Menoeceus 135

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Translation

So practice these and similar teachings daily and nightly. Study them on your own or in the company of a like-minded friend, and you shall not be disturbed while awake or asleep. You shall live like a god among men, because one whose life is fortified by immortal blessings in no way resembles a mortal being.

Analysis

Epicurus closes this Letter to Menoeceus with a strong, poetic exhortation, a sort of "Epicurean Beatitude", structured in his familiar coupled phrases: one ought to go over these and other precepts of Epicureanism incessantly, both alone and in the company of like-minded friends, night and day. That way, one's soul will never be disturbed, neither while awake, nor while dreaming.

Finally, Epicurus advocates the only "immortality" his philosophy allows for: the person who lives in this enlightened manner is no mere mortal, but lives among "immortal" (practically speaking, life-long) goods, the essence of which is ataraxia.

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