"If beauty is but a shadow, desire is but a lightning flash. What madness it is, then, to desire beauty! Is it not rational, on the contrary, that that which passes should go with that which does not endure, and that the lightning should devour the gliding shadow?"
"Nicias, you seem to me like a child playing at knuckle-bones. Take my advice — be free! By liberty only can you become a man."
"How can a man be free, Eucrites, when he has a body?"
"You shall see presently, my son. Presently you will say, 'Eucrites was free.'"
The old man spoke, leaning against a porphyry pillar, his face lighted by the first rays of dawn. Hermodorus and Marcus had approached, and stood before him by the side of Nicias; and all four, regardless of the laughter and cries of the drinkers, conversed on things divine, Eucrites expressed himself so wisely and eloquently, that Marcus said —
"You are worthy to know the true God."
Eucrites replied —
"The true God is in the heart of the wise man."
Then they spoke of death.
"I wish," said Eucrites, "that it may find me occupied in correcting my faults, and attentive to all my duties. In the face of death I will raise my pure hands to heaven, and I will say to the gods,
