On the Moral Philosophy of Epicurus, Observation 11

On page 79.

And they attribute qualities to them that do not truly belong to them.
In many ways, therefore, we see women who are crooked and ugly
Be the objects of delight and thrive in the highest honor.
A dark girl is "honey-toned" original: μέλιχρος; one who is filthy and stinking is "unadorned" original: ἀκόσμος;
One with grey eyes is "a little Pallas" original: παλλάδιον; one who is sinewy and wooden is a "gazelle" original: δορκὰς;
A tiny one, a midget, is "one of the Graces" original: χαρίτων μία, all pure wit;
A large and monstrous one is "stunning" original: κατάπληξις and full of dignity;
She who stammers and cannot speak "lisps" original: τραυλίζει; the mute one is "modest";
But the fiery, hateful, talkative one becomes a "little torch" original: λαμπάδιον;
She becomes a "lean darling" original: ἰσχνὸν ἐρωμένον when she can hardly live
Because of her thinness; but she is "slender" original: ῥαδινὴ even when dying of a cough;
But a well-endowed and bosomy one is "Ceres herself from Iacchus";
The snub-nosed one is "Silenus-like" original: σιλινὴ and a satyr; the thick-lipped one is a "kiss" original: φίλημα,
It would be a long effort if I tried to speak of other things of this kind.

Yet even if she has the greatest beauty of face,
And the power of Venus arises from all her limbs:
Surely there are others as well; surely we lived without her before;
Surely she does the same things, and we know she does all that the ugly woman does:
And the wretched woman perfumes herself with foul odors,
While her maid flees far away and laughs in secret, etc.

Regarding the latter part, which is also found in Suidas and seems to be added because of the myths about Love The Roman personification of Love or Cupid which even some philosophers enjoyed, as is clear from Plato alone: it is enough to note that this was not omitted by Lucretius either. Indeed, after he premised this:

Nor do the divine Powers ever prevent the creative seed from anyone,
So that he may never be called "Father" by sweet children,
And that he may spend his life in sterile love, etc.

Then he adds:

Nor is it by divine power at times, or by the arrows of Venus,
That a little woman of inferior beauty comes to be loved.
For a woman sometimes brings it about by her own actions,
And by her compliant ways, and by the refined grooming of her body,
That you easily grow accustomed to spending your life with her:
For the rest, habit creates love, etc.

In this sense, that saying of Phocylides occurs among others:

original Greek: Μὴ δέ' ἐς ἔρωτα γυναικὸς ἅπας ῥύσῃς ἀκάτεκτον οὐ γὰρ ἔρως θεὸς ἐστὶ, πάθος δ' αἰδ' υλον ἁπάντων.
Do not give yourself over entirely to the unbridled love of a woman:
For Love is not a God; it is a quiet affection in everyone.

Various Maxims concerning the Wise Man.

original Greek: μηδὲν περίεργον περὶ τὴν ταφὴν, μηδὲ περὶ τὸ μνημεῖον ποιήσας: Let them bury us wherever in the gardens it seems most convenient; and meanwhile, let them do nothing too expensive, whether it pertains to the burial or to the monument: and then let the other things done in his memory be equal to these. Therefore, he seems to have intended nothing else by a maxim of this sort than that the Wise Man, if by chance he foresees that he will lack burial either entirely or in a fitting manner, should consider that as nothing. It is as if the matter will then not concern him at all, since he will be lacking all sensation. This was even shown by the common story of Diogenes: when people feared that his corpse would be torn by wild beasts or birds, he ordered a staff to be placed by him so he could drive them away. And see how excellently Lucretius takes this up:
Book 3.

For if in death it is an evil to be mangled by the jaws and bite of wild beasts;
I do not see how it is not also bitter
To be placed upon hot fires and roast in the flames,
Or to be placed in honey and suffocated; or to grow stiff
With cold, when one lies on the top surface of a chilly stone,
Or to be crushed from above by the weight of the earth.

I pass over what Seneca said even more brilliantly: As in Epistle 92. Just as we neglect the hairs trimmed from a beard, he says, so that divine soul, about to depart from the man, judges that it no more concerns itself where its receptacle is placed. Whether fire burns it, or wild beasts tear it, or the earth covers it, it is no more relevant than the afterbirth is to a newborn infant. Whether birds tear the discarded body, or it is consumed as

—— Prey given to the dogs of the sea,

what is that to him? I also pass over how he immediately after commends that line of Maecenas:

I do not care about a tomb; nature buries those who are left behind;

as if nature provides so that no one finally lies unburied, since the very day covers him whom cruelty has cast out. This was also expressed by the poet’s kinsman in these verses:
Lucan, Book 7.

You achieve nothing with this anger: whether decay dissolves the corpses,
Or the funeral pyre, it does not matter: Nature receives
All things into her peaceful lap.

---

He will not be anxiously worried about his own burial.

Verse 15. original Greek: οὐδὲ ταφῆς φροντιεῖν.

I add to the interpretation the word anxiously; so that we may understand that Epicurus did not mean that every care for burial should be entirely cast aside. For Plutarch suggests that he otherwise thought some care could be had, while writing on that phrase "live in secret" original: λάθε βιώσας (which was either his own or his brother Neocles's, as Suidas reckons). You then, he says, O Epicurus, do not write to your friends, nor write books showing off your wisdom, original Greek: μηδὲ διατάσσου περὶ ταφῆς nor prescribe anything about your burial. And indeed, he is not read to have prescribed anything about his own burial in his will; but he could suppose that the matter would be dear to his friends, and especially to the executors of the will. Then he could have commanded by word the same thing that Theophrastus did in writing: "and bury us wherever it seems most fitting in the garden."
Laertius, Book 5.

He will not apply himself to speaking rhetorically with affected flowers of speech.

Verse 16. original Greek: οὐδὲ ῥητορεύσειν καλῶς.

Because I interpret the word finely original: καλῶς as referring to affected flowers of speech, it follows especially that Epicurus did not disapprove if one speaks decently and appropriately to express each thing clearly. Indeed, he placed the beauty of speech in clarity original Greek: ἐν τῇ σαφηνείᾳ. He was otherwise endowed with a certain natural eloquence, not sought by art or affected original Greek: φύσις γάρ ἐστιν ἡ κατορθοῦσα λόγος; translation: for nature is that which makes speech successful, as we deduced in the eighth book of the Apology. And therefore, he could only condemn it if someone, having professed wisdom, is more studious of elegance than of things, and seeks glory from those words,

—— Which can prettily touch
The ears, and which are painted with a charming sound.