Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome back to the On Duties podcast. We are reading through all of Cicero's work On Duties with the scholars of the Ciceronean Society. We are here in a new format for episode 18, just a one off. We are all present today at the Ciceronean Society's annual conference. It's March of 2026. We're in Omaha, Nebraska. We are very grateful to our hosts here in Omaha, the Institute, the Menard Institute for Economic Inquiry at Creighton University.
We're grateful for the use of their facilities here today. I'm Chris Anadiel, podcast editor for the Society, and joining me today are some prior co hosts and we've got, from left to right, Ben Peterson of Abilene Christian University, Catherine Bradshaw of the Ancient Language Institute, James Patterson of the University of Tennessee, and Ethan Alexander Davy of Campbell University.
We have come as far as Book 1, Chapter 107 in Cicero's On Duties, and we'll pick up at that point discussing further seemliness with attention to the qualities of personal seemliness. So, Ben, let me ask you to read chapters 107 and 108, and Katherine, you'll take the first comment. All right, let's go.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Furthermore, one must understand that we have been dressed, as it were, by nature for two roles. One is common, arising from the fact that we all have a share in reason and in the superiority by which we surpass the brute creatures.
Everything honorable and seemly is derived from this, and from it we discover a method of finding out our duty. The other, however, is that assigned specifically to individuals. For just as there are enormous bodily differences, for some, as we see, their strength is the speed that they can run, for others, the might with which they wrestle. Again, some have figures that are dignified, others that are graceful. Similarly, there are still greater differences in men's spirits.
Lucius Crassus and Lucius Philippus had plenty of wit. Gaius Caesar, the son of Lucius still more, though it was more studied. But in the same period, Marcus Scaurus and the youthful Marcus Drusus were showing exceptional seriousness.
Galus, Gaius Lalis, was extremely jolly. His intimate friend Scipio had greater ambition in a more earnest style of life. Of the Greeks, we are told that a pleasant and humorous and genial conversationalist who put up a pretense whenever he spoke was Socrates. The Greeks called him an iron. On the other hand, Pythagoras and Pericles acquired great authoritativeness without any jolly. We hear that Hannibal the Carthaginian was crafty, as was of our leaders, Quintus Maximus, who found it Easy to conceal or to keep silent, to dissemble, to set traps and to anticipate the enemy's plans. The Greeks placed Themistocles and Jason of Pharae before all others in this class. And Solon did something outstandingly cunning and crafty. For in order both to make his own life safer and the more to assist the Republic, he pretended that he was mad.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Thank you, Matt. Catherine, why don't you start us out?
[00:03:26] Speaker C: I love this section.
Just because there's this sense in which Cicero, we keep coming back to how practical he is. And so this is an example of where Cicero is saying it's going to look different. Seemliness is adjusting how you behave to not just your circumstances, but also your character.
And so knowing your own. It gets back to the Delphic oracle, know thyself.
If we know ourselves, then we can be what we should be. That suits our own natures, whether we're Socrates and we're being ironic, that's eiron, that Greek word that he's using. Or we can be much more subdued and serious, like Scipio.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Great.
[00:04:20] Speaker D: Well, you know, I'm not, I'm not blowing minds here when I point out that he mentions no names and the first kind of seemliness that's shared across normal, ordinary people.
But what that points to is that there's something contingent about seemliness. There's not a way to philosophize or abstract on that basis because of individual peculiarities.
And so you could tell he's got a story for each one of these.
He knows more than he's even letting on.
And so you have to hope that at least some of these individuals were able to get a copy of this, you know, And, and, and so this is, this, this is, you know, the way that the Roman practicality resurfaces in the text in a way that you don't always find in the, the headier Greek variety.
[00:05:25] Speaker E: I would go back to Catherine's mention of the oracle. Adelphi, Gnodi, sauton, know thyself or know yourself. And that's, that's the kind of thing that Cicero is talking about here. So first of all, there is this common nature that we all share, which also imposes limits on all of us. Right. So that would be very different from the, the modern just be yourself.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:49] Speaker E: So you could, you could just be yourself and that you could be a brute creature if you like. Right.
That would be the modern way of thinking about things. But that is excluded here. If you are a human being and you possess reason There are certain parameters or some limits that are imposed on you, but within those limits that apply to all reasoning creatures, there's a lot of variety of character that is possible. And you have to know what you're. You have to know your own character to know what these specific parameters of seemingness are for you.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: That's great, right? It's very good. I would only add that I think that it's interesting to me that the. The quality of one's character is. Is like an objective fact about you, like your height, like your ability to run fast. And part of knowing yourself is. Is to know just what qualities of character you have which would dictate what is seemly for you to pursue. And that that's on the same scale as you should do what's appropriate to a human and then what's appropriate to a human who has a choleric disposition or who has some other particular. So where we might, as modern or postmodern people tend to think of characters being kind of a blank slate, sort of me, what I. What I want to be, what I choose to be, what I feel like being. And so now actually, rather, you need to look carefully inside yourself and discover what it. Whether you are a witty person. And that doesn't mean you try to be with. It means that you have that gift, we might say, in the Christian tradition. So that. That strikes me that there's. There's a certain amount of discerning an objective quality about yourself that's involved and then responding to it by doing what is seemly there.
Let's move on to Catherine. If I might ask you to read chapters 109 and 110.
[00:07:33] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: With James commenting.
[00:07:36] Speaker C: Others are very different from these. Being straightforward and open. They think that nothing should be done through secrecy or trickery. They cultivate the truth and they are hostile to deceit.
There are others, again, who would endure anything you like, devote themselves to anyone you like, provided they acquire what they want. We saw that in the case of Sulla and Marcus Crassus, we are told that the craftiest and most patient of this type was the Spartan Lysander, while Kallikratidas, the next commander of the fleet after Lysander, was the opposite. And that another man, again, although he has great power, manages to appear in conversation to be one among many. We saw that in Catulus, both father and son, and we see it also in Quintus Mucius and in Mancia. I have heard from my elders that it was also true of Publius Scipio Nasica, but that his father, on the other hand, the man who punished the desperate ventures of Tiberius Gracchus, was not at all affable in conversation and for that very reason became great and famous. There are countless other dissimilarities of nature and conduct which do not in the least deserve censure.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Keep going.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: Yeah. Each person should hold on to what is his as far as it is not vicious, but is peculiar to him, so that the seemliness that we are seeking might more easily be maintained. For we must act in such a way that we attempt nothing contrary to universal nature. But while conserving that, let us follow our own nature, so that even if other pursuits may be weightier and better, we should measure our own by the rule of our own nature. For it is appropriate neither to fight against nature nor to pursue anything that you cannot attain. Consequently, it becomes clear what that seemliness is like precisely because nothing is seemly against Minerva's will, as they say. That is when your nature opposes and fights against it.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Thank you, James.
[00:09:28] Speaker D: Oh, so now.
Now we've got something interesting.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: We have natural right, you know.
[00:09:35] Speaker D: Oh, no. Right, because we have two.
[00:09:38] Speaker E: Right?
[00:09:38] Speaker D: We have two now. We have the one that's universal, which is a bit in the rearview mirror. You know, we've went through a lot of contingent examples, and we also have the peculiarities that people possess by nature.
And, you know, there's a tension here. It's a resolvable tension, probably, if, you know, as far as I'm concerned.
But the. The part that I like best is that natura is against, you know, Minerva's will. You know, it's the gods, right? You know, so we have. We have this idea that the gods have made us in a certain way, and it would be against Minerva's will for, let's say, Publius Scipio Nausicaa to be funny. And that is.
And that is quite, quite a statement that.
That some people are just born unfunny.
[00:10:35] Speaker E: I was going to use that example.
[00:10:36] Speaker D: Oh, I'm sorry.
[00:10:38] Speaker E: But yeah, for me, the key line is, for it is appropriate neither to fight against nature nor to pursue anything that you cannot attain. Right? So if you have learned that you are not witty, you should stop trying.
It is against nature for you and that we can discern these things, Right?
Some people are better at certain things or worse at certain things. And there was that someone earlier at the conference quoted Horace who said that no matter how you try to deny nature, she comes back with her pitchfork and brings it back in.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: So
[00:11:18] Speaker E: again, there are these Natural limits that are imposed on us and it is seemly for us to understand what they are and act accordingly.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: I, I just realized that I, I left Ben out of the last round of commentary. So I'll yield him, yield him most of my time in, in compensation. But I'll just note that again, the idea that, you know, I have to discern these facts about myself. Am I funny? Am I inclined to wait, is this something that I can actually pull off, you might think, in terms of, you know, addressing can I pull off this.
[00:11:48] Speaker E: This.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Look, well, no, you can't, right?
Whatever else we might say, that's not, that's not denying my, my sort of will to power for not being high enough.
It's just not going to work. It's not ever going to work for you. So recognizing that is an element of seemliness. And I do like this idea that in obeying nature, there is the general nature and then there is the specific nature of what you have. And that's just as authoritative, except just closer to home. And it involves certain kind of personal discernment.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: Two things that strike me. One is just he emphasizes over and over again the, the immense variety of different natures, of individual natures, right? And so he's saying, I'm just giving examples, right? We could, there could be more, it's even more varied than people's, you know, how strong or fast they are, right? I mean, it's even more. And then the second point is that he does say, look, don't, don't go against your nature. Even if there are in fact better and higher pursuits, like more worthy pursuits that someone could achieve, it's kind of like you have to sort of maybe accept that you're the funny guy, you know, instead of the one who's the great achiever. There's a fantastic clip that people can look up. It's Jason Alexander, who played George on Seinfeld, right? And he's talking about a drama teacher he had. He was in drama at school and he kept trying to do parts like, you know, he loved Shakespeare and he kept like trying to do the leading man parts, right, in big plays. And his drama teacher at one point said him down was just like, you have the soul of Hamlet. You will never play Hamlet.
Understand that is not your role. And start looking, if you want to be successful in this business, start looking for comedic. And obviously, you know, you did. And so just that made me think of that as a good example of, you know, you have to understand that other people are going to play Hamlet. And you're going to, you know, play a different role in the.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: For the society and that. That all that's right and proper.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Demand of morality in nature. Yeah. You should do so. You'd be living contrary to those things if you try to do otherwise. Yeah. Catherine, back to you.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: Well, and just to add, there's the. The sense. I. I appreciate that Cicero gives the little caveat of one must follow one's nature insofar as it is not vicious.
[00:14:10] Speaker E: So he.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: He does. He does put those guardrails up again against what I think our modern inclination would be in terms of culture to say, oh, well, that means I can do whatever I want.
No, there are boundaries.
We do not go outside of those boundaries. But within those boundaries, there's a lot of freedom. As you all were saying.
And that. The Minerva part that you were mentioning, the language there is about. See, even the verb that Cicero uses, because the English says something like it is.
There is nothing is seemly against Minerva's will. And the Latin verb is decad. And so it's.
[00:14:51] Speaker E: It's.
[00:14:52] Speaker C: It is not proper.
Nothing is proper with a. An unwilling or a reluctant Minerva. So if. If it goes against your nature, it is no longer seemly as long as it is not a virtue. Bias problem.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Excellent.
All right, James, I may ask you to read 111 and 112, and then. Ethan, begin. Comments.
[00:15:18] Speaker D: If anything at all is seemly, nothing surely is more so than an evenness, both of one's whole life and of one's individual actions.
You cannot preserve that if you copy someone else's nature and ignore your own. For just as we ought to use the language that is familiar to us, so that we do not draw well justified ridicule upon ourselves like some who cram Greek words into their speech, so we ought not to introduce any discordancy into our actions and into the whole of our lives.
Indeed, such differences of natures have so great a force that sometimes one man ought to choose death for himself, while another ought not.
For surely the case of Marcus Cato was different from that of the others who gave themselves up to Caesar in Africa.
Indeed, it would have been counted as a fault if they had killed themselves for the very reason that they had been more gentle in their lives and more easygoing in their behavior. But since nature had assigned to Cato an extraordinary seriousness which he himself had consolidated by his unfailing constancy, abiding always by his adopted purpose and policy, he had to die rather than look upon the face of A tyrant.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:00] Speaker E: So we have two very different examples here, right?
On the first part here we have an example. It is unseemly to be pretentious, right? To use too many Greek. If you're a Roman to use too many Greek words in your speech, it appears to be showing off. Right? And so that's a form of unseemliness. But then that's a fairly trivial case. But then we have the case of Marcus Cato. Only certain people are so serious that suicide is justifiable for them because Cato was the strongest and most consistent voice against tyranny. He could perhaps rightly give his life and have that be meaningful.
But for the others who had a more easygoing manner, that kind of act is not for them. And of course, yes, if we have a justification for suicide, that's difficult for us Christians, but that reflects the Roman sense of morality.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Absolutely.
Thinking here, obviously it's quite extreme, right? If you say, well, it would have been wrong for them to kill themselves. They weren't the kind of person who has to kill themselves now. But Cato had to, right? It just was. It would have been wrong for him not to do so. Or maybe I say unseemly. Perhaps that sort of category of wrong, which certainly probably for Christian. We have a different sort of way of thinking about morality and duty.
My thought as well about this thinking about Philip Reef confidence, I think it'll revolve had had some things to do with this. Plainly here we're deep into a. A moral system in which nature is. Nature is giving me all sorts of information and instruction and obligation that I need to recognize and conform to and even down to the level of. I'm a person of a certain kind of character and I've taken that natural gift, I've consolidated it.
You know, Cato actually hasn't just sort of been given. Well, you're the kind of person who has to die rather than look like a tyrant. He's improved and sort of tightened up that character himself.
Addressing himself even further to that obligation. It seems like incurring it even more firmly.
But the morality is given to me by nature, by my natural capacities, obligations, by character.
It's very much not coming from sort of an internal.
Internal choice or source that to do what is needful. So another the translation of opicium, to do what is appropriate, but what is appropriate means paying attention to nature, using reason.
All sorts of great points. As a couple points of contrast with more modern and postmodern systems of ethics where we look at the Individual will. And how do I find my way in a world that can't guide me? I think, you know, Cicero's waving conflict. Nature is giving you all the guidance you need. You just have to be discerning and rational and then self disciplined in following it up. And sometimes that means you, you have to do what Ko did because you are a keto sort of person.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: It's, it's kind of interesting because of course, Socrates also submits to, you know, submits to death. And he was the more, you know, joking, you know, kind of, kind of character. But maybe there's a, a seriousness underlaying his, you know, putting on a, you know, I forgot exactly how we phrased it, but kind of sometimes, you know, being frivolous and joking and things like that. But yeah, it's a striking claim, right, that first of all, that there could be a case where it is required to commit suicide morally in the area of seemingness. Second of all, that it's differential based on people's natures. Right. And so some people, which do have that moral obligation, but some people don't. Right. I mean, it's, it's very striking.
And so the, the note here kind of suggests the possibility that Cicero is kind of. Yeah, Cicero, who was also an opponent of Caesar, is kind of trying to explain why he hasn't ended up in that situation, you know. You know, and so. Well, yes, that was Cato's, you know, calling, so to speak, by nature.
So I don't know how true that is or not, but that's, that's one suggestion here.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Can I jump in just one more idea? There's this idea. The captain goes down with the ship. And because he's the captain, it's almost. It's like that. It's not the office. It's not because you sort of signed on as the captain. It's because of something more fundamental to you. The other thing, if I could slip in one more note was he uses the word discordant to talk about don't do, don't make one action discordant with like the note that's too flat or too sharp in the overall music of your life. That, that's a wonderful idea that your actions are not sort of autonomous, but should, should fit with everything else that you've done up to this point. And Cato is a good example of that. He was in something so good.
[00:22:05] Speaker C: No, those were helpful notes. And, and to back up your observation about the captain going down with the ship, Cato is leading an army at this Point. And so the, the connection of the leader doing what is fitting is even stronger in that situation.
So the other thing with Cato is Cicero assumes that Marcus, his son, will know the circumstances of Cato's suicide. And so he doesn't talk about them, but they are quite extreme. Plutarch recounts what happened to Cato and Cato was known for his austerity.
And even later authors like Lucan, who writes in the time of Nero, will talk about Cato as kind of the epitome of severitas of severity. And just so he is being this, he goes through a very painful suicide because he stabs himself and then doesn't die immediately and does all sorts of things to his body in order to make sure that he dies because his friends are trying to save him and he doesn't want to be saved.
So it's a whole, it's not just a suicide. It's like a painful, nasty, difficult, extreme suicide. And so he is that type of person who will do that because it is dishonorable for him to submit to Caesar after all he's done and all he said against Caesar. And so Cicero may be self justifying, although I, I, I'm, I tend, I tend to, sometimes I disagree with the notes, but I think there's also a sense in which he realizes, okay, but why can't, why didn't everyone that Cato led, Cato was leading a lot of men.
Why were they not all obligated to commit suicide? And that's what he's explaining here.
[00:24:07] Speaker D: So you, you know, you have this stuff about cramming Greek words as discordant or as unseemly. And it's a, it's, you know, when you, by the time you get to the last person, the, the text has been mined, I feel. So I'll be the, I'll be the big thinker on this.
I felt very sheepish when I read that line because of course, this is what academics do, you know, even, even accidentally, you know, you'll be in conversation with someone at like a, you know, a store and they'll be like, you know, you'll use like, you know, well, you know, not to be obsequious.
I think it's Latin, you know, instead of Greek. But, you know, and, and so, you know, I always feel sheepish so, because I feel unseemly. But it's also that there's a use of unseemliness in this respect. It's the exercise of power and that is to use those terms in order to baffle or confuse people, and this is the trait of Cicero that still makes him a Republican.
Baffling and confusing people with this speech is not a proper way to engage in conversation.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: That's excellent. Thank you.
Last reading for today. I think he said 113 and 114. And we'll wrap up this episode. I will do that.
[00:25:30] Speaker E: Just before that, I have to mention that only Catherine among us could explain the very depths of Cato's Severitas.
I think that was great. All right, so here we are.
How many things Ulysses suffered during his lengthy wanderings.
He was both a slave to women and, if assertion, Calypso ought to be called women, and was willing to be accommodating and pleasant to everyone in everything that he said.
Indeed, even when home, he endured the insults of slaves and maidservants in order at last to attain what he desired.
On the other hand, Ajax's spirit was such, we are told, that he would have preferred to seek death a thousand times than to endure such things.
Reflecting on such matters, everyone ought to weigh the characteristics that are his own and to regulate them, not wanting to see how someone else's might become him. For what is most seemly for a man is the thing that is most his own.
Everyone, therefore, should acquire knowledge of his own talents and show himself a sharp judge of his own good qualities and faults. Else it will seem that actors have more good sense than us, for they do not choose the best plays, but those that are most suited to themselves.
Those who rely on their own voice, choose the Epigone and the Medus. Those who rely on gesture, the Melanippa and the Clytemnestra.
Rupilius, whom I remember, was always doing antiope, while Aesopus did not often take part in the Ajax. If an actor then will observe this on the stage, will not a wise man observe it in his life?
We shall therefore exert ourselves above all in those things to which we are most suited. If necessity has on occasion pushed us towards things that are beyond our natural talents, we shall have to apply all possible care, preparation, and diligence so that we can perform them, if not in a seemly fashion, still with as little unseemliness as possible.
Nor ought we so much to strive to acquire good qualities that have not been granted to us as to avoid faults.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Thank you, Ethan. Now, I'll take the first comment here. Of course, it strikes me again that the. Well, the final line, of course, is fantastic. We don't have to strive so much to acquire good qualities that have not been granted to us as to avoid faults. We shouldn't be doing either. Right.
I don't want to wear someone else's suit. It doesn't fit me. Right. And similar sort of thing with stations in life. And so it seems to be back to this idea of.
[00:28:11] Speaker D: Of what.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: What fits, what is not discordant.
And you might even think somebody approaching their death especially would want to die in such a way. Of course, Cato, despite all the gruesomeness, is thinking this as well. That is fitting for that, you know, harmonizes with and even ties together and sort of raises the level of triumph, you know, his, his life, he makes it the same. Death of Socrates is like that.
[00:28:36] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: That fits.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: That works. Right. It's aesthetically pleasing. It's something we might associate more with Nietzsche. You know, life is a work of art, but it's. Life is a work of art that respects the natural, the demands that nature and character have placed upon me. Like now I have to sort of seal myself for the final act. And it has to fit, has to work. It has to. It sets almost be, you know, the final line of the poem, the final, the ending, the ending scene or image of the. Of the film.
And when it does everybody, what a magnificent biography this person has now managed to achieve. And so I, I'm. I'm impressed not only with the sort of the moral quality of this, but. But the aesthetic quality like act, act beautifully. But that means acting appropriately according to your knowledge of the entire rest of the script that you've learned so far.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I am fascinated by this kind of combination of the sort of objective character of what he's talking about. There is an objective, best way for each individual person to employ his over talents and nature or characteristics. Right. And so, yeah, and so this, this notion of be a judge of yourself. Right. Be an objective, you know, sharp judge of yourself and figure out, okay, should I engage in this pursuit or is that really beyond my, you know, talents or different than my talents or something like that. So that, that's really what, what strikes me is, is that, that connection there.
[00:30:10] Speaker C: Yeah. And it ties so well in with the Jason Alexander story.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: So sometimes we help somebody else to
[00:30:18] Speaker A: help us be a sharp judge of our own details.
[00:30:22] Speaker C: Yeah. And so, Chris, when we were talking about the life as a work of art, this is something that Horace picks up later. So he's in the reign of Augustus, so he's after Cicero. But his whole work on the art of.
The art of poetry is supposedly about poetry, but it's really about life.
So he gives this thing of. You must like Cicero, he says, you know, Ulysses should do these sorts of things if you're writing a poem, because that's Ulysses. He's that character. Ajax should do something else.
So Ulysses is, as a. Is a fun one, because it's kind of like going back to an earlier section that we read where he was saying some men will stoop to anything in order to get what they want.
And Ulysses is offered in the Odyssey as, like, admirable and the hero for doing all of this, which is very odd given the Homeric warrior culture, which is very much more Ajax, who commits suicide because he's been shamed in front of everyone. He's acted crazy and been cheated by Ulysses of. Of the armor that he thought was his rightful do. And then he goes mad and kills a bunch of sheep and then is very ashamed and kills himself.
But he would never submit to the sort of indignities that. That Ulysses goes to endure. I love the little note about. Maybe Circe and Calypso shouldn't be considered women, but they're. They're like one's a. One's a half goddess and one's a nymph, so maybe not.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: My recollection of story is not necessarily of slavery.
Well, I think during his decades on their islands.
[00:32:06] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a pleasant slavery, let's just put it that way.
I think the slavery piece is more that he's not in charge.
The women are telling him what to do in that case.
[00:32:20] Speaker D: Well, there's a book by Camus called the Myth of Sisyphus, and at the end of the Myth of Sisyphus, he talks about what it is then to live in a modern world as a modern person.
And one of the archetypes he uses is the actor, because the actor can be anyone.
Right.
And no.
And this came to mind first when you mentioned the Jason Alexander story.
And then here it is.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:52] Speaker D: Like. No, he says the same story himself.
And this desire to be Prometheus, unbounding.
No, very bound.
And in a sense, like Camus, desire there reflects more of an unseemliness that he lived out.
So it's no surprise that the unseemliness of his own life reflects the unseemliness of the work designed to defend it.
[00:33:24] Speaker E: I will attempt to follow Cicero's advice by making the comment that people that would expect me to make this. This passage. So the reference to comp. The reference to actors. Right. So in. In the 21st century, the actors are some of our most powerful and wealthy and admirable, supposedly people. But for, for the Romans, actors were at the bottom of the social hierarchy, the. The worst people. And so that. That makes this significant here, right? To even actors.
Even actors, some of our worst people understand that they should. They should only play the roles to which they are suited.
And you, so you as a. As a man, presumably, who is somewhere, somewhere higher than an actor, should at least be able to do that. And if you have, then, then, then you were. You were showing your unworthiness.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: I was thinking just with the passage from the Gospel, isn't it, where Jesus said, and if you who are wicked will do what will care for your children, how much more will you have father who is not at all wicked? So that's, that's, that's excellent. That's a fine concluding and fitting. Yeah, for this episode. So we're out of time. So I want to thank each of you guys for being here for one of a kind. I hope we do this again sometime. Have everybody in the same room episode of the summer rather than on Zoom. I want to thank everybody in the audience for watching. Hope that you will like and share this episode and tune in with us next Wednesday as we all go further into book one of Sisters on duties. Thanks for watching. Goodbye.
