AXIOCHVS.

The misery of human life through every stage of age?

What stage of life, he says, is free from calamities? Does not the infant wail immediately from the start, as soon as it is born, and inaugurate life with tears? What trouble, finally, does not press upon it? For it is always urged on by either poverty, or cold, or heat, or blows. Even before it can speak, how much it suffers: weeping, and having this as the only complaint for its anxiety. When it has thereafter completed its seventh year, and exhausted many labors, then come the guardians, the gymnastics teachers, and the schoolmasters. Then, for the youth, come the critics, the geometers, and the instructors of military affairs—plainly a huge multitude of masters. After these things, when he is enrolled among the ephebesYoung men aged 18–20 undergoing military training in ancient Athens., there is a worse fear: the Lyceum, the Academy, the office of the gymnasiarch, the rods, and absolutely no measure of evils. All the labor of the youth is under moderators, who are chosen from the council of the AreopagusThe high court of Athens. to preside over the youth. Then, when he has been released from these, cares openly emerge, and the consideration of what path of living he should chiefly establish. Compared to the following inconveniences, those prior childish things seem like mere nursery terrors; for there are expeditions, and wounds, and the perpetual labors of contests. From here, old age now creeps in by deception, into which flows whatever is weak and fragile in nature. Unless one quickly returns life like a debt, nature, standing over one's head like a moneylender, demands the interest. Sight is taken from one, hearing from another, and very often both. But if anyone lingers longer, it debilitates him, tortures him, and deprives him of his limbs. Some, therefore, in great old age, return to childhood; and in mind, the old become boys twice over. The gods, therefore, for this very reason (as those to whom human affairs are most known), take those whom they value most out of life more quickly. Thus Agamedes and Trophonius, when they had built the temple of Pythian Apollo, praying that what was best might be given to them, when they had fallen asleep, never rose again. So also the priests of Argive Juno: when their mother prayed that Juno might return some favor to them for their piety—for when the beasts of burden were delayed, they themselves took the place of the vehicle and dragged their mother all the way to the temple—after the prayers, they deceased in the night. It would be long to review the sayings of the poets, who in more divine poems chant those things which pertain to our life as if from an oracle, lamenting it. I am satisfied to remember the words of only one most worthy of mention, who said: "For the gods have spun the thread of miserable age for mortals, so that living they endure through all things to be lamented." And again: "Of all the races of men, the worst lot of life stands for whatever breathes and moves upon the earth." And what does he say of Amphiaraus? "Jupiter loves him with all his heart, and great Apollo loves him; yet he did not reach the goals of a just age." Regarding him also who commands thus: "Let the newborn weep, who enters into such great evils of life"—what do you think? But I cease, lest by commemorating others, I lead the matter further than I intended. Moreover, what institution of life, what art will anyone choose so as not to complain of it and be offended by present things? Shall I review the artisans and the mercenaries? The arts: laboring from night until night, and scarcely enduring the necessary expenses of life, bewailing themselves, and filling every vigil with their sorrow and tears. Or shall we speak of the sailor penetrating through such great dangers, who (as Bias says) is neither among the dead nor among the living? For a man of the land, as if of an ambiguous race, has cast himself into the sea and become entirely subject to the judgment of fortune. But agriculture is sweet. It is indeed; yet is it not entirely (as they say) an ulcer, always having a ready cause for pain, now complaining of drought, now rains, now blight, now rust, now either untimely heat or cold? That also highly honored care of the republic (for I pass over much), through how many anxieties is it snatched? What joys it has are always trembling in the manner of a little thief, and full of stings; but its rejections are bitter and a thousand times worse than death. For who could be happy living by the judgment of the common people? Even if he is favored and applauded, he is the plaything of the people, tossed about, hissed at, condemned, dead, and then seen as pitiable. For where, Axiochus—you who are engaged in the republic—where has Miltiades gone, where Themistocles, where Ephialtes? Where also are those who were recently leaders in the Republic? Since I indeed was not led to that opinion. For it did not seem honorable to me that I should become a partner in dominion with an insane people. Theramenes and Callixenus, having then been appointed as presiding magistrates, brought it about that men were killed without being condemned; and you, with Triptolemus, resisted them alone out of thirty thousand gathered in the assembly.

AXIOCHUS: Those things are as you say, Socrates; therefore, a satiety of that platform has seized me, nor has anything seemed more bitter to me than the republic. That is indeed clear to those who are engaged in the business itself. For you say these things as one who has watched from a high place; but we who have made the trial, how much more exactly do we know? For the people, dearest Socrates, are ungrateful, moody, cruel, envious, and immodest, as they are composed of the dregs of the crowd and collected from the foolish and insolent. He who flatters them is himself much more miserable.

SOCRATES: Since therefore, Axiochus, you think this art, which is the most liberal of all, to be the most abominable of all, what of the remaining kinds of life? Shall we not think they are altogether to be fled? I also heard Prodicus saying once that death pertains to nothing, neither to the living nor to the deceased.

AXIOCHUS: How do you say those things, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Because it is not concerning the living; and those who have died are no longer. Therefore, it is not with you, for you have not yet died; nor if anything should happen to you, will it be around you in the future, for you will not be. It is therefore a foolish grief, concerning Axiochus—as he neither is nor shall be—for the mind of Axiochus to be tormented. It would be similar as if I were to dread Scylla or a Centaur, which neither now threaten you, nor will ever be present for your destruction. For fear belongs to existing things; but of things which are not, there is no one who is terrified.

AXIOCHUS: You indeed [speak] these learned words from that [philosophy] which now...

The sailor is neither among the dead nor among the living.