dignified than those early Cynics you have strayed so far from **Diogenes**' | + | In our own day, however, the imitators of **Diogenes** have chosen only what is easiest and least burdensome and have failed to see his nobler side. And as for you, in your desire to be more dignified than those early Cynics you have strayed so far from **Diogenes**' |
- | However, if my discourse has improved you at all you will have gained more than I. But even if I accomplish nothing at the moment by writing on such a great subject thus hastily, and, as the saying is, without taking breath | + | However, if my discourse has improved you at all you will have gained more than I. But even if I accomplish nothing at the moment by writing on such a great subject thus hastily, and, as the saying is, without taking breath for I gave to it only the leisure of two days, as the Muses or rather you yourself will bear me witness then do you abide by your former opinions, but I at any rate shall never regret having spoken of that great man with due reverence. |
- | //The Loeb Classical Library, Edited by T. E. Page, Litt.D. and W. H. D. Rouse, Litt.D. __The Works of the Emporer Julian, Volume II__ with an English Translation by Winmer Cave Wright, Ph. D.// | + | //The Loeb Classical Library, Edited by T. E. Page, Litt.D. and W. H. D. Rouse, Litt.D. __The Works of the Emporer Julian, Volume II__ with an English Translation by Winmer Cave Wright, Ph. D.//</ |
diogenes_of_sinope/julian_oration_6.txt · Last modified: 2014/01/14 23:19 by 127.0.0.1