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Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and there we
found his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus
the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon the son of
Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus the father of Polemarchus, whom
I had not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He
was seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he
had been sacrificing in the court; and there were some other chairs in
the room arranged in a semicircle, upon which we sat down by him. He
saluted me eagerly, and then he said: --
You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought: If I were
still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at
my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come
oftener to the Piraeus. For let me tell you, that the more the
pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and
charm of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house
your resort and keep company with these young men; we are old friends,
and you will be quite at home with us.
I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better,
Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as
travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and
of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or
rugged and difficult. And this is a question which I should like to
ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the
'threshold of old age' --Is life harder towards the end, or what
report do you give of it?
I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of
my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb
says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is
--I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are
fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and
life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put
upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils
their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers
seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were
the cause, I too being old, and every other old man, would have felt
as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom
I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in
answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles,
--are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly
have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had
escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred
to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time
when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of
calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as
Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master
only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and
also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the
same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers;
for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure
of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are
equally a burden.
I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might
go on --Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in
general are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think
that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy
disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to
be a great comforter.
You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is
something in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I
might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was
abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits
but because he was an Athenian: 'If you had been a native of my
country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.' And to
those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply
may be made; for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light
burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself.
May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part
inherited or acquired by you?
Acquired! Socrates; do you want to know how much I acquired? In
the art of making money I have been midway between my father and
grandfather: for my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and
trebled the value of his patrimony, that which he inherited being much
what I possess now; but my father Lysanias reduced the property
below what it is at present: and I shall be satisfied if I leave to
these my sons not less but a little more than I received.
That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because I see that
you are indifferent about money, which is a characteristic rather of
those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have
acquired them; the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a
creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their
own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love
of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all
men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about
nothing but the praises of wealth. That is true, he said.
Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question? What do
you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from
your wealth?
One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others.
For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be
near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had
before; the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted
there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now
he is tormented with the thought that they may be true: either from
the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other
place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and alarms
crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what
wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his
transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in
his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him
who is conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says,
is the kind nurse of his age:
Hope, he says, cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and
holiness and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey;
--hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.
How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, I
do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no
occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or
unintentionally; and when he departs to the world below he is not in
any apprehension about offerings due to the gods or debts which he
owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the possession of wealth
greatly contributes; and therefore I say, that, setting one thing
against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give, to a
man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest.
Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, what is
it? --to speak the truth and to pay your debts --no more than this?
And even to this are there not exceptions? Suppose that a friend
when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them
when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No
one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so,
any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to
one who is in his condition.
You are quite right, he replied.
But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not
a correct definition of justice.
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