Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Pindar's Caeneus underwent his trial by being made, implausibly, unbreakable by iron and impervious in body, and then, unwounded, sank down beneath the earth, "splitting the ground with upright foot." But the Stoic Lapith, forged as it were out of adamantine matter by their own doctrine of impassivity, is not in fact unwoundable, nor immune to disease, nor without pain; rather he remains fearless and free from grief and unconquered and unconstrained, even while being wounded, feeling pain, being racked—amid the razing of his homeland, amid such sufferings.
So while Pindar's Caeneus, when struck, is not wounded, the Stoic sage, when shut up, is not hindered, and when thrown down a precipice is not compelled, and when racked on the wheel is not tortured, and when maimed is not harmed, and when he falls in wrestling he remains unconquered, and when walled in under siege he is unbesieged, and when sold he is unconquerable by his enemies—no different from those ships inscribed "Fair Voyage" or "Providence the Savior" or "Good Care," which nevertheless are caught in storms and wrecked and capsized. ("The Stoics say more absurd things than the poets.")
Euripides' Iolaus, from being feeble and past his prime, by some prayer suddenly became young and strong for battle; but the Stoic sage, who yesterday was the most shameful and the most wicked of men, today has suddenly changed and become, out of one
wrinkled and pallid and, in Aeschylus's words, out of a wretched old man racked with pain in the loins and limbs, a comely, godlike, beautifully formed being—just as Odysseus's wrinkles and baldness and unsightliness were stripped away by Athena so that he might appear handsome. But the sage of these philosophers, though old age has not left his body but has rather added to it and heaped further burdens upon it—remaining, as it may happen, bent, toothless, one-eyed—is nevertheless neither shameful nor ill-formed
nor ugly of face. For the Stoic form of love, just as dung-beetles are said to shun perfume and pursue foul odors, so, consorting with the ugliest and most misshapen, turns away from them precisely when they change into beauty and comeliness through wisdom. The man who was, among the Stoics, the most wicked, if it should so happen, in the morning, becomes by evening the best: and though he lay down struck senseless and ignorant and unjust and undisciplined and
yes, by Zeus, a slave and poor and destitute, he rises the very same day having become a king and rich and blessed, both temperate and just and steadfast and free of false opinion: not by growing a beard, nor youthful vigor in a body young and tender, but in a soul weak and tender and unmanly and unsteady having acquired perfect understanding, the height of prudence, a godlike disposition, knowledge free of false opinion, and
an unshakable condition—with wickedness having yielded nothing to him beforehand, but suddenly, I might almost say, becoming some hero or spirit or god out of the worst of beasts. For it is possible to say that one who receives virtue from the Stoa may pray for whatever he wishes, and everything shall come to him: it brings wealth, it holds kingship, it grants good fortune, it makes men blessed in fortune and self-sufficient and wanting nothing—though not possessing so much as a single drachma from home—
for the mythic account of the poet, keeping to what is reasonable, nowhere leaves Heracles in want of necessities, but as if from a spring it flows to him and to those with him; whereas the man who has received the Stoic Amaltheia has become rich, yet he begs his food from others: and he is a king, yet works out syllogisms for hire, and he alone possesses everything, yet pays rent
and buys his barley meal, often borrowing or begging from those who have nothing themselves. And whereas the king of the Ithacans begs in order to conceal who he is, wishing and contriving to make himself as much as possible "like a wretched beggar," the man from the Stoa, shouting loudly and crying out, "I alone am king, I alone am rich," is often seen at other men's doors saying, give
me a cloak, Hipponax, for I am terribly cold and my teeth are chattering.