wait deed, seemed beautiful; yet that which the Thracians conducted appeared not less elegant. After we had paid our devotions, and seen the solemnity, we were going back to the city, when Polemarchus, son of Cephalus, observing us from a distance, hurrying home, bid his boy run and tell us to wait for him; and the boy, taking hold of my robe behind, said :—Polemarchus desires you to wait. I turned then and asked, where he was. He is coming after answered he: but you, pray for him. Yes, we will wait, said Glaucon; and just afterwards came Polemarchus and Adimantus, the brother of Glaucon, and Niceratus, son of Nicias*, and some others, as from the procession. Then said Polemarchus, Socrates, you seem to do me to be hurrying to the city, as on your return. Aye, you not make a bad guess, said I. See you, then, said he, how Yes, of course. Well, then, said he, you many we are? must either prove yourselves stronger than these, or else remain here. One expedient, said I, is still left; namely, to persuade you that you should let us go. How can you possibly persuade such as will not hear? By no means, said Glaucon. Make up your mind then, that we will not hear. But know you not, said Adimantus, that in the evening there is to be a torch-race on horseback to the goddess ?+ On horseback, said I; surely, this is a novelty. Are they to have torches, and to hand them to one another, contending together on horseback ;-or how do you mean? Just so, replied Polemarchus. And besides, they will perform a nocturnal solemnity well worth seeing; for we shall rise after supper and see it [the night festival,] and shall be there with many * Nicias was one of the leading Athenian generals in the Peloponnesian war. In the Panathenæan, Hephæstian, and Promethean festivals, it was customary for young men to run with torches or lamps lighted from the sacrificial altar; and in this contest that person only was victorious, whose lamp remained unextinguished in the race. We are here forcibly reminded of the figure used by Plato in the Laws, vi. p. 776 b, and also of Lucretius, ii. verse 78: Inque brevi spatio mutantur sæcla animantum. By this nocturnal solemnity are meant the lesser Panathenæa, which, as the name implies, were sacred to Athena. As in the greater Panathenæa they carried about the veil of Athena, on which were represented the giants vanquished by the Olympian gods, so in the lesser Panathe of our young [friends,] and have a chat. Do you also stay and do the same. It is right, I think, said Glaucon, that we should stay. Well,-if you please, said I, we will so. CHAP. II. We went home therefore to Polemarchus's [house,] and there we found, both Lysias and Euthydemus, brothers of Polemarchus,-likewise Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Pæoneian, and Clitophon the son of Aristonymus. Cephalus, the father of Polemarchus, was likewise in the house; and he seemed to me to have become a good deal aged, for I had not seen him for a long time. He was sitting crowned on a cushioned seat; for he had been offering sacrifice in the inner court. So we sat down by him; for some seats stood there in a circle. Immediately, therefore, on seeing me, Cephalus saluted me, and said: Socrates, you do not often come down to us to the Piræus, though you ought; for, could I still easily go up to the city, there would have been no need for you to come hither, but we should have gone up to you. As it is, however, you should come hither more frequently; for be assured that with me, the more bodily pleasures decay, the more also do the desires and pleasures of conversation increase. Do not then fail us, but accompany these youths, and resort hither, as to friends, and very dear friends too. As for me, Cephalus, said I, I am delighted to converse with persons well advanced in years; for it appears to me a duty to learn from them, as from persons who have gone before us, on a road which we too must necessarily travel, what kind of road it is,—whether rough and difficult, or level and easy. Moreover, I would gladly learn from you (as you are now at that time of life which the poets call the threshold of old age), what your opinion of it is, whether it be a burdensome part of life, or how you describe it. CHAP. III.-By Zeus !* said he, I will tell you, Socrates, what I, for my part, think of it; for several of us, who are of the same age, frequently meet together in the same place, næa another veil was exhibited, in which the Athenians, who were the pupils of Athena, were represented victorious in the battle against the inhabitants of the Atlantic island. * The translator wishes it to be understood, that in compliance with a now pretty general custom, he has preserved the Greek mythological names; Zeus for Jupiter, Athena for Minerva, Poseidon for Neptune, Artemis for Diana, and so on. observing the old proverb. Most of us, therefore, when we are together, complain of missing the pleasures of youth, calling to remembrance the pleasures of love, those of drinking and feasting, and such like: and they are mightily in dudgeon, as being bereaved of some great things,-having once lived happily, but now scarce living at all. Some of them, too, bemoan the contempt which old age meets with from intimate friends: and, on this account, they whine about old age, as being the cause of so many of their ills. To me, however, Socrates, these men seem not to blame the [real] cause; for, if this were the cause, I myself likewise should have suffered these very same things through old age, -and all others, likewise, who have come to these years. Now I have met with several not thus affected; and particularly I was once in company with Sophocles the poet, when he was asked by some one: How, said he, do you feel, Sophocles, as to the pleasures of love; are you still able to enjoy them? Softly, friend, replied he; most gladly, indeed, have I escaped from these pleasures, as from some furious and savage master.† To me, then, he, at that time, seemed to speak well, and now not less so: for, on the whole, as respects such things there is in old age great peace and freedom; because, when the appetites cease to be vehement and have let go their hold, what Sophocles said, most certainly happens; we are delivered from very many, and those too, furious masters. With relation to these things, however, and what concerns our intimates, there is one and the same cause; which is, not old age, Socrates, but the disposition or [different] men: for, if they be discreet and moderate, even old age is but moderately burdensome: but if not, Socrates, -to such an one, both old age and youth are grievous. CHAP. IV. Delighted to hear him say these things, and wishing him to discourse further, I urged him, and said: I fancy, Cephalus, the generality will not agree with you in *This alludes to the well-known Greek adage-dig ÿλika téρtel. Nearly the whole of this and the following chapter is quoted by Cicero, de Senect. ch. 3. This passage was evidently in the view of Cicero, when he wrote as follows:-Quum ex eo quidam jam affecto ætate quæreret, utereturne rebus venereis :-Dii meliora, inquit, s. lubenter verò istinc tanquam domino agresti ac furioso profugi.-Cato Maj. ch. 47. these opinions; but will imagine that you bear old age easily, not owing to your natural bias, but from possessing much wealth; for the rich, say they, have many consolations.* True, replied he; they do not agree with me; and there is something in what they say, yet not so much as they imagine. The saying of Themistocles, however, is just; who, when the Seriphiant reviled him, and said, that he was honoured, not on his own account, but on account of his country, replied, that neither would himself have been renowned, had he been a Seriphian, nor would he, the [Seriphian,] had he been an Athenian. To those likewise, who are not rich and bear old age with impatience, the same saying fairly applies; that neither would the worthy man bear old age with poverty quite easily, nor would he who is unworthy, though enriched, ever be agreeable to himself. But, [tell me,] Cephalus, said I; was the greater part of what you possess, left you, or did you acquire it [yourself?] Somewhat, Socrates, replied he, I have acquired: as to moneygetting I am in a medium between my grandfather and my father: for my grandfather of the same name with myself, who was left almost as much property as I possess at present, increased it manifold; while my father Lysanias made it yet less than it is now: I, on the other hand, am content, if I can leave my sons here not less, but some little more than I received. I asked you, said I, for this reason,—because you seem to me to have no excessive love for riches; and this is generally the case with those who have not acquired them; while those who have acquired them [themselves,] are doubly fond of them: for, as poets love their own poems, and as parents love their own children,-in the same manner, too, those who have enriched themselves, value their wealth, as their own production, as well as for its utility,on which ground it is valued by others. True, replied he. CHAP. V.-Aye, entirely so, said I. But further, tell me this;-what do you conceive to be the greatest good realized through the possession of extensive property? That, pro *This seems to allude to the very common Greek adage-roïç #λOV, σίοις πόλλ' ἔστι τὰ παραμύθια. + From Seriphus, one of the Cyclades. Aristotle expresses nearly the same sentiments in the Nicom. Eth. iv. 1, and ix. 4. bably, said he, of which I shall not persuade the generality, were I even to mention it. For, be assured, Socrates, continued he, that, after a man begins to think he is soon to die, he becomes inspired with a fear and concern about things, that had not entered his head before: for those stories concerning a future state, which tell us, that the man who has been unjust here must be punished hereafter, have a tendency, much as he formerly ridiculed them, to trouble his soul at such a time with apprehensions, that they may be true; and the man, either through the infirmity of old age, or being now, as it were, in closer proximity to them, views them more attentively, and consequently becomes full of suspicion and dread, and reflects and considers whether he has in any thing done any one a wrong. That man, then, who discovers in his own life much of iniquity, and, like children, constantly starting in his sleep, is full of terrors, and lives on with scarce a hope of the future. But with the man who is not conscious of any such iniquity, As Pindar says: for this, Socrates, he has beautifully expressed, that whoever lives a life of justice and holiness, With him to cheer his heart, the nurse of age, In this he speaks well, and with great elegance. In con- You speak admirably, Cephalus, replied I:-but this very thing, Justice, shall we call it Truth, simply, and the re*This passage will be found in Boeckh's Fragm. Pind. 243, vol. ii. p. 2, p. 682. |