Phrontisterion: Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_Section § 1.11.1.1

~by David Aiken~

§ 2 “Ench”, 1.11.1.1

TRANSLATION (AIKEN)—You ought never say about anything: “I lost this”; (2) but rather: “I returned this thing.” Has the child died? It is returned. Has the wife died? She has been returned. Have your home and property been taken from you? Well, are these not returned as well? “But,” you might say, (5) “the person who took them away is bad!” And yet what difference does it make to you how you lost these things? Or by which means the Giver [oJ dou\ß] takes these things away? (6) [Your ‘use’ of things extends] only for as long as the Giver bestows—so, engage with every ‘thing’ [e˙pimelou] as though it belongs to someone else, (7) in the way that travelers do their hotel accommodations.

Mhde÷pote e˙pi« mhdeno\ß ei¶phØß o¢ti "aÓpw¿lesa 2 aujto/", aÓll’ o¢ti "aÓpe÷dwka". to\ paidi÷on aÓpe÷qanen; aÓpedo/qh. hJ gunh\ aÓpe÷qanen; aÓpedo/qh. "to\ cwri÷on aÓfhØre÷qhn." oujkouvn kai« touvto aÓpedo/qh. "aÓlla» kako\ß oJ 5 aÓfelo/menoß." ti÷ de« soi« me÷lei, dia» ti÷noß se oJ dou\ß aÓph/øthse; 6 me÷cri d’ a·n didw◊ø, wJß aÓllotri÷ou aujtouv e˙pimelouv, wJß touv 7 pandocei÷ou oi˚ pario/nteß.

In Ms. Carter’s internet version:

Carter 11. Never say of anything, "I have lost it"; but, "I have returned it." Is your child dead? It is returned. Is your wife dead? She is returned. Is your estate taken away? Well, and is not that likewise returned? "But he who took it away is a bad man." What difference is it to you who the giver assigns to take it back? While he gives it to you to possess, take care of it; but don't view it as your own, just as travelers view a hotel.

§ Analysis and Expansion of Text.

Our passage starts out with medepote [Mhde÷pote] in a supremely emphatic position – you ought never, ever, not even one time, say…. This of course suggests that Epictetus takes the idea that follows [e.g., that action that ‘we are never, ever, not even one time’ to do] quite seriously as the only plausible philosophical attitude toward the shifting sands of Life & Action.

The strong parallelism in this passage creates meaning, in general, by the litany of verbs in the aorist tense in lines 1 through 4 [aÓpw¿lesa, aÓpe÷dwka, aÓpe÷qanen, aÓpedo/qh, aÓpe÷qanen, aÓpedo/qh, aÓfhØre÷qhn, aÓpedo/qh, aÓph/øthse], which is finally resolved in line 6 with epimelou [e˙pimelou] which is the only imperative in the text, [epimelou from e˙pimel-έομαι = pres imperat mid-pass 2nd sg [late/attic], and which has the sense of to ‘take care of a thing; give heed, attend’. Epimelou is a present tense, which implies ongoing and repetitive action; it is therefore both grammatically and philosophically significant.

The specific focus of this text is established by the oppositional verbs apolesa [aÓpw¿lesa = to perish, to lose one’s life] and apedoka [aÓpe÷dwka = to return or to render]. So, from the very first sentence of this passage it is important to Epictetus’ philosophical sense that we grasp that here it is not a question of saying a novena (metaphorically) to Saint Anthony or Saint Jude for some lost or misplaced object, such as car keys or glasses, or for some cause that we think is lost. Rather, we are asked to consider the idea that life is essentially an impermanence of presence; and that death is nothing more or less than the loss of a presence that we were allowed to enjoy, if only for a season.

On a lighter note, the verb apolesa, which we have just seen to mean generally ‘to perish or to lose one’s life’, also has the metaphorical sense, when used together with ‘words’ or ‘speaking’, of talking or boring someone to death. Indeed, this death is certainly no less tragic and real than its literal and material counterpart—is there a deadlier death than inundation by words?! Equally interesting is the use of this verb in the sense of ‘to ruin a woman’ (cf. Lysias, On the Murder of Eratosthenes), which is a particularly poignant reminder of the important strides made in women’s rights and roles in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Lysias relates the event, and Falkner (2001) translates our verbal phrase as ‘he corrupted her’ [λόγους προσφέρων (9) ἀπώλεσεν αὐτήν]:

[8] It was at her funeral, which my wife attended, that she was seen by this man and was eventually seduced. You see, by keeping watch for the times when our slave girl went to market and by propositioning her, he corrupted her.

(8) κακῶν ἀποθανοῦσα αἰτία μοι γεγένηται—ἐπ’ ἐκφορὰν γὰρ @1
αὐτῇ ἀκολουθήσασα ἡ ἐμὴ γυνὴ ὑπὸ τούτου τοῦ ἀνθρώπου
ὀφθεῖσα χρόνῳ διαφθείρεται· ἐπιτηρῶν γὰρ τὴν θεράπαιναν
τὴν εἰς τὴν ἀγορὰν βαδίζουσαν καὶ λόγους προσφέρων
(9) ἀπώλεσεν αὐτήν.

So, whether in pre-Christian philosophical sources or in subsequent Christian philosophico-religious thinking, Western civilization has had a long history of putting women to death metaphorically.

Epictetus strongly contrasts apolesa [aÓpw¿lesa = to perish, to lose one’s life], on the one philosophical hand, with apodoka [aÓpe÷dwka = to return or to render what is borrowed] on the other.

This philosophical coupling of apolesa and apedoka, both of which are pronominal verbs freighted from the outset with the derivative sense of apo [=from], provides us with a Greek rendering equivalent to the ancient Hindu notion of artha, with its sense of reciprocity, equivalencies, and exchange, and corresponds as well to the Taoist Yin and Yang—the give and take quality of relationships, which arises from the interactive connections of all things by virtue of their simple Existence.

Apedoka has the common sense most of us are familiar with from the Jesus admonition (Mt. 22:21): Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s. This notion houses the idea of debt and indebtedness –that we are not owners but rather overnighters and renters, and that we will be called to give an account of our use of the items we borrow; we must ‘pay off’ our debts. To use an American idiom: there is no such thing as a free lunch. Additionally, as in English, the Greek apedoka also has the sense of ‘interpreting’, of interposing one word to render meaning, sense, image, for another word, one image to translate another idea or image—hence apedoka is a word rich with the essences and images of exchange and sharing.

There is an impressive, quasi-linear parallelism among the aorists in this passage, and particularly between apolesa and apedoka [aÓpw¿lesa v aÓpe÷dwka]. In its New Testament incarnation, apolesa means ‘to perish’ or ‘to lose one’s life’ in a theological sense (cf. John 3:16), standing in contrast to, for example, those who ‘are being saved’ [οἱ σῳζόμενοι], as in I Corinthian 1:18: For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

2 “Ench”, 1.11.1.1

Line 4. Have your home and property been taken from you? Well, are these not returned as well?

Where Ms. Carter vaguely translates ‘estate’ in line 4, which is ‘taken away’, Phrontisterion’s translation emphasizes the materiality of the possessions that are taken away: home and property. The notion of estate, chorion, [cwri÷on] in this usage is not immaterial, and hence should not yield a metaphorical slippage in translation toward ideas such as ‘job’ or ‘position’, or some sort of social standing or public status that one can lose. One is reminded of more traditional English biblical rhythms where, in the Authorized Version (AKJV), we read about “the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” The NIV renders in more contemporary expression: “And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.”

According to the TLG, chorion normally yields a material concept: town, landed property, estate. In more extended usages, though, in fourth place and beyond, come: place of business, office; space, room, especially in geometry—as in space enclosed by lines, area, figure… rectangle; a passage in a book (Herodotus 2.117); in medical usage: part of the body, and particularly, the gall-bladder.

Line 5. “But,” you might say, (5) “the person who took them away is bad!” And yet what difference does it make to you how you lost these things? Or by which means the Giver [oJ dou\ß] takes these things away? ‘Or by which means the Giver [ho dous = oJ dou\ß] takes these things away?’

Epictetus gives us here a foretaste of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Because by whatever name it is given, e.g., Nature, the Giver, God, how does it make any sense to pass judgment on the World? The World and its systems are infinitely beyond our impoverished, impossible and inappropriate categories of moral judgment—the World itself is beyond Good and Evil. It simply is; and, Epictetus argues, we must learn to negotiate with that reality.

Ms. Carter’s rendering of this line is perfectly secular, and the denotative, i.e., literal, sense of the phrase is in fact intact: “‘But he who took it away is a bad man.’ What difference is it to you who the giver assigns to take it back?” However, her rendering seriously fails to do justice to Epictetus’ philosophico-religious imagination, because it does not take into consideration the clear connotative history of dous [oJ dou\ß], which has the copious sense in Greek literature of the ‘gods granting’. This expression definitely has religious overtones, which seem deliberate on the part of Epictetus, and hence the translation that overlooks the connotative sense in favor of a simple and literalizing denotative sense, is critically flawed. For this reason, Phrontisterion chooses to capitalize ‘Giver’. The connotative religious imagination and sentiment behind Epictetus’ language is amply reinforced in the same line by the dia tinos [dia» ti÷noß]: ‘By means of whose hand’, or ‘by which means’ the Giver uses to take back his due.

Line 6. [Your ‘use’ of things extends] only for as long as the Giver bestows

Epictetus’ Giver does not correspond mythologically to the Christian God. While there is indeed some overlap in the profile of the two Entities, which is inescapable—both are after all great givers and takers, and blessèd be their respective names (as the Good Book might say)—but the Christians took pains to identify their Giver as essentially good, as a fundamentally good and moral Entity, while the Stoic Giver is a neutral, uninterested, and impersonal Conceptualization, like a ‘force’ (e.g., gravity) or like ‘Mother Nature’.

Line 6 bis. [Your ‘use’ of things extends] only for as long as the Giver bestows—so, engage with every ‘thing’ [e˙pimelou] as though it belongs to someone else …

So, Epictetus enumerates some of the variations of our general wrong-headedness, not to mention the poor thinking one tends to favor in the course of a life, especially as that thinking touches upon possessions, viz. this ‘thing’ is my child; my wife, my home & property, my dog, my stuff, my ideas, my, my, my, but he insists that one really ought to avoid such thoughtless non-sensicalities. Using a standard subjunctive, which in this context is an ‘ought’ idea instead of a ‘must’ idea, Epictetus does not give us here a moral or philosophical imperative or command; instead he simply offers a no-brainer ‘ought’ or ‘it would be better if’ quality statement. He says that it should go (really) without saying that we ought to treat Loss of any and all sorts as the normative ‘way of things’ in a world defined by material intransience, because we are all (each and every ‘thing’) here, quite literally, on borrowed time.

At which point we arrive at the one grammatical and philosophical imperative in our text, epimelou (which Phrontisterion translates as ‘to engage’). So, what we have essentially in our text is that there is no real ‘my, my, my [stuff]’—the world does not work like that. This means that that there is the stuff that accumulates around us during our life, and which we get to touch; and to use; and to enjoy; and occasionally to break and to try to fix, or not; and to love and to hate, which includes ‘things’ that are not just stuff like clothes, books, food, glasses, cups and plates, cars, etc., but which also embraces people and ideas and dreams, and… But all of this stuff is just visiting our vital space for a little while before it skips along its merry way to haunt some other vital space for a while.

Line 7. [so, engage…] in the way that travelers do their hotel accommodations.

Finally, there are those among us who get into a hotel/motel room and then feel entitled to trash the place because it is not theirs. It is like, because it is not ours but because we have paid to use it, we then have some kind of right to wreck the joint. This is not in Epictetus’ thinking, at all. Implicit in Stoic thinking is that the ‘users’ of the things of the world should not just shamefully consume their environment to the very last drop, like a better jug wine in the hands of a desperately thirsty enthusiast. Rather, we should be moved by benevolence toward the world that surrounds us and that we have the opportunity to use, and we should ‘use’ our environment gently. Users and renters should not enter their hotel rooms with the intent to trash them just because they can or because they have paid for use—it is not theirs to trash. It is only ‘ours’ to pass on in good condition to other users.

Finally, lines 6-7 present us with a comparative parallelism in the form of hos + hos [wJß + wJß], ‘as though’: 6 me÷cri d’ a·n didw◊ø, wJß aÓllotri÷ou aujtouv e˙pimelouv, wJß touv 7 pandocei÷ou oi˚ pario/nteß: (6) [Your ‘use’ of things extends] only for as long as the Giver bestows—so, engage with every ‘thing’ [e˙pimelou] as though it belongs to someone else, (7) in the way that travelers do their hotel accommodations.

Pandoxeiou [pandocei÷ou] is an inn, motel, or hotel, and by any other name remains as much. It is worthwhile to note for the record that Phrontisterion follows Ms. Carter in translating as ‘travelers’ hoi pariontes [oi˚ pario/nteß], which simply means ‘those who are present’ or, quite literally, ‘by-standers’. Emphatically speaking, therefore, the thinking in Epictetus’ text can be reduced to the subject in line 7, hoi pariontes [oi˚ pario/nteß], and the action of the subject in line 1, medepote …. eipes [Mhde÷pote … ei¶phØß o¢ti]: those who are just passing through [the spaces of the world] ought never to speak of ownership, not even one time.

Epictetus the Stoic can never really say it enough: we are ephemerae, ‘passing phenomena’ in this world, and ownership of things does not belong to us in any way whatsoever. Nietzsche reminds us of this general ancient Greek attitude in his retelling of the legend of old King Midas (Birth of Tragedy §3) who, after hunting long for Silenus, the wise companion of Dionysus, finally finds him and asks him the mother of all philosophical questions:

When Silenus finally fell into the king’s hands, the king asked what was the best thing of all for men, the very finest. The daemon remained silent, motionless and inflexible, until, compelled by the king, he finally broke out into shrill laughter and said these words, “Suffering creature, born for a day, child of accident and toil, why are you forcing me to say what would give you the greatest pleasure not to hear? The very best thing for you is totally unreachable: not to have been born, not to exist, to be nothing. The second-best thing for you, however, is this—to die soon.”

We may certainly use what the World [i.e., the Giver [oJ dou\ß]] offers us. But ‘use’ never equates to possession or ownership. And in fact, in Epictetus’ thinking, although we have no rightful ownership of the World or its things, we do have responsibility to use well what is on offer, which is why we ought to cultivate the right philosophical frame of mind for thinking about the World. So, in this section Epictetus invites us to think about our presence in the world like responsible and kindly renters, rather than like slum-landlords.

Further reading: Phrontisterion’s translation of Epictetus’ Handbook

· Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§ 1.8.1.1, 1.9.1.1 and 1.10.1.1_Bits & Bobs of Fine Advice: Being presumptuous; December 1, 2017

· Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§ 1.7.1.1_SeaFaring Ways; October 1, 2017

· Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.6.1.1. On Receiving Compliments, On Possessions, &On What is Rightfully Yours; July 1, 2017

· Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.5.1.1. ABOUT SH#T THAT HAPPENS; January 1, 2017

· Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.4.1.1. On Activities. BATHING HABITS…., AMONG OTHER THINGS; August 1, 2016

· Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.3.1.1. ON THINGS… AS THINGS. Or, AN OLD ONTOLOGY; July 1, 2016

· Liberty Through Grammar... Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.2.1.1-1.2.2.1; June 1, 2016

· More On the Question of Freedom_Or, How to be the Consummate Control Freak_EpictetusExpanded_§1bis; August 1, 2015