Then when the man laughed and asked him who his competitors were, he said with that customary glance of his: "The toughest there are and the hardest to beat, men whom no Greek can look straight in the eye; not competitors, however, who sprint, or wrestle or jump, not those that box, throw the spear, and hurl the discus, but those that chasten a man."
"Who are they, pray?" asked the other.
"Hardships," he replied, "very severe and insuperable for gluttonous and folly-stricken men who feast the livelong day and snore at night, but which yield to thin, spare men, whose waists are more pinched in than those of wasps.
"Or do you think those potbellies are good for anything?—creatures whom sensible people ought to lead around, subject to the ceremony of purification, and then thrust beyond the borders, or, rather, kill, quarter, and use as food just as people do with the flesh of large fish, don't you know, boiling it in brine and melting out the fat, the way our people at home in Pontus do with the lard of pigs when they want to anoint themselves. For I think these men have less soul than hogs.
"But the noble man holds his hardships to be his greatest antagonists, and with them he is ever wont to battle day and night, not to win a sprig of parsley as so many goats might do, nor for a bit of wild olive, or of pine, but to win happiness and virtue throughout all the days of his life, and not merely when the Eleans make proclamation, or the Corinthians, or the Thessalian assembly.
"He is afraid of none of those opponents nor does he pray to draw another antagonist, but challenges them one after another, grappling with hunger and cold, withstanding thirst, and disclosing no weakness even though he must endure the lash or give his body to be cut or burned. Hunger, exile, loss of reputation, and the like have no terrors for him; nay, he holds them as mere trifles, and while in their very grip the perfect man is often as sportive as boys with their dice and their colored balls.
"Of course," he continued, "these antagonists do seem terrible and invincible to all cravens; but if you treat them with contempt and meet them boldly, you will find them cowardly and unable to master strong men, in this greatly resembling dogs, which pursue and bite people who run away from them, while some they seize and tear to pieces, but fear and slink away from men who face them and show fight, and in the end wag their tails when they come to know them.
Most people, however, are in mortal terror of these antagonists, always avoiding them by flight and never looking them in the face. And indeed, just as skilful boxers, if they anticipate their opponents, are not hit at all, but often actually end by winning the bout themselves, but if, on the contrary, they give ground through fear, they receive the heaviest blow; in the same way, if we accept our hardships in a spirit of contempt for them and approach them cheerfully, they avail very little against us; but if we hang back and give way, they appear altogether greater and more severe.
"You can see that the same thing applies to fire also: if you attack it most vigorously, you put it out; but if with caution and fear, you get badly burned, just as children do when in sport they sometimes try to put out a fire with their tongues. The adversaries of this class are a good deal like the pancratiasts, who strike, choke, rend, and occasionally kill.
"But there is another battle more terrible and a struggle not slight but much greater than this and fraught with greater danger, I mean the fight against pleasure. Nor is it like that battle which Homer speaks of when he says,
Fiercely then around the ships
The struggle was renewed.
With halberds and with trenchant battle axe
They fought, with mighty sword and two-edged spear.
"No, it is no such battle, for pleasure uses no open force but deceives and casts a spell with baneful drugs, just as Homer says Circe drugged the comrades of Odysseus, and some forthwith became swine, some wolves, and some other kinds of beasts.
"Yes, such is this thing pleasure, that hatches no single plot but all kinds of plots, and aims to undo men through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, with food too, and drink and carnal lust, tempting the waking and the sleeping alike. For it is not possible to set guards and then lie down to sleep as in ordinary warfare, since it is just then of all times that she makes her attack, at one time weakening and enslaving the soul by means of sleep itself, at another, sending mischievous and insidious dreams that suggest her.
"Now work is carried on by means of touch for the most part and proceeds in that way, but pleasure assails a man through each and every sense that he has; and while he must face and grapple with work, to pleasure he must give the widest berth possible and have none but unavoidable dealings with her.
"And herein the strongest man is indeed strongest, one might almost say, who can keep the farthest away from pleasures; for it is impossible to dwell with pleasure or even to dally with her for any length of time without being completely enslaved. Hence when she gets the mastery and overpowers the soul by her charms, the rest of Circe's sorcery at once follows. With a stroke of her wand pleasure coolly drives her victim into a sort of sty and pens him up, and now from that time forth the man goes on living as a pig or a wolf.
"Pleasure also brings diverse and deadly vipers into being, and other crawling things that attend constantly upon her as they lie about her doors, and though yearning for pleasure and serving her, they yet suffer a thousand hardships all in vain. For pleasure, after overpowering and taking possession of her victims, delivers them over to hardships, the most hateful and most difficult to endure."
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