Shakespeare the Epicurean

Epicurus’s teachings

In 306 bce, Epicurus established his school at Athens in his garden, from which it came to be known as The Garden.
The Doctrine of Epicurus...

Don't worry, be happy



Philosophy was, for Epicurus, the art of living, and it aimed at the same time both to assure happiness and to supply means to achieve it.


Epicurus concluded that “freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind” is the ultimate aim of a happy life. The damages and the advantages following the realization of any desire must be measured in a calculus in which even pain must be faced with courage if the consequent pleasure will be of longer duration.


Having thus given order to his life, however, the wise person must also provide himself with security. This he achieves in two ways—by reducing his needs to a minimum and withdrawing, far from human competition and from the noise of the world, to “live hidden”; and by adding the private compact of friendship to the public compact from which laws arise. To be sure, friendship stems from utility; but, once born, it is desirable in itself. Epicurus then added that “for love of friendship one has even to put in jeopardy love itself”; for every existence, being alone, needs the other. “To eat and drink without a friend,” he wrote, “is to devour like the lion and the wolf.” Thus, the utility sublimates itself and changes into love. But as every love is intrepid, the wise person, “if his friend is put to torture, suffers as if he himself were there” and, if necessary, “will die for his friend.” Thus, into the bloody world of his time, Epicurus could launch the cry: “Friendship runs dancing through the world bringing to us all the summons to wake and sing its praises.”




Fear of death and fear of gods

Death “is nothing to us, so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist.” But death is feared not only for what may be waiting in the beyond but also for itself. “I am not afraid of being dead,” said the comic Epicharmus of Cos; “I just do not want to die.” The very idea of not existing instills a fear that Epicurus considered to be the cause of all the passions that pain the soul and disorder human lives. Against it Epicurus argued that if pleasure is perfect within each instant and “infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures by reason the limits of pleasure,” then all desire of immortality is vain. Thus, Epicurus’s most distinguished pupil, Metrodorus of Lampsacus, could exclaim, “bebiōtai” (“I have lived”), and this would be quite enough. He who has conquered the fear of death can also despise pain, which “if it is long lasting is light, and if it is intense is short” and brings death nearer. The wise person has only to replace the image of pain present in the flesh with that of blessings enjoyed, and he can be happy even “inside the bull of Phalaris.” The most beautiful example was set by Epicurus at the moment of his death:

A happy day is this on which I write to you. …The pains which I feel…could not be greater. But all of this is opposed by the happiness which the soul experiences, remembering our conversations of a bygone time.

The ultimate concentration of all his wisdom is the Tetrapharmacon, preserved by Philodemus: “The gods are not to be feared. Death is not a thing that one must fear. Good is easy to obtain. Evil is easy to tolerate.”