Epicurus offers himself to you, a man far from a bad--or, I should rather say, a very good man: he advises no more than he knows.

"Despise pain," says he.

Who is it saith this?
Is it the same man who calls pain the greatest of all evils?
It is not, indeed, very consistent in him.

Let us hear what he says: "If the pain is excessive, it must needs be short." I must have that over again, for I do not apprehend what you mean exactly by "excessive" or "short." That is excessive than which nothing can be greater; that is short than which nothing is shorter.

I do not regard the greatness of any pain from which, by reason of the shortness of its continuance, I shall be delivered almost before it reaches me.