Genre and place in the book. A brief therapy of anger in two moves. After the pair on the elements — "whence" reason comes (04-04) and "whither" it disperses in death (04-05) — here is a turn to the ethics of dealing with people. By genre it is a counterpart to the programmatic 02-01 (the morning preparation for meeting "the ungrateful, the insolent…"), but the argument is different: not kinship, but the necessity of nature plus impermanence.

The fig-tree: a thing acts by its nature. The first move is an image: to wish that a bad man not act badly is to wish that the fig-tree (συκῆ) have no juice (ὀπός). Bad acts issue from the very make-up of such people (πέφυκε) of necessity (ἐξ ἀνάγκης). To be angry at this is to demand the impossible — madness (verbatim, Med. 5.17: "to seek the impossible is madness; it is impossible that the bad should not do something of this kind"); the same move as puzzling over "why is the cucumber bitter" (Med. 8.50). The twin argument is Med. 9.42: "is it possible that shameless men should not be in the world? It is not," and therefore — not indignation but to "become more kindly disposed."

The involuntariness of wrong. Behind this lies the Socratic background: no one errs willingly, the bad man acts through ignorance (cf. 02-01; Med. 11.18; Plato Prot. 358c). The right response is therefore not outrage but mildness: another's fault is not an affront but the showing-forth of his nature.

The second move: μέμνησο — both of you will die. A sharp change of register: but by all means EXERCISEbear in mind (ὅλως… μέμνησο) — in a very short time EXERCISEboth you and he are dead, and soon EXERCISEnot even your names will remain. A twofold diminution: death (EXERCISEthe memory of death) and the oblivion of fame (EXERCISEthe view from above; cf. Med. 4.33 — Camillus, Scipio, Cato pass into complete oblivion; compressed in 03-10). A quarrel with someone about to vanish along with you, and without a trace, is not worth the passion.

The mechanism. The imperative μέμνησο is the signal of a EXERCISEready teaching: both considerations (the necessity of another's nature + the common mortality) are kept ready to hand and drawn out at the very moment of provocation.

The disciplines. The principal one is action: the subject is one's attitude toward others' faults (for Hadot this is the domain of the discipline of action). The secondary is assent: the core of the therapy is the correction of the judgement "he ought not to have acted so" into "he could not have acted otherwise."

Parallels. The impossibility of demanding that the bad not be bad — Med. 9.42; 5.17; 8.50. The involuntariness of wrong — 02-01; Med. 11.18; Plato Prot. 358c; Epict. Ench. 42. The memory of death as a solvent of anger — 04-05; Med. 11.18. The oblivion of names and posthumous fame — Med. 4.33; 4.35; 03-10.