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PREFACE.

work, that this process of “underrunning” original: “underrunning”; a maritime term for hauling a cable up to inspect or repair it. Here, the editor means the process of revising an older translation. was practicable at all. With the loose, dashing, and sharp-tongued school of translators who preceded her in that century, such as L’Estrange and Collier Sir Roger L’Estrange (1616–1704) and Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) were famous for their lively but often inaccurate translations of classical texts., such an attempt would have been absurd. They are very lively reading—indeed, an excellent study for coarse, conversational English—but they lack a foundation of accuracy. Yet the style of Epictetus has a concise and even delicate precision which perhaps no language but Greek could fully attain; to do justice to this without losing clarity for the general reader requires all of Elizabeth Carter’s faithfulness, combined with a level of literary effort that she did not always apply. She apologizes, in her letters, for “the awkwardness, in many places, of a version that is quite strictly literal.” If she erred on the side of being too literal, perhaps I have erred by allowing myself a vocabulary that is not more wordy than hers, but more flexible and varied. But after all, unless a new English version is to be made accessible to the public, there seems to be no use in making it at all.

Epictetus limits himself strictly to providing a code of practical ethics. While he does not ignore metaphysics the branch of philosophy dealing with the fundamental nature of reality in their proper place, he directs his focus elsewhere. His essential principles are very simple. He holds that all things receive their character from our judgment concerning them; all objects and all events are merely appearances or phenomena, to be interpreted according to the laws that nature gives us. An obvious classification immediately occurs: all things are either controllable by the will, or uncontrollable. If...