LXXI. (200) “And to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy Groaning.”{101}{#ge 3:16.} The affection which is called pain is a suffering peculiar to woman, who is a symbol of the outward sense. For to suffer pain belongs to the same subject to which to experience pleasure does also belong. But we experience pleasure through the medium of our outward senses, as of necessity we also suffer pain through the same medium. But the virtuous and purified mind suffers pain in the least degree; for the outward senses have the least degree of power over him. But passion is exceedingly powerful in the case of the foolish man, inasmuch as he has no antidote in his soul by which he can ward off the evils which proceed from the outward senses and from those objects which can only be perceived by them. (201) For as an athlete and a slave are beaten in two different manners, the one in an abject manner, giving himself up to the ill-treatment, and yielding to it submissively; but the athlete opposing, and resisting, and parrying the blows which are aimed at him. And as you shave a man in one way, and a pillow in another; for the one is seen only in its suffering the shaving, but the man does himself do something likewise, and as one may say, aids the infliction, placing himself in a posture to be shaved; (202) so the irrational man, like a slave, submits himself to another, and surrenders himself to the endurance of pains as to intolerable mistresses, being unable to look them in the face, and wholly incapable of conceiving any masculine or free thoughts. On which account a countless number of painful things are endured by him through the medium of the outward senses. But the man of experience, valiantly resisting like a brave athlete with strength and vigour, opposes himself resolutely to all painful things, so as not to be wounded by them; but so as to keep all their blows at a distance. And it seems to me that he might with great spirit utter the verses of the tragedian against pain in this manner:–
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