XXIII. (102) And the expression, “Sitting in the path,” suggests some such meaning as this, as I persuade myself: a path is a road calculated for riding horses and driving carriages on, well beaten by men and beasts. (103) This road they say is very like pleasures, for almost from their earliest birth to extreme old age men proceed and walk along it, and with great indolence and easiness of temper spend all their lives in it, and not men only, but every species of animal whatever; for there is no single thing which is not attracted by the allurements of pleasure, and which is not, at times, entangled in its multifarious nets, and from which it is very difficult to escape. (104) But the paths of prudence, and temperance, and the other virtues, even though they may not be utterly untravelled, are, at all events, not beaten much; for the number of those who proceed by those roads, and who philosophise in a genuine spirit, and who form associations with virtue alone, disregarding, once for all, all other allurements, is very small. (105) Therefore he sits constantly in the road, and not once only, who has an eagerness for, and a care for, patient endurances, in order to watch from his ambush and attack pleasure, to which men in general are accustomed, that fountain of everlasting evils, and so to keep it off, and to eradicate it from the whole district of the soul. (106) Then, as Moses says, proceeding to the natural consequence of his position, he will of necessity bite the heel of the horse; for it is the especial attribute of patient endurance and temperance to shake and overturn the foundations of vice, which lifts its head on high, and of exerted, and quicklymoved, and unmanageable passion.
Page 123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233
