Epictetus’ Exhortation — Bring Yourself Back To The Work!

the better self you yearn to be isn’t going to just produce itself. . .

Earlier today, during my weekly meeting with a friend and colleague, he asked me about a passage in Epictetus that I’d referenced in some notes from years back. “What’s the ‘lovely statue’ in Epictetus’ Discourses that you mention? I’m not familiar with that metaphor. And you don’t give a book and chapter for it, just a page number…”

“That’s got to be from my Loeb edition,” I responded. “Hang on a second. Those are upstairs. I’ll take you up there” — meaning I’d bring along my laptop where I was skyping with him in one hand, and my coffee cup in the other — “and we’ll figure it out. Because that sounds kinda interesting, but I myself don’t have any idea what it’s about!”

Cracking open the first volume, there it was on pages 359 and 360 — or rather book 2, right at the end of chapter 19, which is titled “To those who take up the teachings of philosophers, only to talk about them”. The passage in question didn’t have anything about a statue, lovely or otherwise. I’d clearly come up with that catchy phrase when I was going through the Discourses, compiling the notes for a presentation I was providing later that year on Epictetus and prohairesis.