souls were indeed immortal, men's souls would not strive for undying fame in proportion to their transcending merit. What? Since men of the highest wisdom die with perfect calmness, those who are the most foolish with extreme disquiet, can you doubt that the soul which sees more and farther perceives that it is going to a better state, while the soul of obtuser vision has no view beyond death? For my part, I am transported with desire to see your fathers whom I revered and loved; nor yet do I long to meet those only whom I have known, but also those of whom I have heard and read, and about whom I myself have written. Therefore one could not easily turn me back on my lifeway, nor would I willingly, like Pelias,[1] be plunged in the rejuvenating caldron. Indeed, were any god to grant that from my present age I might go back to boyhood, or become a crying child in the cradle, I should steadfastly refuse; nor would I be willing, as from a finished race, to be summoned back from the goal to the starting-point. For what advantage is there in life? Or rather, what is there of arduous toil that is wanting to it? But grant all that you may in its favor, it still certainly has either its excess or its fit measure of duration. I am not, indeed, inclined to speak ill of life, as many and even wise men have often done, nor am I sorry
- ↑ The myth, as it has come down to us, represents Aeson as the old man whom magic arts made young again, while the like experiment on Pelias was a disastrous failure.
