Cithaeron Dialogues

I

The Fountain of Artemis

Personae: Socrates, Cebes, Agathon, Apollodorus

“It is just here,” said Socrates, pointing to an old ilex which grew at the angle formed by two meeting masses of hill, “that it will be good for us to rest. This spot, I remember, is considered sacred to Artemis, by whose grace it is that this pool never lacks water. Moreover, it was on this spot that a poet whose name I have forgotten wrote some verses which seem to me pretty enough.”

“What verses were those, Socrates?” asked Apollodorus.

“These, if my memory holds:

Here, where gaunt rocks the tumbling stream receive,
With dusty limbs beneath the falling spray
Drink—but forget not, ere ye take your way,
Pour one libation to the God ye leave.”

“I have heard the verses,” said Agathon.

“They are by Lysander the Thracian. He was constantly making inscriptions for wells and fountains. I remember another of the same kind:

Where frond and raspberry overhang the wave,
Drink, traveller, and thy dusty forehead lave.
Then, for so bids the nymph who guards the burn,
Bind thy bedabbled brows with parsley fern.”

“The verses are sweet enough,” said Socrates, “but he was apparently a poet who repeated the same thought again and again.”

“You are right. And because of this another poet wrote an epigram on him:

One pipe Pan gave him, one of sweetest note,
But, breaking this, he had no other oat."

“Yet to make inscriptions on such spots as this,” said Apollodorus, “was no bad work. Would it not be well, Socrates, if the State employed some of our best poets to hang such places with worthy epigrams?”

“The State spends plenty of money in more foolish ways, certainly,” said Cebes.

Socrates laughed. “It is not often we find friend Cebes on the side of the Graces. You see, the charm of this mountain has softened even his rugged Boeotian spirit. And small wonder is it, for, by the dog, I have never seen a lovelier nook. Is it not strange that we men who are journeying to a destination we know not should tread a road so beset with loveliness? Indeed, indeed, it is as if we journey through just such hills as these. Perhaps, as that giant before us hides the little village to which we shall go when this sun has set, so it is because of intervening hills that the soul may not catch even a glimpse of her goal.”

“Yet even these hills of Time, Socrates,” said Agathon, “beautiful as they are, have frequently made me footsore with walking over them.”

“You remind me well, Agathon. And, if they weary you who are still young, how much more me, seeing I have trodden them longer. I think, O my friends”—and Socrates looked round with a smile—“there is not one of us but will be very tired before he reaches the end. For me, at any rate, Hermes will hardly need to wave his rod.”

“In that case,” answered Cebes, smiling, “Hermes will not be guide to the Socrates whom we know, for in this world you have been of all men most restless. You must let me tell you a thing that Zeuxis said of you the other day. Zeuxis, you know, the sophist who came from Elis, and whose custom you ruined. He is bitter about it ever since. Well, Apollodorus was praising you, as he always does, when Zeuxis broke in. ‘You say it is Socrates’ mission to look after other people? Yes, and his omission is to look after himself.’”

Apollodorus broke in reproachfully. “You should not repeat his follies to Socrates, Cebes.”

“Why not, my friend?” asked Socrates. “I think Zeuxis was right. While other men have been securing for themselves and their children honour and wealth, I am so poor that the comic poets say I must steal. Indeed, if a man is to look after other people I do not see how he can think of himself.”

“If some God would permit you to live your life afresh, would you in any way change this?” asked Agathon.

“By no means, Agathon, for it is not by my sole will that I have acted thus. It is only by such ceaseless endeavour, I am persuaded, that the soul can become herself by herself, pure as the God to which she is trying to return. Even this snow on Cithaeron loses its purity when it finds a resting-place.”

“Then what is the ordinary citizen, he of whom you have spoken, to do, Socrates? For all his life he has been busied with such things as draw a net of desires about the soul.”

“The only hope of the selfish man is that some God loves him, I think, even more than he loves himself. Let us consider the soul, enmeshed as you say, a prisoner in toils of her own making. Yet from time to time can she catch the footsteps drawing near of a deliverer, one who comes as Heracles to Hades, and, hearing, she goes mad with joy and fear. If there should come a time, as doubt not there will, when this deliverer drew right up, would not the soul know such an access of strength, hearing not distant steps alone, but a living voice, that she would burst her bonds?”

“I believe you, Socrates,” said Agathon. “Yet I do not hear the footsteps of this deliverer.”

“What! Are you a poet and unaware of that which most have heard at whiles?”

“I think I have heard these steps,” said Cebes.

“And I also,” said Apollodorus.

“Do not doubt that Agathon too has heard them, and perhaps oftener than we. But he has drawn about his soul a mesh of the strongest threads of all, those the Furies weave, which men call depression. Yet, if she once heard the voice for which she has so long listened, his soul would spring to meet those steps.”

“I am weary of the work for which men know my name,” answered Agathon. “Of what avail is it that I who am travelling to darkness should be careful to clothe my thoughts in a tunic of words, woven with such cunning as the Gods have given me?”

“In this you do well, Agathon. I have heard,” said Socrates, “that among the Hebrews there are legends of messengers from the Gods that have come to men’s homes disguised. So it is with thoughts, as it seems to me. They are such messengers, children of the God, and it is just that we should receive them as these folk, Hebrews and Arabs, receive desert wanderers, with courtesy, bringing ewers of water for their feet and the best garments that there are. You, Agathon, to whom has come a gift which we have not, may so array one of these that other men beholding him may acknowledge the messenger of your master Apollo.”

“But my fear is, Socrates, that my best is a garb all too unworthy of such a messenger, if indeed he should come to my dwelling. And, even when I have arrayed him in such poor stuffs as I possess, who is to prevent that some robber, meeting him in the darkness when he has passed my threshold, should slay him and bury his bones in the desert sands?”

“What! Murder the messenger of God?” said Cebes, laughing. “Surely he will be immortal!”

“Putting that aside,” said Agathon, “being selfish, though I trust not in the way you justly condemn, Socrates, I must think of myself, and wonder if, after I have tramped all my days, singing my songs for the cheer of such as can listen, it will indeed be I who reach my home with the God, or if there be any home or God to reach. You may call this selfishness, friends, but it is selfishness such as I cannot bear a light heart at my labour without.”

“That is not what any wise man would call selfishness, Agathon,” replied Socrates. “The wonder and desire are just. But have we not ofttimes discoursed on this very theme?”

“But not once too often,” said Apollodorus.

“We have long ago agreed that everything is produced from its contrary, have we not?”

“We have,” said Cebes. “Such as what is weak from what is stronger, life from what is decaying or dead, and so on.”

“Of which we have an example here. Do you see the endless forests, above and below, how they are incessantly decaying yet never decayed? Some day a poet will notice this fact. Here, then, all this abundant life is produced from what is dead—is produced, as it were, from the very womb of a skeleton; or grows, as I have seen moss on the old bones of a battlefield, upon that which had life before it. Take this flower, for instance. You see how all its beauty is fed from a mass of decayed flowers of other years. This mountain-side is ablaze with rhododendrons, each bright as this is, all similarly nourished. Even so, it seems to me, we shall one day be living another life out of the decayed bones of this existence.”

“Very interesting, Socrates,” said Cebes. “But this illustration, I think, will little satisfy Agathon. It is no help toward the idea of individual immortality. It is only the type that lives here.”

“There is Cebes again,” said Socrates with a smile. “He never will accept poetry as proof. I think I have a myth to explain that. When the Gods were making our friend’s soul, our mother Athene wished to make him a poet, but was foiled by Hermes, who made him a merchant. Consequently, when he has seen the imaginative side of Truth he must treat it as a coin and ring it on the pavement.”

“But I thought Truth was a Goddess, Socrates,” said Cebes, laughing.

“She can be many things, Cebes.”

“I will continue your illustration, Socrates,” went on Agathon. “Take this rhododendron. You see how it has a kind of threefold existence. There is the root, undeniably living, but living in darkness; the stem and the leaves, living in a semi-darkness compact of countless forest-growths and pierced by only casual rays; finally, we have the flower, rejoicing in the face of the full light. So, I confess, our present life seems to me built upon the ruins of some previous one, wholly dark and buried among things forgotten and dead, but still nourishing us by secret roots pulsing through its obscure decay. Then this life cannot be called wholly dark, Socrates, for we have our occasional stems touched with inbreaking splendour from the God, our Homer and our Aeschylus.”

“And our Socrates,” said Apollodorus.

“Certainly our Socrates. Yet it is chiefly dark. Then why should not the next existence, toward which we dimly feel, be lived in an opener air and pervading light? Why should not those who have died before us—I mean those who disdained traffic with the flesh and strove to keep the soul herself by herself, uncontaminated, free from the net of desires, and nervously responsive to the good and the beautiful—be living here with us still, but on an upraised plane of consciousness, as our sophists would say?”

“So it has often appeared to me also, Agathon,” said Socrates. “The simile is a just one.”

“Yes, and if they are living here, they are surely working. So that what we call Pan and Apollo, and the lesser Gods of woodland places and such fountains as this plashing beside us, may be such realities as we shall behold after death. Look at the sun setting through those ilex-trees, their stems all ruddy. I could well believe that at this moment the light we see is there sublimed into something richer, and a spirit is moving among those stems, setting hearts to rest.”

“The sight is indeed wonderful,” said Cebes, “and reminds me of a sacrifice. Those clouds which gather about the crimson sun are like the shades which Homer pictures as coming to the blood-offering of Odysseus. Nor is incense lacking. What a scent from those pine-trees! It is as if the valley Gods were making oblations to us men. And the fountain beside us pours libations.”

“Do you not know that it is always so?” said Socrates. “It is always the Gods that offer sacrifice and incense, and we men that accept them. What is an occasional ram or bullock, or even an Iphigeneia, compared with the life-blood from themselves that they ceaselessly pour into hill and valley, plain and sea? With what other pain than theirs do you suppose this flower is ruddied? Nay, is it not likely that oceans and rivers, all waters indeed, are but throbbing veins in the frame of some Celestial Presence, blood of some God eternally dying for the life of all worlds?”

“I confess I do not follow you, Socrates,” said Cebes. “But there is a bitter wind blowing up these ways, and they say leopards are to be found on Cithaeron, and even a lion sometimes.”

“Let us go,” said Agathon. “The moon, already golden, has just topped that shoulder behind us.”

“By the way, Agathon,” said Socrates, “did you see the Torch-race at Athens recently? I hear there was one the night of the day when you were crowned for tragedy. Were not the torches, like flowers, flung from rider to rider? So this rhododendron blossom which has been to us subject for discourse, and indeed all nature, springing forward from the beauty that was its predecessor, is as one in a vaster torch-race than we can imagine. Why do you not put it in a poem?”

“Because I am tired, Socrates. To what end do I do these things? For fame after death, a certain report when one has long passed away from these shadows, and, whether conscious or totally dead, cares nothing for them? That is as if a man who has become archon and strategos should be jealous that his name should be remembered among the little boys at the school where he learnt alpha beta years since.”

“Well, not for fame, then, but because the God wills it.”

“What, I cannot see him!”

“Yet you saw him moving in those red-boled ilexes.”

“That was poetic fancy.”

“What, then, have these beautiful words and visions, by which you poets impose upon us and encourage us, no efficacy for yourselves? When you speak brave things, have you no belief in your speech yourselves? Are you like blind men dispensing noble pictures? Or trumpeters to whom their own battle-ring has no message of enheartenment, no nerving to strong endeavour, because they are deaf?”

“By no means, Socrates. Of the wine whereof the God has made us the cupbearers to others we have first drunk ourselves; yes, and it is the same wine which the God himself has tasted before all. Nevertheless, Socrates, I am not strong at heart now. Even these poems of mine, which men praise and say, ‘Agathon has written well,’ it seems to me may perish, and none may know whether such a one as Agathon ever lived and wrote, or, knowing, may possess naught that he wrote. Then would all my labour be gone in vain, and the gift of the God in me spilled where none could regather it.”

“To think thus, it seems to me, Agathon,” said Cebes, “is as if a rider in the Torch-race should complain that he may not carry the link to the end instead of standing aside, rejoiced in the general spectacle, and knowing that it is his torch that is flashing onward, though in another’s hands.”

“Cebes speaks well,” said Socrates. “But see, it is long past ox-loosing time. The moon we noticed is now high in heaven, and is making clear recesses unmarked in daylight, whilst other places, once prominent, are in shadow. May we not think that hereafter, it may be aeons hence, some God will send up a moon that will bring out hidden places in the long dim valleys of human existence? Behold those figures before us on the dappled paths. One is of a man driving his ox home, another a woman bearing water from the fountain, a third is a child carrying wood. Think, my friends, for what ages mankind has been driving oxen, bearing wood and water, humble endeavours wrought to what passionate music accompanying—thought and song of poet and hero and philosopher!”

“You have almost made me cheerful in spite of myself,” said Agathon, smiling. “Yet the work of these, Socrates, is unlike mine. Of my work they, I think, take little heed, and mine is of such a nature that if it fails from remembrance it fails altogether, and is as if it had not been done at all.”

“I am not sure that I agree with you, Agathon,” said Cebes.

“Nor I myself, sometimes,” replied Agathon. “But did you see that? The stars which we saw first have disappeared, and others have taken their places. Yet it was for all the world as if the first, in vanishing, thrust a hand upward, and these have snatched a torch as from one about to sink below water. It is as if the heavens were emulating our Athens, and some God had set a lampadephoria in the sky. Or is it that we are poor copyists of what they have first shown us? By the dog, Socrates, after our conversation this evening I shall think of man as the worst of all plagiarists.”

“And of this life also,” said Socrates, “shall we not consider it in the nature of a true lampadephoria, in which, as one disappears, another receives the torch from his falling hand and so presses on?”

“We may so consider it, Socrates, and I could be well content thus were my mind not distressed with the fear that, when you fail, there will be none to pick up your torch. For in all our time there has been none like you.”

“For that, Agathon,” answered Socrates gently, putting a hand on his shoulder, “have no fear. Apollo, the Master of Divination, has opened a matter to me his servant. Though neither you nor I may leave aught which, reading, men may remember us and say, ‘Thus Socrates spake,’ or, ‘These are the words of Agathon, the good poet that Athens, and all states besides that are not barbarian, reverenced,’ yet in this lampadephoria the torch must pass through the hands of us both. And what if hereafter we should meet with some visible God bearing these your forgotten poems in his hands, to whom they have been, though you knew it not, an accepted gift and sacrifice?”

II

Lysander the Thracian

Personae: Socrates, Cebes, Agathon, Apollodorus

“We will not climb the hill to-night,” said Socrates. “In a village to the west there is a statue which I would see.”

“What statue?” asked Cebes. “Hermes? For it must be a winged God that they worship here.”

“Neither Hermes nor any other whose name we have heard.”

“There are countless godlings in such spots as this,” said Agathon. “Each slope has its deity, and there are Naiads for all the rivers. But let us go, since Socrates desires it.”

“Do you remember, Agathon,” asked Socrates, “that inscription-poet whose name you told us yesterday?”

“Lysander the Thracian? What of him, Socrates?”

“I wish to know more concerning him.”

“And I also,” said Cebes. “You knew him, Agathon?”

“Well,” answered Agathon; “for at one time he wrote choruses for my plays. In boyhood we were friends, but I have now not seen him for these twenty years. Aristophanes, who also knew him, told me he had died.”

“Why did you cease to write with him?” asked Cebes.

“By his own wish, though indeed I made no objection. No matter how his choruses began, there was but one ending to them. Like that stream we saw a few days since, they ran and were lost amid a marsh of wild flowers. He himself saw this. ‘Agathon,’ he said, ‘I think every tree I have ever seen has flung a seed into my brain, and all have shot up into foliage, like the shrubs that crown crumbling temples.’”

“Had he then no interest in man or woman?” Socrates asked.

“Much interest, but not such as a dramatist must have. He studied deeply the works of Anaxagoras and Heracleitus, as you yourself have done, Socrates, and to their speculations had added yet stranger ones of his own. He had held much intercourse with those Hebrews whom you mentioned yesterday, in his youth having journeyed in Cyprus and in the lands to the east of it. He had learnt their myths and interpreted them after his own fashion, framing his life upon the pattern of what he considered them to mean. To a Hebrew whom I met I related some of these interpretations, but he would by no means allow them to be just or possible.”

“I wish you would be good enough to speak more particularly, Agathon,” said Cebes. “I have heard none of these myths. Give us an example of what sort they are.”

“Certainly, Cebes. There was the story of one Elias, a great teacher of theirs, such as our own Homer, whom they fable to have been carried from earth alive, in a chariot of fire. ‘This story,’ said Lysander, ‘is no other than the one which we have debased in our legend of Medea. We have taken dirty buckets to the wells of the Gods and drawn impure water thereby.’”

“He never met Socrates,” said Apollodorus.

“However that may be, it was not about this teacher’s manner of departure that he cared, but a theory of his own. The story relates that Elias, like our own Pheidippides, met with Pan on a mountain.”

“Not Pan, surely, Agathon!” said Cebes.

“Well, the God, then. ‘Now,’ Lysander used to say—and I wish, Socrates, I could reproduce his manner as he said it, for without the manner the words are nothing—‘when he met Pan he died: for, whatever may be the case with the lesser Gods of whom the mass of men speak, sure am I that no man could see what he saw and remain a living man.’”

“Pheidippides did not die,” said Apollodorus.

“Lysander maintained he did,” said Agathon, “and it was a ghost that raced from Marathon. ‘Elias,’ said Lysander, ‘died beyond a doubt. Then do you not see, Agathon,’—and his eyes would flash with excitement—‘the reason for all those astonishing deeds of his, deeds far surpassing mortal power, even as that race after Marathon was beyond a Pheidippides that had not died? They were the actions of a ghost disguised as a man. Hence, too, the wondrous fashion of his departure; that burning chariot was his whenever the God willed to withdraw him from these earthly fields of service.’”

“I cannot see the purpose of all this, Agathon,” said Cebes. “It seems to me that Lysander was a madman who accepted barbarian myths for fact.”

“No madman, Cebes,” said Agathon earnestly, “though others have been of your opinion. But I tell you this to explain his strange life, of which I am going to speak. Whenever he heard of deeds which seemed to him above mortal reach, he affirmed them to be the action of spirits working in human guise. ‘For there is no other means of doing such things,’ said he, ‘than by a soul itself free from fleshly desires; and this the soul cannot be till the body has perished.’ For this reason he went on a pilgrimage through Hellas, going not to temples and famous cities as other men do, but only to fountains and green places. It was there, he said, that Pan met Elias and Pheidippides’ and he also would meet him and attain the death of the body. Visiting these places he hung them with epigrams, of which, having written them, he took no heed, though others have collected them.”

“Now that, Agathon,” said Socrates, “I confess I do not understand. Why should such a man write these epigrams, or, having written them, take no further heed of them?”

“Why, for that matter, he set no store by them. But it was his gift, and the God willed that he should use it. For a young man’s verses they were very well, and he knew it; therefore he wrote them, for he knew they must be written then if ever. ‘To every season its harvest,’ said he, ‘and I shall gather no spring flowers in my autumn. Men slight these verses of mine, nor do I exalt them overmuch. Yet they are such as Sophocles cannot write, for he is an old man. Though, indeed, he writes far better.’ After he had gone over Hellas I saw him and asked him if he still wrote these inscriptions. ‘No,’ he answered, ‘for I have written enough. The wine of that vintage was easy-running and would flow still did I choose, though not with its former freshness. But there is a journey appointed me, and I may not linger. Epameinondas spake truly, that Pan has given me no second pipe; so, since the first I will use no longer, though indeed it is not broken, I am silent.’”

“Therein he was surely inconsistent with his own words, as Agathon has reported them,” said Cebes.

“I think not,” said Socrates. “Such a gift as his was for a while only, like playthings which we give to active children, who later are to use things of graver purpose. Not to use it at all would have argued him ungrateful, for the Gods intended its use; but to use it overlong would have shown him unworthy of the love they bore him.”

“Certainly some God must have loved him well,” said Agathon, “for all men that met him did. He had a spirit raised far above detraction and envy and of invincible gentleness, smiling at all slights of men. And, unless unseen grace attended him, he had not perished nobly as he did.”

“How, Agathon?”

“Tell us, Apollodorus,” said Agathon. “You were present when Aristophanes told us, and I do not remember all details clearly.”

“Among the mountains behind Ilium, in a snowstorm. He was found dead above desolate rocks, with a little child beneath his body, warm and covered from the wind.”

“A villager’s maid that had become lost,” said Agathon. “They say his face outshone the leagues of snow around him for the great happiness in eyes long dead.”

“Then I think he did not die without some vision,” said Cebes.

Socrates laughed. “I believe Cebes will die a poet yet; as his Boeotian kinsman, Heracles, though no wand-bearer, was a mystic at the end.”

“How do you make that out, Socrates?” asked Cebes, “I mean what you say of Heracles.”

“Why, his living spirit went hence on a burning chariot, as this man’s of whom Agathon has told us. Was he not a true mystic as he lay on those pine-logs, with no other face to gaze into at the last but that of the sky our Father? or when he accomplished that which Apollo could not, snatching Alcestis from Death?”

“On that pyre he was himself, as it were, both priest and sacrifice, Socrates,” suggested Apollodorus.

“What other sacrifice than that of ourselves deserves the name?” replied Socrates. “The Gods granted a favourable wind for Iphigeneia, but for Protesilaus they gave a victorious strife and the greatest poem Hellas, or any land besides, has known.”

“I remember now, Socrates,” said Agathon, “another thing that Lysander held, which is singularly like something you said yesterday. He had travelled, and seen many barbarian customs. He was no true Thracian, though his father had dwelt by Olympus. And from foreign residence he had come to contemn no customs because they were barbarian, but even in such as were most debased sought for some truth; for the Gods, he always said, were clever hiders. Now, among a nation east of Gargarus is a custom, most horrible in my opinion, by which, when they build a king’s house or a temple, they bury a living child beneath its roots; not otherwise, they think, can the building stand.”

“But what truth could Lysander find in such a custom?” asked Cebes.

“This, that the Gods, if they wished this world to be secure, must lay its beams in blood. Beneath its floor he held there must be some God continually perishing, as you said, Socrates; and he thought that our myths, such as that of Typho under Aetna, proved this. By this means they have built a city with foundations. And the soul that was truly united to the God, he considered, partook of the pangs of that sacrifice. Becoming herself by herself, she was one with him, and the river ran back to the fountain.”

“Why not forward to the sea, Agathon?” asked Cebes. “For it is under such a figure that it seems to me easier to conceive of ourselves and the God. That a stream should return to its source cannot be imagined even when we speak of the soul, which is invisible.”

“Sometimes he did speak so; yes, frequently. But he used the other figure more eagerly, for he found it shadowed forth in myth. Of all our poets he held Euripides in greatest honour, next to Aeschylus and the divine Homer, for he thought him often inspired. When Euripides, in his Medea, says through the Chorus that ‘the hallowed streams run backward against their fountains,’ he said the sentence was nothing less than the flashing forth of divination. Euripides was the speaker, certainly, but the words were from Loxias. But what Euripides dimly guessed, he would go on to say, was plainly manifest to Boeotian shepherds. Then he would tell of a legend local to a dale in Oropus and mentioned, so far as I know, by only one poet, and he no true Hellene.”

“What poet, Agathon?”

“I have forgotten his name, but not the words:

When Phoebus in the lone Parnassian glade
His deity to Marsyas displayed;
And, by the lyre’s constraint and conquering might,
Recalled the huddling torrents up the height.

It was no concern of his where he found the myths that fed his mind. Truth, he said, he would accept with both hands, from whatever quarter’ and these lines he would quote for their allegory. ‘Doubt not, Agathon, that, as the brooks returned at the compulsion of Apollo, so our souls, all created things indeed, are climbing the mount of existence, obedient to some far-off music which even here flows subtly in upon us. And we that know’—for he would rank me with him—‘can climb the faster for the answering love within us. Therefore let us practise music, since it is music that calls us.’ Nor would he stop thus; for there was this strangeness in his mind, that nothing could be mentioned but his thought would pass swiftly to something far different, as it seemed to those he talked with.”

“As a lyre recalls Agathon to me, and I cannot think of one without the other,” said Cebes, smiling.

“With him there was no such obvious connexion,” replied Agathon, smiling back. “He would pass from a trireme to a mountain, or from Socrates to Ganymede.”

Cebes laughed. “Do you not think, Socrates, that Agathon is in somewhat this man’s disciple? For even so does his mind pass among things with bewildering speed, so that there are times when neither I nor any other Theban that ever lived could follow him.”

“He would justify his changes of subject,” said Agathon, “averring that firm cords bound all things together. Even in stones he saw a dim life stirring, whereby a rock was akin to an eagle. But I stray from my road. He would mention music and then would urge me to its practice. ‘Not the music of sound alone, Agathon, but that nobler music of thought and action. Do you not feel, do you not see, that there is some God among us who is seeking music, searching all paths whereby men wander? I have felt him amid crowded cities and tangled woods, by the sea-wharves where folk chaffer, and in stony passes where falcons fly. And as fowlers imitate the notes of birds they would snare, so he also at whiles will lure us by such audible music as we love and can ourselves produce. How else should we have a Homer, an Aeschylus, or the Hebrews an Elias? Also, there is ever present that yet deeper music which sings to us in the faces of our friends and in the smiles of Demeter our Mother; he that hears this music cannot fail of life fortunate and finding straight passage home to the Gods. This music, as some poet has justly said,

Must bear fruit and preciously proceed
To melody of many a noble deed.’”

“How is that, Socrates?” asked Cebes. “For we know that all poets have not been good men.”

“I will let Agathon explain, since he is himself a poet,” answered Socrates. “If he is in difficulty, I will come to his help.”

“Then I will explain it as Lysander did, Socrates, for I put the same question to him. He said there were two chief musics, each incomplete without the other. First, there is that which speaks to us through our senses, that which we call harmony and poetry, yes, and painting and sculpture—truly a noble music: but this availed nothing without that nobler music yet which our minds take in from heroic and unselfish deeds. Food, he said, was good and necessary, but only that it might give strength for effort and labour. And, as we see those who do not work but banquet only become sickly and unsightly, so, if a poet dwelt long amid the lower musics and abstained from that which is above all, Loxias, the Sender of Pestilence, smote him with a disease of the spirit. Does this explanation satisfy Cebes? Or has Socrates anything to add?”

“Very little, Agathon,” replied Socrates. “Lysander, I must confess, seems to me to have put the matter well. But I would add this, that even amid these lower musics poets do not always discriminate rightly. In their own judgment they can discern truly, but too often they bend to the clamour of such as, being no poets themselves, yet claim a special knowledge of what poets have written, and a gift of judgment above others. Then it happens to them as to certain pilgrims to the shrine of Zeus Ammon. These, aware of the way, were nevertheless persuaded by the noise of scoundrels to carry their gifts and worship to another temple, which those affirmed to be Ammon’s. They honoured a demon, and the true God, angered at their folly, attended their homeward path with tempest, and they were wretchedly cast away.”

“What you say is very just,” said Agathon.

“In another sense than that of Lysander,” Socrates went on, “we may say that there are two musics, a lower and a higher. These, blended, will furnish the melody the God is seeking; but many hearken to and practise but the lower.”

“What music is that, Socrates?”

“That which is played by neither Pan nor Apollo, but by Priapus. But we have reached the village, and our goal is at hand. It is at the foot of this hill and beneath these pines.”

“There is one question more which I would ask concerning Lysander,” said Cebes. “When he found that his gift of poetry increased not, but rather died away, was it not in any wise a grief to him?”

“Sore grief at one time,” replied Agathon. “‘Up to a point,’ he used to say, ‘Sophocles and Pindar and I were all equals, like boys who keep the same class at school. But they have progressed, while the master has kept me here. Sophocles could write no better verses at twenty than I. But perchance, with scrambling toward that music we wot of, I am too breathless to sing; when I reach the hill-crest I shall see the harp-player, a fresher wind will brace me, and I may sing with him. Yet why I should be voiceless here I cannot tell, Agathon, for with each year I see more deeply and understand more justly. When I read verses by greater poets than myself, I can feel as the poet who wrote them, and I know in what mind he made them, so that he himself could know less clearly. It is his living spirit that I hear, far more than his words. Do you not think the master should promote me?’ But at other times he would be confident that even in this life his silence would be broken. ‘So let me make myself all I can, from day to day receiving with full hands what the God gives me, and entreating him to make my spirit pure’ for, as the swans do, I shall yet praise him before I die. As from trees we cut away branch and blossom that the fruit may be finer, so in place of a multitude of melodies the God will take one music which shall for ever pay both myself and him for the years of barren waiting.’ But is this the statue, Socrates?”

“It has no form that I can see,” cried Cebes. “Its head is neither that of a man nor of such beasts as the Egyptians worship.”

“It is supposed to be a lion, I believe,” said Socrates.

“Is it really this, then, that you wanted to see? I thought it would be some work worthy of our Attic sculptors, and it is a shapeless block of wood. It is not even stone.”

“What! Do you look for Attic sculptures in Cithaeron?” said Agathon. “For my part, I like its roughness. Pheidias for Athens; but for the glens of Cithaeron such rude artists as may fashion forth what these folk dimly imagine and worship.”

“Agathon is right,” said Socrates. “To me this vague outline, speaking of the thought of a mountain people whose ways are wrapt in mist, is better than the finest marble of Pentelicus. I assure you, the people hold this spot very sacred, and bathe their children yearly in this fountain, about the time when the Lacedaemonians celebrate their Hyacinthia. Since they consider it so, never doubt that it is sacred. Even this runnel will reach the sea. But what have you found, Apollodorus?”

“An inscription; in good Attic, though there is a rustic breath about it. It is in verse:

Cloud-nurtured, ocean-destined, back I stare
A space upon the hills where I was bred.
The mountain winds are round me, and I bear
The mountain’s benediction on my head.”

“Is it the statue or the stream that speaks?” asked Cebes.

“Neither—or both—or each by turn,” answered Socrates, with a laugh. “Agathon, I think we can tell who has been here before us.”

“Finding a statue of wood, he cut his words upon it,” said Agathon. “This woodcarving he was clever at, and exceedingly patient in its performance. You see the figure faces the mountain, as the epigram states. What else is there, Apollodorus?”

“Another inscription behind. Listen.

I have been young and may grow old,
But still, as when I was a child,
I glory in the morning’s gold,
The sight of flowers makes me wild.
Still, when the wind upon me blows,
My fervent spirit kneels and knows
Upon its kindling brows a breath
That shall survive the body’s death.”

“Since he has reached the mountain’s summit, do you think he is now singing, Socrates?” asked Cebes.

“Why not, Cebes? Or, to change your metaphor, regard the matter thus. They tell me that the orange at this height on Cithaeron is plentifully green, sometimes with flowers also, but bears no fruit; taken to our sunnier Attica, it blossoms and bears at once, and all the more richly for its temporary surcease. So this man’s spirit, as I well believe, gathering great virtue here, yet putting forth green leaves merely, is now bearing both flowers and fruit for the Muses’ banquets. What are you thinking of, Agathon?”

“That this man called me friend,” answered Agathon.

III

Neander of Megara

Personae: Socrates, Cebes, Simmias (brother of Cebes), Agathon, Apollodorus

“I have received tidings,” said Cebes, “that to-day Simmias will join us.”

“That will be a welcome thing to all of us,” said Socrates, “but how much to you! For without him you are, I think, as a husband separated from his wife. In all our discussions it is Simmias who has supplied the Muses’ lack in you.”

“And have you not noticed, Socrates,” said Agathon, “what efforts Cebes has made himself to supply that lack in his brother’s absence? It has been as if the gardener cut down a pomegranate, and the olive thereupon had tried to wreathe its fruit with the red blossoms of its neighbour. But yonder comes Apollodorus, and with him is one who can be no other than Simmias.”

Socrates rose from the stone on which he was resting. “Let us go to meet him. Behind that fountain is a hedge of oleanders, in front of which we may rest.”

“See,” said Cebes, “Apollodorus is running, as he always does when he is excited. I wonder what has moved him. Though he has a special fondness for my brother, yet that would hardly stir him thus. We shall know, for he is nearly at hand.”

Just then Apollodorus burst upon them. “O Socrates,” he cried, “Neander of Megara is dead.”

“It is true,” said Simmias, as he joined them. “And what to say I know not, Socrates, for, as you are aware, he was to me as my own soul. It was the news of this that delayed me, else I had come to Cithaeron sooner.”

“Let me speak,” said Agathon, “for I see that Socrates will not find words readily. I know that his love for Neander was scarcely less than yours, Simmias; and I myself also, though I met him but once, am shocked by news so unexpected and dreadful. You, then, Simmias, if you can so far be master of your sorrow, tell us the things that we long to know.”

“I will try, Agathon. Though, indeed, even now the whole seems to me a dream and I a man engaged in unreal battlings, from which the laughter of a friend will wake me. You will remember that when you came to Cithaeron I was forced to stay behind on private business, which I must finish ere I could rejoin you. It was the second day after your going that a runner came up to me with a letter. It was from Evenus, who was with Neander when he perished.”

“Perished, Simmias?” asked Cebes. “Then he died by violence?”

“Violence, truly,” answered Simmias. “But you shall hear. As you know, these three years we have not seen each other’s face, though our love has continued unabated, and letters between have been constant. But since he left Megara to reside in Sicily we have not met. This summer Evenus, for their friendship was of long standing, went to Sicily to see Neander, and the two set forth upon a tour of the mountains. As you have often heard me tell, Neander was a singular lover of hills and all running waters, and for the first few days, says Evenus, their journey was one such as man can hardly have known since Heracles and Theseus travelled through Arcadia and beyond Taygetus. By every brook or water-cup amid the rocks they paused, shaking down the white raspberry-blooms for an offering to the Naiad, and flinging crowns of parsley-fern upon the surface; nor would Neander by any means pass by till they had poured libations. One thing that he said Evenus remembered specially. Evenus had remarked, ‘Is it not foolish of us, Neander, to pour libations thus, when the gift that we offer the Wave-queen is nothing but what is her own and has first been taken from her?’ And Neander, making him no answer directly, drew up the flower-strewn water in the cup which his hands made, and, fixing his eyes—you remember those steadfast eyes, Socrates?”

“Even as I shall remember the eyes of Athene when I meet them after death.”

“Fixing his eyes on the sunset, which was withdrawing behind the pines of Aetna, he said, ‘Spirit that callest back the sun thou hast sent up into the heavens, even so let me pour back the life I have drawn from thee, as I pour back this water to the Power that owns it.’”

“You remind me of the time when I met Neander at Eleusis,” said Socrates. “It was the time when the great pomp begins, and he was carrying a wand when I questioned him, as that day I had questioned many. ‘To what purpose do you do all this, Neander?’ I had asked him at last. And he answered, ‘Now does the Earth-Mother set forth in quest of her child. And, Socrates, I know beyond doubt that there is some power, of which I am no less the child than Kore of Demeter, that is in quest of me, and by this token of the wand I signify that I am aware of that search and am striving to meet it.’ At the time there was flaring of torches, and many were sounding instruments; amid all these excited ones was Neander, intoxicated beyond the rest, though his outward deeds were calm. But I have broken your story.”

“It was on the fourth day of their travel that the end came,” went on Simmias. “They had been talking of that passage where Homer makes Odysseus speak of his striving to save his own soul and his comrades’ homeward way; ‘little dreaming,’ said Evenus, ‘that for Neander the voyage was so nearly over and the Happy Isles at hand.’ They had been like children again with the large and foolish joy of those hills’ evening by evening chasing each other among the pines or lying back upon the bilberry growth to look into the sky, and talking, in the villages where they rested, of old friends and memories, ‘of you and of Socrates,’ wrote Evenus, ‘not least.’ So on this fourth morning they came to a steep path amid the mountains, and here Neander must needs climb to a rock that overlooked all the region of pines and pastures. The attempt proved hard and dangerous beyond expectation, but Neander would have no turning back. ‘Let us fable that we are climbing Olympus,’ said he. ‘Come, Evenus, I will banquet with Gods and Heroes before you.’ So speaking, he sprang lightly forward, and, coming upon a smooth patch of ground, had skirted a mass of out-jutting rock and was out of Evenus’ sight. Evenus followed at leisure, smiling at his friend’s eagerness, and, indeed, sat down and rested, knowing that Neander must wait for him at the summit. Even when he went on and saw no sign of his comrade, he was not greatly perplexed; for the morning, though well advanced, was still cold and had been like an intoxicating wine to Neander. What then was likelier than that he was lurking behind some tree or boulder, for the joy of seeing his friend’s amazement and fruitless search? So thinking, and resolved to foil Neander of his pleasure, he went at a quiet pace toward the village where they had agreed to rest an hour, never doubting that the other would join him. Thrice on the way it seemed to him as if Neander called him, in what he took for a mock voice of distress, which not heeding, but smiling at it, he trudged on. At length he reached the village and the inn. It was a big village, and at certain seasons many pilgrims came here, for the sacred meadows of Enna were hard by. The inn’s sign was the Castor and Pollux, which pleased Even us. ‘ If Neander has joined the company of the Gods,’ he said, ‘it is well that we should meet beneath this sign, the Immortal with the Mortal Brother. Or perchance he has lingered to pick lilies that he may bear to Persephone.’ Jesting thus, he took his seat and called for refreshment. Scarcely had this been put before him when Neander entered the room. As Evenus was glad to remember afterward, there was no trouble on the face, only a steadfast looking toward him. So, then, his friend came into the room, yet immediately went out again. This happened twice, with such a strangeness that Evenus could no longer continue at meat but rose and called for him that kept the inn; and when neither from him nor from any that were in the place could he by any manner hear of Neander’s coming there, he went forth, taking others with him, and hastened to the hills. Now the place where he saw his comrade last was a yoke of rock that ran up from a deep lake, ever more wildly till it became the wall that they had striven to climb; and on the farther side of the summit was a steep face, and at its foot also was water. Here, then, they found Neander, broken among the stones at the wave-edge. That night, and for five nights that followed, Evenus lay without sleep, for horror of the thing he saw. Neander’s body they burned among the mountains where he died; and with it they burned handfuls of the hill-flowers that he loved, for this is a custom among the folk of that part. Thus, they think, will the spirits of their friends enter Kore’s hall bearing the Sicilian blooms that she longs after, and they will find favour with the Queen. Yet my friend had no need for such fragrance, being himself the very flower of love and valour.”

“Comfort yourself and us, Simmias,” said Socrates, “by speaking for a space of Evenus, for I confess that it is for him my mind is troubled. However dreadful appears this manner of Neander’s death, I know that he could not die without approving Gods, and somewhere he has found delight; for he was never of the crowd that carry wands but do not know the God. Of him we will ask hereafter; but now speak of Evenus, for his pain must have been beyond conception. Tell us, is he still living?”

“Living, Socrates; but indeed you say well. He will not forget, though he live as long as did Teiresias, the sight of those broken limbs. His mind, he wrote, carried pictures that neither Lethe nor any other stream of Gods or men can wash out. After Neander’s body had been burnt he fell sick of a fever, and all but died. But among the hills was a leech who cured not his body alone, but his mind, whereby he became well. Two thoughts had been an especial trouble to him; as, first, that Neander was not killed by the fall, but died in slow pain, and, second, that, had he not lingered when Neander ran forward or hastened toward the village when he missed him, he might have saved him. These two thoughts were a torment beyond expression to him.”

“And are they still?” asked Agathon.

“No, for the leech I spoke of, an old man who in his youth had been a great warrior and fought with the Phoenicians when Hellas and Persia were at strife, gave him comfort. Questioning Evenus, he learnt the great love that had been between him and Neander, and spoke thus, that the pain of dying must have been brief, if indeed Neander reached that bottom alive at all: ‘and during such pain,’ said he, ‘be sure that the knowledge of your love and presence near him would be a strength, as your friendship had been a joy for many years past. Grieve not, then; rejoice rather that in you is that which can comfort in death.’ These words were as a balm to Evenus’ mind; and as for the other thought, the leech bade him take no more note of it, for in such thoughts is no profit. What is done is done, and the issue is with Zeus.”

“And for yourself, my brother?” asked Socrates. “For all this has hurt you sorely.”

“Why, when I heard this, Socrates, my mind became empty of all other thought. Leaving the house, I strode swiftly along the Eleusinian Way; I longed to get far from the dwellings of those I knew, and that way had sacred memories for me. It seemed to me that Neander must be eager to speak with me, seeing there was so much to tell between us two; and it seemed also that along the Earth-Mother’s road, if anywhere, his spirit would meet with mine. But I saw him not, neither then nor since, though each day I have looked for him. One thought, which as yet was hardly a thought, was in my mind: ‘Neander is dead, Neander is dead.’ The meaning of this I could not then understand, but it is coming to me now and I see that it is ‘Simmias is dead, Simmias is dead.’ This loss is not less than that of a most dear brother, for, indeed, no brother could have been to me what Neander was. You have a sign, O Socrates, as all men know, whereby your spirit is from time to time forbidden from certain courses; even such a sign was Neander, the voice of God to me, and it is for his approbation that I have laboured these many years. Therefore this life of mine has become like a scabbard lacking the sword.”

“My brother speaks truth,” said Cebes. “Their comradeship was such that I think Persephone herself will feel grief for the cheerless subject she has gained. If in Hades the souls of the dead are still living, as many say, Neander’s loss will not be less than that of Simmias.”

“It seems to me, Socrates,” said Agathon, “more likely that the soul of such a man is neither in Hades nor any such place as men have fabled. Dying though he did ere fame and what the world deems high achievement had come to him, yet I cannot doubt that his race was accomplished and the work for which the God sent him. And beyond doubt it is for some grave reason that his spirit has been called hence. Perchance the God we spake of yesterday, I mean he that is seeking music, had need of just such a strain as this man’s spirit could furnish for the completion of some such ode as they sing on Olympus, where Heroes are the music and each soul an embodied song. Or there may be deeds and dangers such as we cannot dimly imagine for whose accomplishment the Gods had no equal warrior at their hand. You also, Simmias, rejoice in this, for it is not less your honour than Neander’s; as Callimachus the Achaean has said, fabling even thus of his friend whom an untimely death had taken,

My heart, what honour, since they could not find,
Except thy friend, a champion to their mind,
But, ranging through the ranks of being, chose
The pilgrim many waters could not stay!

Rejoice, moreover, that your love can pierce so far; for be sure that, in whatever fields or beneath the banner of whatever God Neander is now striving, it is this earthly friendship that he remembers and wherein he is strong.”

“It is such thoughts that have been a trouble to me,” said Simmias. “Even here I knew myself no comrade for a man of such singular purity of spirit. And now that I have dreamt of him growing ever greater amid service that I know not of, I have fears that if our souls ever come together again by the grace of some Master that awaits us hereafter he will be still less my mate, even should he yet remember me. In which thoughts, O Socrates, one thing has been a deep comfort to me and shall be, though I think you will smile when I tell it. During these days I have been reading afresh the letters that Neander has written since he went to Sicily, and things not noted at the time have come to be of very great force. Not only have I marked with new wonder the exceeding love and grace of his words, but at the close of more than one letter are these words, variously expressed as the mood caught him: ‘Yours while I am mortal—and after,’ or ‘Yours while my eyes delight in daffodils, whether these of Sicily or those some God will hereafter lead me to in Hades.’ Now the words were sportively written, yet I cannot but believe, Socrates, that his spirit had a meaning behind them; and it seems to me that even now I hold his promise, and a compact is between us. Yes, and when I also in my turn become a ghost, if Neander should prove forgetful, I think I should appeal him at the bar of the Nether Gods themselves, however great a God or Hero he may be. Wherefore let his letters be buried or burned with me, for I shall want them whither I go.”

“And me also,” said Socrates, “you may call as witness, should that suit come on, for I remember Neander making this promise to you on a dusk by Ilissus.”

Agathon laughed. “Then may we carry earthly writings into those halls, Socrates? Or have letters ghosts, as those Sicilians seem to have held that flowers have? For I have heard that Charon by the weight can tell when any that have not died seek passage in his boat. Then will not the old dark-haired man with the oar be able to know that the ghost of Simmias is carrying letters that have not died? I think, after all, you must have the letters burnt.”

“One thing in my brother’s story,” said Cebes, “strikes me as strange—I mean, that Evenus’ memory of what happened should be so exact and of such little things.”

“There is nothing strange there,” answered Socrates. “Always after such times our memory remains exact of all that we see and hear. Did you not know this? Though we do not note things at the time, yet when the sharpness of sorrow turns our mind back all stands out very plain. It is as when one is going through dark paths by night, seeing little but confused shadows; yet when a sudden stir causes us to look, lest there be a snake or a wolf at our back, we swing our lantern round, and every twig or dry leaf that we have passed becomes apparent. So, in such cases as this of Neander, our grief is as a lantern turned upon backward events.”

“I have heard, Simmias,” said Agathon, “that Neander wrote verses. If you have any that he has written, I wish very much that I might see them.”

“It was but little that he wrote, and that often halting in metre, for his thoughts ran not easily into verse. But you judge rightly if you think that nothing that proceeded from such a mind can be wholly without interest; for these verses, though far from faultless, are noble with that cheerful gravity that made all beautiful that he wrote or said. Had he lived his mind would have given herself to philosophy, and therein, as I think, he would have won an imperishable garland. Or what do you think, Socrates?”

“Even as you do, Simmias. Beyond all skill of words, though in this he was by no means deficient, was a deeper quality, such as I have not seen in equal degree in any other of his years. Always and on all subjects he thought rightly, with a purity of vision that beyond doubt endeared him to our clear-eyed Lady. This gift you may say was of the soul rather than of the mind, and I will not gainsay you. But the deepest and the best thinking is the work of that which goes below all effort of the mind, and comes from the soul at rest amid a region where no vapours are. Hence the best in character, when they are such as Neander, cannot fail to be the best in thought as well.”

“One thing more would I say concerning my friend; if ever man had favouring Gods and friendly, he was that man. He bore upon his brow a red mark which he averred to be the prick of Hermes’ rod. Once he had dreamt that one had bent above him in sleep and sealed him thus of the company of the dead, and he had awakened to find his face bleeding. With Hermes had stood a God whom he said to be none of those that Hellas honours, unless, indeed, poets describe and sing them awry. This God was young like Apollo, yet graver-eyed than Prometheus’ bearded and exceeding beautiful; but there was a sorrow in his face for which Neander wept, and he was one that had come sore stricken from battle, for there was a spear-thrust in his side and his hands were bleeding, as will happen when one has gripped the sword overlong in fight. This God, said Neander, took the wand from Hermes, who seemed as though he feared him greatly, and he touched Neander’s brow, as I have said, with the words: ‘Whom thou knowest not thou hast sought, and I have found thee. Hereafter know that I dwell with the pure of spirit; and wherever thou shalt seek thou canst not fail to find me. Yet a little while and I will wholly lift the veil from my face and call thee.’ Now Neander held this God to be none other than the Voice that rules you, Socrates; and he held, moreover, that he was the true Lord of men, and the Gods of whom the common people talk were no Gods. Always he strove, by prayer and purification of spirit, to come to that vision again; and he looked for his sleep with that eagerness with which men await a mistress, for he hoped ever for that dream and its inhabitant. And though he saw this not, yet his confidence concerning him he saw did not lessen, for in his last letter ere death he wrote: ‘Many things have been vexing me, yet is my mind at greater peace than aforetime, for I have of late been more than ever conscious of the calm victorious presence of my Master. Whence is it that my thoughts have ofttimes burst out singing, as the swans do before death. Nay, though I have not seen even in slumber him whom I seek, yet certain am I that he cares concerning me and has noted the many tokens of my search that I have lifted up for him to see. At times more certain am I of his closeness than I may ever be of my own body; and, three nights since, I dreamt that he sent a messenger to me, who bore a cup. This cup, he said, was that from which his master had been drinking, and he bade me know that I must shortly drink this wine, wherefore I might taste it now in sleep. I did so, and it was exceeding bitter in the mouth; but when I had drunk there came into my whole being such a sweetness that for wildness of joy I awoke. Now what this dream might signify I know not, but it is surely some great good, whence is it that my soul remains at such peace as she has not known since her coming hither.’ So he wrote, and I, his friend, rejoiced in his exaltation of spirit.”

“But did he leave no record, save in letters,” asked Agathon, “of experiences so stirring beyond the common knowledge of men?”

“Little indeed. In his younger days he wrote much, and not over-well, to my thinking. But, three years since, there came to him a mastery of thought and speech as great as it was sudden. With the coming of this his old fever and restlessness of spirit left him, and he became most strong and calm, hereafter writing little, though that little very nobly. I think that he felt that his power had come to him while his years were yet young, and it seemed to him that he might bide his time. Wherefore is it to my mind above words a pitiful thing that the Gods have hurried him hence, when so fair a way was opening before him and us.”

“So we judge after our manner,” said Agathon, “but what fairer way he is now treading we little deem. But of him we may say that he was not altogether ignorant of that which he sought:

Moving with men, he raised his eyes, to find
A watching Friend; one glimpse that presence kind
Vouchsafed, no more—but now not Lethe’s wave
Can bar of second sight beyond the grave.”

“Indeed, we can say no more than that,” said Socrates; “assuredly he has found good Gods and the face of his Divine Companion. And you, Simmias, rejoice in the knowledge that your friend’s soul was at great peace ere he died. This peace was such a cloud as Homer pictures Zeus casting about his dear son Sarpedon when he would carry him in death afar from bloodshed and battle and the manifold weariness of men. Even such a cloud of peace shut in the spirit of Neander that, when he awoke at the feast of Gods and Heroes, he might lift a restful brow, nowise other than that of the souls about him. In the memory of this exult, then, for it is greater cause of joy than your fancies are of sorrow.”

“There is comfort in your words,” answered Simmias, “and henceforward I will strive so to think. Yet I would that my friend would send to me but one blossom from those Happy Fields where they say the Blessed are, for then might my mind be at peace.”

IV

Sophocles and Neander

Personae: Socrates, Cebes, Simmias, Agathon, Apollodorus

“There is one,” said Simmias, “and he our noblest of poets, who will rejoice for this death of Neander. There was none that Sophocles loved more deeply. In Neander’s eager spirit he said that his own playtime became visible to him and he was again the boy who led the triumph after Salamis.”

“I have heard of his love for Neander,” said Socrates. “Truly he will rejoice that their friendship is restored so speedily, though in Hades he will not lack comrades as he did here. Long ere he died that old man must have thought oftener of that other world than of this one. Year after year the number of his comrades had been gathering round Pluto’s throne, a goodly company. There, I think, is no longer his ancient rivalry with Aeschylus, for all are gentle. As for Sophocles, he was never other; and for Aeschylus the fragrance of those flowers by Lethe, since the meadows of asphodel are said to grow hard by Oblivion’s brook, will have entered his soul and set it at rest. Even the long-haired Mede will find him, though remembering Marathon, yet dreaming of peace with all. Not there will he withdraw from his younger comrade, as once to Sicily; for in Hades no wrong or rivalry can enter.”

“Sophocles even here,” said Agathon, “was not uncompanioned. I saw him like his own Oedipus, in a darkness to the outer world, but all luminous within. I called upon him ere I left Athens, and I found him like one who is hearkening for a voice. The space where he sat I truly felt to be holy, as if there were presences of which I was dimly aware, but which the old man saw plainly. This I said to him, and with a smile he answered me. ‘It is as if I were my own Oedipus, Agathon. My mind has gone before me, and it is my body that remains. At whiles I seem to hear the call of some God who chides me for lingering; I have dreamt of the nether thunders, and last eve Aeschylus stood by me, as Theseus in my play. Nightly that voice rises: “O Sophocles, Sophocles, why linger we to go? Already long have I waited for thee.” Nay, in some dreams has been more than voice; a face have I seen, shining through the darkness of my visions, so true is what Aeschylus has said, that “in sleep the mind is brightened in its eyes.”’ Then said I: ‘And have you, old king, any comfort of comradeship, an Antigone or Ismene whom we see not? For this room seems to me as a temple which only mortal eyes imagine to be empty.’ But to this he gave me no answer; only over his face broke that smile of inexpressible sweetness by which men knew that he was thinking of his friends of youth and, most, of that dearest companion of all, Iophon, who perished in Cimon’s twofold conquest.”

“It was that Iophon on whom Neander composed an epigram which pleased Sophocles,” said Socrates; “not for its merits, but because the subject was beloved by him so greatly, nor less because since that death many years had passed him by, scattering snow on Hellas’ wisest head.”

“What epigram, Socrates?” asked Agathon.

“I know it,” said Apollodorus, “for I have a book in which Neander wrote other epigrams as well. It ran thus:

Then, when on double wing, by Cyprus’ coast,
Ear-hovering Victory blessed our Attic host,
What eagle soared? Henceforth is Iophon
A God, and Sophocles must walk alone.”

“The epigram is not a good one,” said Agathon, “but you said that Neander was no poet. However that may be, this friend of youth was to Sophocles a memory deeper than all love of living men, his successors. Often would he break off from talk into reverie concerning him, and in his last years few could call him back from such a mood. When I saw that smile, like the light of sunset on narcissi in those groves of his dear Colonus, I knew that he was lost to me; so after a while I rose softly and went, leaving him musing. Next day I was told that he awakened when I was gone and asked for me. But I saw him no more. For the times were disturbed, and I had no longer place among my people. Two years later I heard that Athens was in mourning, and Hades, no doubt, in festival. For you know those lines of Aristophanes:

What noise is this of drums and joyful cries?
What eager light in Persephassa’s eyes?
Hades is glad; the solemn pomp this day
Of Hermes leads Lord Sophocles this way.

That, I think, is the only epigram Aristophanes ever composed, except another when Euripides died, which at my request he destroyed. Both he showed me in Thebes; the one on Sophocles is well known, he said.”

“In Sophocles’ last years such moods of abstraction were frequent, were they not?” asked Cebes.

“Very frequent,” replied Agathon. “He confessed as much to me. ‘Often, Agathon, though I seem to be attending to business, I am wrapped in a haze of inattention. I am playing truant and am wandering. Especially when the spring breeze blows toward me the faint odours of narcissi, and I know that the Earth-Mother is weaving with her own fingers a wreath of crocus for the hair of her dear Child, when the nightingale is arousing old memories that dwell within me like the Dryad in a withering oak, especially then do I find it hard to listen to what men would say to me. There are those who judge me over this matter and take it ill, saying that Sophocles at the end has become a mystic and a dotard; but my Master knows I am idling and he connives. For in my strength I have laboured enough, as he knows; and even the ox is set loose from his yoke a space before darkness and allowed to lie down, nor does his owner chide him.’ Often would he speak thus. Also, as the end neared, strange fancies would take possession of him, so that he seemed scarce the Sophocles that Athens knew; yet in all he did was such a sweetness and naturalness that I think no wise man could be offended.”

“You say well,” said Socrates. “I myself have seen him with such fancies. One thing especially I remember, which I have told to no one; but there seems to me no wrong in it—indeed, I thought it beautiful even to tears.”

“Let us know what you saw,” said Cebes, “for sure am I that Sophocles, under whatever mood, could not act other than justly and nobly.”

“I came upon him one evening with his brows garlanded and with flowers in every room; also, there were bowls of honey and water. As I entered he looked up with a smile. ‘I have been sacrificing to Zeus the Deliverer and to Hermes of Good Conduct and all Nether Gods; hence this fillet on my brows and these ivy-blooms of Colonus. There are still bowls of honey to be poured forth.’ Then said Hyperbolus the Phliasian, who was with me, ‘Utter not words of ill omen, Sophocles. Why sacrifice to the deities whom all men dread? And let others, on a day which Zeus ward far off, sacrifice to Hermes of Good Convoy for you.’ But he answered: ‘I sacrifice not for myself, for by my fillet you may see I have been priest. I sacrifice to Zeus the Deliverer.’ ‘But what notable deliverance has he wrought for you, Sophocles?’ I cried. ‘None for me,’ he said, ‘though he makes ready, but for another. My brother, Euripides, is dead.’ That was not the evening when we of Athens heard of Euripides’ death, but, as I after learnt, the very day he died in Macedon. So, because no word of this had reached me, I questioned Sophocles, but he told us nothing. ‘Ask me not how I know, Socrates, but it is true, as you shall hear ere long. Wherefore I have already decreed that my actors shall wear neither crowns nor shining dresses in this festival of Dionysus. And today I have sacrificed that my brother may have fortunate journey to the house where Aeschylus awaits him.’ It was well-nigh six weeks later that the news reached Athens of Euripides’ passing at Pella; though, strangely enough, that day a deep solemnity weighed on my spirit, and I had turned, I knew not why, to the home of Sophocles, whom I met but rarely. He told me one other thing that evening. That very day a letter had reached him from Euripides, which he held in his hand with trembling. Euripides had written of the love of Archelaus, the Macedonian tyrant, and of the great gifts he would press upon him; ‘but for myself,’ said he, ‘there remains no need of anything but Charon’s obol. The winds blow from the snowy hills and stir my tired blood, but I know that the soul is slipping free from her meshes. I have heard the steps of a Deliverer who will slash asunder her weak bonds, and I am glad to go. I have seen Hades in his hall, and there are chairs prepared for us both. Come, lest your garland wither with waiting; though herein I speak foolishly, since the Gods have crowned you imperishably.’ Whence was it that Sophocles alone had poured libations and scattered flowers to the Kings of Good Passage that day?”

“Neander was with Sophocles the day he died,” said Simmias, “and then also he found him garlanded. When Neander entered the poet’s cheeks were flushed and his manner wild, so that for the moment Neander thought him intoxicated. Sophocles, very unlike his wont, shouted to see the other enter. Now, though there was none who e presence was pleasanter to him than Neander’s, yet he never showed gladness except by a brightening of that gentle smile men loved. ‘Why so joyous, Sophocles?’ asked Neander, ‘and why this garland of wineberries and ivy?’ Then answered Sophocles, ‘There has been a feast, friend. Last night I lay in sleep, if indeed that could be sleep wherein I saw all things clearer than by day, and one gave a banquet to which all creatures came, not men alone, but the beasts and birds also. Yea, in this joy were the timorous lives of forest-ways partakers with us men. In my dream I stood without, trembling, though eager of entrance, till the Feast-lord cried: “Draw hither and fear not. For hast thou not heard that where I am there must my servant be?” So I came gladly. Then he that gave the feast called for certain who should bring water; and of those whom he sent I was one, and with me were some I knew, Pindar and Agathon and others—yea, Aeschylus and the son of Mnesarchus. Then, though this bearing of water is considered of all tasks the meanest, yet we went gladly; and herein befell a marvel, for the water which we brought became in that presence ruddy like wine, like wine in taste also, except that no wine, not even that which Odysseus gave to the Cyclops, was to be compared to this. And of it many drank freely.’

“Here Neander smiled. ‘Do you know, Sophocles, when you hailed me so at entering, and I saw the red flush of your cheeks, for one moment the thought came to me that you were intoxicated, though I knew this could not be?’

“‘I am intoxicated,’ answered Sophocles, ‘though this flush came otherwise. Did I not say there was a feast?’

“‘But the garland?’ asked Neander. ‘For that feast is finished.’

“‘No, it is not finished, though it is finishing. But the garland has reason. I, O my friend, was the God’s minstrel; do I not well at banquet-close to pass crowned into night?’

“‘Not easily do I follow you,’ cried Neander.

“‘Then listen,’ said Sophocles. ‘In this feast of which I told you the Master called me to him and spake thus: “On thy feet thou bearest dust of my ways, and thy cheek is red with the same bitter wind that has blown upon mine. Therefore thou shalt be my minstrel, singing longest and last.” Now when I woke, Neander, the dream’s meaning was clear, and I knew the message of Loxias my Lord. This feast is none other than the life whose end has come to-day, and so I have garlanded myself that I may pass into night crowned.’

“When Sophocles had finished saying all this he had become his gentle self again, with that calm smile playing on his face, like evening light on ripe corn. He talked much to Neander of his youth, and old companions, and his confidence that he would see them; much, too, of his happy life. ‘Lysander has told me,’ he said, ‘that in Egypt are sculptures of a king whose sole worship was Apollo, after whose name he had called himself anew. This king, with his wife and sons, is figured with lifted hands accepting the life-bearing rays of his Lord. Even so have I been in this world, with both hands taking the gifts of the God.’”

“What Lysander was that?” asked Cebes.

“A poet, of strange life and manner of thought, whom Sophocles knew; he came from Thrace. A man of wandering life—no man, but a breeze from high mountains, Sophocles styled him—who went to Asia and returned no more. Sophocles had met him, not often, but enough for remembrance; for the strange things he said and did remained in memory.”

“That he knew Sophocles I had heard,” said Agathon, “but nothing particular concerning their acquaintance.”

“Why, he was but a wanderer,” said Simmias, “a madman, said some, and worshipped alien Gods. I know little of him save by what Neander told me.”

“Neander knew him also?” cried Cebes.

“They met by chance, for one evening only, and more than ten years ago; yet from that brief encounter Neander carried a memory of deep love and reverence for him. Though a madman to many, he can have been no common wanderer, for neither Sophocles nor Neander would call him mad. ‘I am as one blind,’ said Neander once, ‘but could I have had that man as eyes and guide to my steps I had found what I seek.’ Aristophanes told me that the other held no less opinion of my friend.”

“One thing in that dream of Sophocles’ has been perplexing me,” said Cebes. “The God spoke of a bitter wind on the poet’s cheek. Now, how can that have been? For all know that he died well, having seen no evil. Yet the God cannot lie.”

“That, indeed, was more than Neander could explain, except that some lines from Euripides’ Andromeda had been dwelling in Sophocles’ thought. Remembering Perseus with cheeks all flushed when he alighted, Andromeda questions him, and he replies:

‘Ay, flushed as thine, and with the very breeze,
Dear Heart, whose frozen wing o’er tossing seas
Beat on thy breast and eyes ref raining sight
From terror of the waves that rolled in might.
Ah, shrinking lids I that on no death at last,
No sprawling ocean-worm obscene and vast,
Opened in fear, but on far other form,
Athene’s vigilant pilgrim through the storm,
Thy saviour!’

These lines were in his mind, the rather because he saw Athens as Andromeda, compassed round with fierce winds and waves, with what unknown woe about to leap to birth from those pregnant storms before her!”

“That drama is one of the few by Euripides that I have heard Aristophanes praise,” said Agathon. “I do not wonder that it should have haunted the last thoughts of Sophocles.”

“Indeed, he found singular pleasure in it,” said Simmias. “But I have more to say of what Neander told me. As this last afternoon wore on, Sophocles grew weary and would lie down; and in a while it became plain that he was dying. His sons were absent, for none had expected his death, and, except Neander and one or two who had slight ties of blood with him, he was alone at the end. He bade them nowise disturb the garland on his brow, even after death, but burn it with him; then, that he might see one more sunset, they carried him from the house. As he looked at the sea, he smiled upon Neander. ‘It is as after Salamis,’ he said. ‘To-night, friend, I shall lead a procession of nobler triumph. Do not weep, for it is no sad matter that a captive should be freed.’ At times he would speak to the air, as it seemed to them, or to some that they could not see; but, for the most part, his mind was wonderfully clear, and he lay quiet, saying little, but at great calm. Never had Neander known a deeper peace of sea and sky; even the olive in whose shade the poet rested had no trembling of the leaves. It seemed as if all things knew that Sophocles was dying and they would in no wise suffer any breath of disturbance about his finish. At last, a brief space after sundown, he lay without movement, so that they feared he had died, and went to bear him within. But he stirred and opened his eyes, then said, ‘You have waited overlong, my Lord, though I was ready. But I am coming.’ So speaking, he shut his eyes and lay smiling, and after a time they knew he was dead.”

“It was a fitting end,” said Socrates, “and right that Neander should be with him, for he was worthy. One thing that he told me of his first acquaintance with Sophocles seems to me beautiful, as showing what manner of men both were. It is well known that in his last years the poet became lonelier than his wont, though even in youth he was not a man of many friends. Companions he had in plenty, for kindliness he refused to none; but comrades few. And when Euripides, and you, Agathon, and so many who, whether he knew you closely or not, were in some sense his peers, had left Athens, he withdrew into a solitary greatness. It had become impossible for him to stir abroad without many pressing round him, nor was even his private dwelling free from strangers, many of whom were passing through the city from parts of Hellas or Sicily or even Asia. So that it was hard for any, unless his acquaintance was an old one, to become familiar with him. Strangers he would receive with grave courtesy and all kindness, but with nothing of friendship. When this habit was long confirmed upon him Neander met him by chance. Now by what ruling God this was ordered I know not, though to me it seems that without divine help it could not have befallen, but Sophocles at their first meeting became exceedingly simple and intimate. For nigh on one day they kept together, till midnight, when they went forth, still in talk, for it was full moon. That evening the aged poet spoke without the least reserve, bringing from his memory things long past, his dead wife and Iophon his friend. But when Neander had gone a trouble came upon the other’s mind, and he was ill at ease, remembering how his secret breast had been opened to a stranger and one who seemed scarcely more than a boy. The more he reflected the more he wished that the conversation of the night might be undone. In this mood he began a letter to Neander, strangely seeking to gloss over certain of the things said; but this letter he could not finish, so kept by him. In the meantime Neander wrote, expressing the deep joy he had of their meeting and sending that epigram on Iophon which Apollodorus has given us. Then did Sophocles pluck up pen afresh and with abounding delight complete the letter and send it forth. For, finding, as he thought, that the other was a poet, all his misgiving was gone. This, that Neander was a poet, he said he had suspected, for not otherwise could he explain the fashion in which this young stranger had taken his confidence almost ere he was aware. Now was his mind at rest, for he conceived that all had happened according to the will of his lord Phoebus, and it was fitting that between poets there should be sympathy which overpassed all differences. What he had said was said, and he was content, knowing that he had but trusted a brother unwittingly. ‘As the lightning to the grey cloud, so you came,’ he wrote. ‘And where else should that brightness find a home?’”

“Yet Simmias has told us that Neander was no poet,” said Cebes.

“So in after days Neander himself often told Sophocles, but never got any answer other than a smile. The poet would in nowise admit that his divination had been wrong.”

“But how is this, Socrates?” asked Cebes. “I am a Theban, and so is Megasthenes, the sophist; yet so deeply is his Thebanhood hidden that I cannot think I could feel it or discover it if I knew not it was there.”

“No, but others, not being Boeotians, could,” said Agathon, “for he is of all sophists the most honest and foolish. Honest he is in spite of himself, though he nests among thieves, for his mind prevents subtlety; strive he never so, he remains Boeotian to the end.”

“That others who are not Thebans can discover his race is no disproof of what I say,” retorted Cebes. “It seems strange that Sophocles should have so divined his kinship with Neander.”

“Why,” said Socrates, “there is a myth to explain that. You must know that in the beginning of things the Gods planted a garden east of Asia, and in it a tree whose veins ran with the sap to fill hereafter the bodies of beasts and men. Breaking off its upper branches, they created men as bushes, each twig spreading into such a tree as our poets feign those of our woodlands are, a Dryad incorporate with her home. Remembering this, it was in some such sort that Zeus in later times transformed Syrinx and Daphne. But, being thus stationary and subject to all inclemencies of sun and weather, men murmured, so that Zeus, having pity on their state, freed them and gave them powers of movement. Those who sprang from one branch were alike in nature, so that all from one branch became poets or seamen or jesters, as the case might be. But in course of time from constant intermixture this was changed, till men became as we see them to-day. Yet even now, when in any man the blood of any one first branch becomes prevalent, he is as those first sprung from it and feels his kinship with all in whom the same sap has upwelled. Hence is it that poets cannot be hidden from poets nor robbers from robbers; and, even as olive grows by olive, so are they flourishing in comradeship. But, indeed, there is small need of any myth to explain how Sophocles knew Neander. Think you that Hermes could wrap his beauty up that Phoebus should not know him? Or have you not heard those lines of Empedocles? I will remind you:

Lea, often though in dress to men allied,
Not from the Immortals are the Immortals hid;
Their brothers push the playful mask aside;
The shrinking Splendour stands revealed amid
Its fellows’ laughter, terribly at bay,
Naked, all fleshly attributes away.

“It might be asked why the poet should speak of the discovered God as ‘terribly at bay.’ But the reason is that neither to Gods nor men is ridicule acceptable, and in the first flush of unveiling he conceives of the God as half angered, half timorous. In the same poem Empedocles says:

The Gods are ever known
Rather by what they suffer than they do.

Then who should more readily be seen at his full stature, most of all when present before such as Sophocles, than Neander? For, though but young, he had suffered deeply in the death, after illness and anguish of spirit two years protracted, of his mother; also, his father received a hurt at Delium whereby no day since has been free from suffering. And of all the things that I have seen nothing has been nobler than the love Neander showed his father. Assuredly, if after this life there are Gods who regard those who reverence sires, then will Neander be fortunate in the halls whither he has gone.”

“I also would speak here, Socrates,” said Simmias. “That poet we have mentioned, Lysander the Thracian, held that the spirits of those dead are not in Hades or any such place as men have fabled, but near to their friends. Yet, though no friendship could be deeper than mine with Neander, I have not felt his presence. If Lysander was right, then for this there can be no other reason than that my comrade is watching over his father, whose time cannot be long, for he is slipping from life and no man takes heed of it. This would be such conduct as we should expect in Neander, whether living or a ghost, for, as Socrates said, he was most full of love and reverence to his father, nor do I think that even for me he would suffer that old man to live uncomforted. Wherefore it may be that hereafter I shall know companionship with my friend.”

V

Agathon the Exile

Personae: Socrates, Cebes, Simmias, Agathon, Apollodorus, Ariston

“To-day,” said Socrates, “will be our last here. I could almost be content to linger among these woods and valleys, but the Athenian people need me. Perchance they might even dispense with our stirring tragedians, though that is hard of belief, but without its gadfly the steed will soon relax into utter idleness and baseness of spirit. Also, the comic poets may well complain of my absence, since I am great part of their humour.”

“These paths are pleasant,” said Cebes, “yet for all that I do not say with you that I have a mind to stay here. Even these few days I have missed the sea-wharves and the agora, the Hermae and the folk that gather about them. Nor is it to be thought that you, Socrates, would be willing to pass your life in such a place as this.”

“Cebes is right,” said Agathon. “Socrates would be ill at ease on Olympus unless there was a full session of Gods and Heroes, or at least sufficient to harangue. One can picture the discomfort of Phoebus as our master catechized him before his assembled fellows and showed by many proofs how far astray were the God’s notions of right and of wrong, of truth and of loveliness. I can imagine Hermes, seeing that his turn would come, since Socrates was wearying of Loxias and his slanting answers, slipping aside and passing thence on some feigned business; imagine him also falling in with a group of Oreads or beauteous Wood-queens, and relating, as he gave himself up to their pleasures, his escape from the sophist! Seeing the case is so, let not Socrates seek to beguile us into belief that these hills are better to him than the streets of Athens.”

Socrates smiled. “Though Agathon speaks in mockery, his words have truth. Could they answer me, I might do well to question fir and ilex, for their roots strike deep and draw from wells I too would drink from. But the imprisoned Dryad is sullen when I am by, and, knowing me no poet, will say no clear word that I can understand; so I must turn to my fellows and, mixing alike with the wise and the unwise, bring their truth to birth. Let us descend this slope, and we shall come upon those children at play.”

“It is strange to me,” said Agathon, “to think that Lysander, years after we saw each other, should have carved his thoughts where I have read them; strange that he should have passed this way, my destined path. This voice, reaching me after his death, comes as from the grave and, I know not why, appears to me as a sign that he is still living.”

“I can bring you where you may hear yet another voice from him,” said Simmias. “It was after that vision of the God with wounded hands that Neander met him and related what he had seen; and when Neander said that to him it seemed that this must be the true God, beside whom those Hellas honours were no Gods, the other affirmed that this was so, by the token of the bleeding palms. Beyond doubt, said he, Earth was racked at her centre, and there was some God, at once Creator and Saviour, eternally dying for the life of all worlds; which God Neander had seen in a dream. Wherefore the two went forth in talk together, and some time after I heard that Lysander had left Athens, going to Ilium to attain a vision he was convinced would befall him there; but before he went he built an altar by Peiraeus to the Deity of Neander’s sleep, inscribing it ‘To the Unknown God.’”

“I have seen it,” cried Cebes, “though I knew not who erected it. You were with me, Apollodorus, and you remember all these things. Surely there were verses on it?”

“These,” replied Apollodorus:

“Unnamed, Unknown, Invader of my dreams,
My eager quest Thou shalt not long escape.
E’en now through pool and mist a visage gleams,
The trees are whispering tongues, the clouds take shape.”

“But what was it sent him to Ilium?” asked Socrates.

“Simmias has implied that he does not know,” answered Agathon; “nor indeed do I, but I am not without light from my knowledge of him. He thought much of Protesilaus, averring him a hero much beyond Ajax or Achilles, and when he himself went to Ilium it was doubtless on his eternal pursuit of death, hoping that some invisible javelin might strike him down on that beach where the other perished. And so, truly, it befell.”

“There is a man here, watching those children,” said Apollodorus, “who says he knows you, Socrates. I came here two days since and was talking to him of you. See, he looks at us and would, I think, come if we called him. He is coming.”

Socrates scanned the stranger. Then he cried, “Friend, I remember your face. Only tell me where we met.”

The stranger replied, “The night after Delium, on the farther bank of Asopus. It was bitterly cold and the stream half frozen, so that on crossing it we were put to it to bestir our limbs to make a fire. But for your presence I think we should have lain down and died of cold and fear, as so many did. But you, first refusing to flee any farther, next encouraged us, saying that we should yet talk over this night in our homes. There were some dozen of us in all by that fire. During the night some of the enemy’s horsemen approached, but did not molest us, and at dawn we were on our way again.”

“You have told all as it befell,” said Socrates, “and I remember you for a good fellow. But your name I forget.”

“Ariston of Phylae, a village on the farther slope of Cithaeron.”

“What did you do after Delium?”

“I was with Nicias at Syracuse, and for three years was a slave in the stone-quarries. Thence I escaped and hid in the hills for many months; one that escaped with me was captured and scourged to death. I myself came near to falling into my enemies’ hands, but became servant to an aged physician, who disguised me when searchers came. In his youth he had fought for Hellas when the Phoenicians invaded the island, and he held it shame that in these latter days the hands of Hellenes were against each other. The Gods, he said, had sufficiently punished Athens for the insolence with which she strove to subjugate his own land. Wherefore, when Athenian slaves, for not a few escaped into those mountains, came to him he helped them. He did this, he said, in simple love for his own city; for Nemesis would now take part with the Athenians, if their woes grew excessive. But I think he said this to satisfy the wonder men felt that he should show kindness to us; for the kindness he showed for no reason at all, or some deeper reason that he told to no one.”

“By the dog,” said Agathon, “I shall ever think these slopes of Cithaeron holy, for we are at every step haunted by dead men or those who are otherwise as ghosts to us, never having been seen in their bodies. This physician is no other than Evenus’ friend.”

“Ariston,” said Socrates, “I would know this physician’s name.”

“Pausanias.”

“Not the friend of Empedocles of Agrigentum!” cried Agathon and Cebes together.

“The same,” answered Ariston, “for of him he loved to speak. His leaping down Aetna he ascribed to a madness lifelong; ‘many,’ he said, ‘were mad in some one respect.’ When the Dorians smote the Africans Empedocles witnessed that sacrifice when the foe’s chieftain, after fruitless calling on his Gods, leapt into the flames. Ever after fires and furnaces drew the sage’s spirit as a candle draws a moth. That vision of the despairing giant by the blaze that was to consume him was burnt into Empedocles’ brain, and it required but the brooding weeks of anger, when the long scorn of the nobles wore him down at the end, to make him seek death in the same manner. But his hoping to be fabled a God Pausanias affirmed a slander; for he had many foes. How should he seek by base means to be styled a God, being really such? But he leapt down Aetna in sorrow of spirit. ‘I also,’ he said, ‘have cried all day upon the Gods my fellows, and there remains but the last sacrifice, which perchance may purchase victory.’ ‘This,’ said Pausanias, ‘was but the affliction of madness on a mind long unhinged by a thing it had seen.’”

“Not like a soldier do you speak,” said Socrates. “Tell us, what manner of life do you live here, after all your perils?”

Ariston laughed. “What manner of life would you expect, Athenians? The wars are finished, and I am old. Yon two fair-haired girls playing round those pine-logs are my grandchildren, and their companions are a neighbour’s. I am a corroded oak, of no value save that for a while longer saplings may grow in its shadow.”

“We are comrades still,” said Socrates, smiling. “But I of late, as in dreams, have felt a woodman’s stroke, and I think my trunk will fall ere long.”

Here the younger of the girls ran up to Ariston, keeping her hands behind her till she reached them; then she produced a chain of foxglove blooms strung together and threw them round his neck. “Magic, magic,” she cried. “They are flowers that will make you forget your battles and pain, grandfather, for so Simaetha told me, and you know she is a witch.”

“If they will not make me forget, I know another flower that will,” said Ariston, as he caught and kissed her. “And you must not talk overmuch with Simaetha. I’ll have you learn no more witchcraft, for you know enough already. Will you melt your grandfather in wax?”

The child looked shyly at Socrates and his companions, her eyes resting most on Agathon. Cebes advanced toward her, but she turned away and hid behind her grandfather.

But at this point a little boy among the child’s playfellows slipped off a boulder with a cry, and she ran off; nor could they by any means succeed in drawing her back. “Wind of the Hills we call her,” said Ariston, “for her sudden ways; and to me indeed she is a spring-wind, since she fans my spirit into blossom.”

“Sophocles had just such a grandchild,” said Agathon, “the old man’s trembling delight. ‘As fire shoots up in parched reeds when the south wind springs after scorching sun, so,’ said he, ‘the dry ground of my soul burgeons with flowers of flame at her presence.’ How old is your maid?”

“Eight years,” replied Ariston. “Her mother, my daughter, was the loveliest girl in Cithaeron. Her father is a native of Phylae, as I am, and like me has fought for Athens. Her mother is dead, which is why she has no fear of men, as some children have, for two have been to her both mother and father.”

“You live by yourselves, in some place far from the dwellings of other men?” said Socrates.

“You are right. But how have you learnt that?”

“There is a look on your child’s face which told me. There is something telling plainly that her life has not been like that of most children. Long since, when I was campaigning in Thrace, I noticed that all children whose homes are in desolate places had this star of loneliness, as though Pan had touched their foreheads asleep. Sometimes they seemed as if they heard two voices, a gentler pulsing through that of those who talked with them, as if there were unseen speakers, the deities men believe to dwell in deserts and pathless woods, bending toward them with whispers. It is because poets have noticed such children that the legends have arisen of children of Oreads and of the Winds. We speak to these and they listen, but listen as if they were striving to attend to two conversations at once; as Neander, when Euclid drew me once along Ilissus, listened to a treatise which his fellow-Megarian had written, but was nevertheless fain not to miss the stream’s murmur. However it may come, there is always in such children this heightened individuality. But again I am using your sophist’s jargon! Moreover, from the mother in her face I should say your maid has a younger brother.”

“You are right, though how you know all this is a marvel to me.”

“Very easily, because of the sadness that flashed into her face, like moonlight to a pool when the wind lifts willow-branches. It was when that little fellow slipped and cried out that she looked away in anxiety, as though she feared to catch another voice; and we could keep her no longer. Therefore I guessed that the mother in her had been awakened early.”

“She and her sister have cared for this brother ever since his mother died three years since. To-day, coming to the village, I brought the girls with me, leaving him with a relative who came to us a week ago. It is months since we last left, our home in the pine-woods beyond that nearer snowcapped hill; they will scarcely be at ease till we return and they find their brother safe.”

“I think she felt I knew all this, for she turned to me so simply; and, by the dog, I felt as I should if one of my own age accepted me into friendship. Agathon she trusted for that beautiful face, which has only gained since Alcibiades praised it; as if Hermes should grow old and become Zeus. But I have the mask of a Satyr; wherefore, had not this little maid possessed divination, she had never taken me so.”

“Why should the cry of a boy not her brother have roused this child?” asked Cebes.

“I have heard,” replied Socrates, “that the souls of those dying conspicuously before their time and having powerful affections binding them to earth are allowed for a space of years to linger in the spirits of those they love, resting on their thoughts as in a boat on a stream. They lie in a trance or a kind of slumber, yet not so deep that a voice from the world cannot stir it at times. Now Ariston has told us that there was one untimely snatched to Acheron who loved this maid dearly; and the boy’s cry awakened that sleeping mother within, who, indeed, is often half stirring in slumber. But is not that eagle noble as it circles round those rocks?”

“Indeed, Socrates, these hills and all their creatures are beautiful,” said Agathon.

“To you, Athenians, it seems so,” said Ariston. “But there are times when the hills are more troublesome than beautiful. A day’s rain will make our roads into rivers and flood our houses; and in winter there are wolves and snow. In the valleys hardly with difficulty can corn and a few olives live. The man whose house has been swept away by rain can be pardoned if he sees no beauty in the foaming torrent.”

“Doubtless you are right,” said Agathon. “Yet it is pleasant to linger here a few days. Yonder pike that out-tops its fellows seems like the Aeschylus of these hills. Were I their king I would crown it for tragedy.”

“Night will do so,” said Socrates, “putting forth a spray of stars, which are the laurel the Gods use.”

“Lysander the poet used to say,” said Agathon, “that, though unknown here, he had great fame in worlds we see not; not by his poems indeed, for those were naught, but for what should be written hereafter, hymns that were all living with the Ideas, clearly seen by spirits and Gods. But at times this confidence left him. And if such a man doubted at whiles of his destiny, may we not question concerning the mass of men whom we see, and pass thereby from despondency to despondency till we lose all belief in ourselves or in any God at all? For myself, I weary so of this endless flux of folk, begotten and begetting, and of the darkness in which we strive, that I would that there were one to whom I could commit myself, laying all questioning by nor distressing myself more. In my youth many times I thought I had found such, going eagerly to those the popular voice accounted wise, but in time found them other than I sought. For my desire was for a Master; and, behold, all were slaves as myself and subject to such folly as I scorned. You have I found, Socrates, unlike these others, but such a service as I would render you would not accept, and, indeed, it is too late for me to give it. Wherefore I shall go to Hades a masterless man. Wandering here with you, voices have called from my past life, and dead men have laid their hands upon me. From these pine-woods a breath reaches me, and a wind of prophecy fills my spirit. I have remembered Sophocles and the God that called his Oedipus. For you also, Socrates, the time cannot be long. I hear there are those whose clamour gains daily, averring that you worship strange Gods or none at all. Again I bring you the offer of Archelaus. For myself, I will never return to the city that unjustly put to death my kinsman Pericles after Arginusae. Therefore, will you not come with me?”

“I stand at my post, Agathon. For the clamour that you speak of, I heed it no more than an army fleeing down desolate ways after defeat hears the crying of birds as night closes round. I am old, and my days must finish. Should these enemies compass my punishment, my death even, they will do me small harm. Imprisonment would be evil, I admit, but there is one that ere long would make his way past all bolts and jailors and release me. As for death, I have long since learnt that it is no evil.”

After a moment Agathon said: “I came to these hills of Cithaeron, partly longing to see Socrates, if not Athens, once more, partly hoping that I might persuade you to return with me to Pella. Receiving my message, you came—and I think you never left Athens before, except when the State bade you—and I carry hence the memory of your friendship. Had I come earlier, when Euripides was still living, I think even you might have come to Macedon.”

“Not for Euripides, though I held no man dearer. Nor now, though my enemies threaten death, will I fly. You also, my much-loved Agathon, comfort your mind in this knowledge, that neither in life nor death can evil befall a good man. True philosopher and true poet, take to yourself in your need the strength that you have given others. True physician, in this evening gather on the hills of Paean herbs of healing for yourself. Remember the words of Euripides, speaking of Asclepius, in the Alcestis:

To thee was known
The magic nurtured on a thousand hills,
Such as by Phoebus to his son was shown,
Shredding it for relief of human ills.

You are young and have many days before you.”

“Days in exile, Socrates, are no days. But you will tell me that for the wise there is no exile. Even so, in your other words there is error, friend; for, though I am not old, as men count age, yet is my race finished, and I see the white posts of the end. How have I dreamt of this in days gone by! Of the falling night, the nearing gleam, the crashing of applause! But it has come in silence and loneliness, while I, a beaten runner, struggle home, ashamed though obedient to the God that calls me.”

“This cannot be,” said Ariston. “I do not know you, stranger, but I have seen men and can affirm that, whatever outward buffets may have come, you have been fortunate in favouring Gods. Otherwise my little maid would not have turned to you first of your company. For you carry brows a man may trust: ‘And you too in old times, I think, have been happy.’”

“Moreover, Agathon,” said Socrates, “I would cheer you even by what you yourself have spoken these few days in Cithaeron. You are in exile, dying—for I must believe your words, since I know you a man not without vision—and the common voice of Athens pays greater heed to lesser men, though even here there is a dawn of reverence that will grow into noon, with no after-dusk. You shall remain a name while Hellas is free, and perchance to ages when barbarian nations have risen to a splendour eclipsing ours. But speaking thus I wander into folly, for you are a philosopher and can value aright the emptiness that is called fame. Let me speak of things of braver moment, that are even now a memory and will hereafter be a home in Hades. In this, Agathon, you have been of all men fortunate, in that the noblest men of our time, men who exulted in things of price and great praise, have boasted most of all that Agathon called them friend. Then, though you go to the house of Hades—nay, though the Shepherd with his serpent-rod is even now treading these roads of Cithaeron to summon you—go as befits a fate so high, so fortunate. For if even here the man who was turned to be your enemy praised you for the good poet desired by his friends, be sure that in Hades are many who will rejoice to see Agathon again. Euripides will greet you; Neander will strive for the friendship that should have been great here. Lysander from that life of greater glory will run to the comrade who loved him through all failure; even the gentle face of Sophocles will brighten as he turns to Aeschylus to tell him who it is that comes. Amid those thronging spirits forget not me, for I shall not be slow behind you, if I go not earlier.”

“I shall go as you desire, old friend. You have reminded me well that for such as I am there can be no repining. That I should miss the idle applause of Athens or even the fame of after-days leaves my mind untroubled. It is only that other fear abiding with me daily that makes me weak, the fear that my deeds and work have been unworthy of the grace of the Gods and the love of that great company to which I shall be gathered. Yet even here will I pluck comfort from your kindness and believe that those who follow will judge me gently, and see that I have not failed as deeply as I feared. Nay, I will think that I cannot be ignoble, since Socrates loves me and came to Cithaeron for my companionship. And to you at parting let me speak these words wherewith Delphic Apollo dismissed his tired servant Euripides, seeking rest and death beneath an alien sky: ‘By thy faith thou hast saved many, and thou shalt save the children of many.’”

VI

Hermogenes

Personae: Ecechrates, Hermogenes; and (reported) Socrates, Cebes, Simmias, Apollodorus, Crito

Ecechrates. I have been with Phaedo, the friend of Socrates, and we have talked of his last day, that on which he drank the poison. You too were present then.

Hermogenes. I was, Ecechrates; and such is my memory of it that on that day only do I seem to have been living, and the rest of my days appear like mist which surrounds an island in clear air.

Ecechrates. To me also, listening to Phaedo, the day seemed of all days most memorable. Hearing, I could not refrain from tears, though Phaedo told me that those who saw him die were forbidden to weep. I would very gladly have questioned him further, for hearing of those last days of Socrates I could never weary, but he has departed to Elis. You, then, if you have leisure, tell me something of what you remember. Or are you not at leisure?

Hermongenes. I am at leisure and will tell you gladly. It was our custom to assemble daily, we that were Socrates’ friends, and then to pass into the prison when the doors opened.

Ecechrates. So Phaedo told me. Cebes, I remember, was of your company. I mention this because there is a rumour in Athens to-night that he has died at Thebes. So much I heard from Cleombrotus as I came along.

Hermongenes. Your mention of Cebes has decided me as to what I will speak of. For in my memory there is one evening when there were but five of us present with Socrates; myself and Crito, Cebes and Simmias and Apollodorus. Crito was out of the room most of the time, being busied with Socrates’ affairs, and took little part in our conversation. I, as you know, am no talker. It was the evening following that on which tidings came of Agathon’s death at Pella. During the morning many of us had been conversing with Socrates, but as dusk drew on we left him. After taking his meal he sent for Cebes and Simmias and Apollodorus’ and I, being with them, obeyed the summons also. When we entered the prison he rose as far as his chains would permit him, and said: “Cebes, I have been thinking all day of Agathon our friend; therefore have I sent for you. Here in the prison I have few books, though, indeed, I have small need of any. But I would look at Agathon’s Flower, if you have it.”

“I have it,” said Cebes. “But Aristippus the Phliasian has taken it. Very gladly will I send for it, but it will hardly be here to-night, for he is from home.”

“It is no matter,” replied Socrates; “you may send it at your leisure. Since you are here, let us talk of our friend. You will remember those days we spent in Cithaeron, and our talk.”

“Very clearly. And this news, that Agathon is dead, would have wrung my heart with sorrow had it not been for another grief which leaves no room for any thought but itself.”

“You are speaking of me, I perceive,” said Socrates. “But you will do me small pleasure by speaking and thinking thus foolishly, Cebes. Have we not agreed that in these days we will take no heed of that which is coming? Nevertheless, I myself, hearing this news of Agathon, have been troubled. For it is no light matter that a soul of such gentleness and power should vanish from the world. You have heard me speak of our retreat after Delium. The night was wild with storm and flocking snows, and the enemy pressed us hard. Even then, as we came to a river’s brink, did our leader fall with his torch, and we were left despairing.”

“Cleanthes, from whom we heard the news, is in town, Socrates. He has spoken to me of Agathon and his life of the last few months. Since he met with us in Cithaeron his mind became more cheerful, rising at times to a great contentment; but the old eager joy in life never returned, and he was not the Agathon whom Athens honoured and all men loved for his grace and beauty. But before he joined us in Cithaeron he was beyond all men wretched and depressed.”

“That, I confess,” said Simmias, “is what troubles me most of all. I mean, that so many men whose days have been spent unselfishly and nobly should fall into this deep melancholy of mind and spirit, and finish their days in sorrow and gloom unutterable. For if there are any Gods who regard us and mark those who truly strive to be mystics, and to attain to the hearing of those flutes with which our Master calls his chosen, it is strange that such men should pass from sorrow to sorrow, till long before the end comes the soul sits brooding in her dark prison.”

“To me also,” said Socrates, “this thing has been a trouble, for I have seen it so to happen. This is the great forsaking, and it puzzles me. There was Evenus, Neander’s friend, who has left us and gone, we know not whither. It was after our return from Cithaeron that he came to me; not the Evenus I had known, but a man aged before his time. He had left his work, for he was a sophist in Elis, and was about to wander into the Euxine and the lands beyond it. ‘Why have you done this, Evenus?’ I asked. ‘For all men speak well of you and of the words wherewith you guide men there in Elis, where, I think, wise men are few. Nor do I go by the popular voice alone, but by what those say whose praise a man may justly glory in gaining, and by what I myself know of you. My advice is this, that you should remain where our Master has placed you, and continue thus to serve him and us.’ But he answered, ‘The time for such advice has gone, Socrates. For about a year since great darkness and perplexity befell me, the knowledge that I could not speak with certainty the things that men desired to hear at my lips. In my distress I sought counsel of better men than myself, wiser men and holier’ and they said to me even as you have done: “Abide in your place, Evenus, and this mood will pass. How many others are there like you, who reason and teach concerning philosophy and the soul and a future life, who yet have doubting and perplexity in their hearts even as you! Yet men, hearing their strong words and knowing nothing of the travail of spirit behind, are comforted and strengthened.” Then came Neander’s death and that wild time of terror in those Sicilian hills, and the months of anguish thereafter. Recovering, I returned to my toil, changed and in some measure, as it seemed, cheerful again. But it was to no purpose, and I have been battling for my soul. Whatever our poets speak, fabling, of the horrors of Hell and the pains that evil souls suffer, that, Socrates, I have experienced.’ And, looking into Evenus’ eyes, I saw that he spoke truth; for in a moment the body fell away, in my vision of him, and I saw the spirit, naked and scarred as with fire. Continuing, he said, ‘I have been in Hell; and, before the end came, I was battling, as a man flung on his back, for my very soul, as I have said, and no man could help me, not even you, had I been able to gain your help. I have not won yet, but I am sophist no longer; and I know not why, O my friend, but in whatever company I am now I am at home, and their thoughts and feelings, though perchance I share them not, I can understand and be helped thereby. Only ask me not if I am happy, for you can see that I am not. But happiness will come if I may but pass beyond these borders of Hellas, even as I have already passed beyond these borders of our schools and petty learning, and, mixing with all men, attain to see my Master in them before I die.’ Saying many such words, he left me, and no man has seen him since. Yet if any man deserved to have within himself comfort of spirit it was Evenus, who has now carried his wildness of mood and purpose into barbarian lands and rocks and storm-smitten seas.”

“In his case, Socrates,” said Cebes, “we might well think that Neander’s death and those days and nights by Aetna had driven him mad. But Agathon’s long-continued sorrow, I own, perplexes me, as you say it does you.”

“Nor have I any explanation but this, my Cebes, that his Master did with him as trainers do with wild birds when they shut them close in darkened cages that their notes may become sweeter. For sorrow teaches birds, as poets, to sing. Agathon’s grief, indeed, became a silence and a cloud that imprisoned his mind; but we may hope that cloud and silence have now lifted, and his voice has become the sweeter for that suffering.”

“To some extent they lifted, said Cleanthes, even here. But, take it as we will, there is little to cheer in what is told of Agathon’s end. He died, men say, for no other reason, so far as could be seen, but that he had no longer any will to live. And for the death of not a few men, Socrates, I think there is no other reason than this. Many weeks since his old melancholy returned, and his body weakened gradually. He was without friends, save for one or two that had learned to love our exile; and to them, when they questioned him, his face would lighten, and he would reply that indeed all was well and would shortly be better. As he lay dying they asked him if there was anything he wished for; and the old man—for sorrow had aged him at the end beyond recognition, so that all believed him to be far advanced in years—answered in his latest word, ‘Pericles.’”

“That was his son,” said Socrates, “the boy for whom his father was wild. I think he never spoke of his loss but twice, and each time in my presence. Beyond question it was this that slew his lightness of spirit within him, and so wrought upon him that at last, when the body failed, it was but a worn-out husk that fell from him.”

“Yet when he was with us in Cithaeron,” said Cebes, “I thought his mind had strengthened from that trouble.”

“So it seemed, Cebes. But in truth that blow was mortal, and he never recovered. His son had gone with companions to Trachis in Euboea, a matter of two days’ sail, to Cleisthenes, Agathon’s friend and mine. A storm swept up Euripus, so that when they failed to arrive as expected Cleisthenes sent hasty word to Agathon; and he, with two or three others, took boat and rowed all night. The sea was calm and exceedingly beautiful, but Agathon’s mind in its anguish was set hard and saw nothing. All that night he rowed, his heart bursting for sorrow and fear. Dawn came at last, with fresh winds on that surface of water and glow on the hills of Euboea; and in that hour they found floating the staff of Pericles. Wretched beyond words, the father strained at the oar and all that day ate nothing, with evening landing at a village, where they found the folk gathered about bodies the waves had swept up, among them his they sought. There on the sand they burnt them, and returned home. Four days were they away, sleepless and without food, and Agathon was broken. He said little, and his outward life remained calm; but I remember a time when I sat by him in the theatre, when he broke down and sobbed wildly. The horror of loss rushed over him in that moment, and not all that concourse could hold him from betrayal. This tale of his suffering and search I learnt, not from him, but from his daughter.”

“Of her also would I hear you speak,” said Simmias. “I never knew her, for she had married, and her husband had gone to Elis.”

“She was a wayward and noble girl,” answered Socrates, “her father’s delight and companion. From her earliest years almost she sat by him and he read his tragedies to her. She grew up clear-brained as Pallas and as tall and beautiful. No man, I think, could see her without desiring that he should seem noble in her eyes; yet no man could keep her praise, for she saw and scorned all weakness. She herself, drawing all, yet herself rarely drawn to another, ofttimes by her very charm and beauty made her lover seem less than himself. To Evenus she showed singular friendship, coming to him in those days of mad sorrow which followed on Neander’s death; and he, as an imprisoned man who sees his doors open and feels the wind of dawn blowing in, ran to that brightness and gave her all he possessed. Nay, I have heard that for her sake he even became a poet. But his very eagerness lost that which he sought, and she turned from him, leaving his mind to sink back to its melancholy and the griefs that preyed upon a spirit once brave and beloved by all that knew him. She herself was sufficient to herself and could not comprehend the grief of others, neither knew that a spell of weakness may cloud a man not worthless nor to be condemned because he sank beneath it for a space. Yet Evenus would not speak of her save with praise, for he said: ‘She knew not either my need or the wonder of her own graciousness. A word or look from her might cheer beyond the weighty acts of others; but this she could not know, for to herself herself was veiled, and her soul was too humble to guess its beauty. It is enough that I was pleasant to her for a season, which is more, I think, than any other was.’”

“Yet Evenus has now vanished in madness from all men’s eyes,” said Simmias.

“Even so; and Agathon is dead. But Evenus was never ours; ever I felt there were those who would bid him hence ere many years had gone. His spirit was strangely aloof and shy, and at whiles would wander far from contact. Though his voice continued speaking, his eyes were unresponsive; like a God withdrawn to his recesses, he answered faintly and without visible sign. The Deity has climbed again to his mountain, Agathon would say, and it is but the echo of his tones that we hear; there remains not a glimpse of shining garment, for his mates have called him. His going from us was a trouble to Agathon; yet he wrote to me that he wondered not, for that which was written must come to pass. He added verses also, the last, I think, he could have made:

He shared our sports, our converse; but with smiles,
Wherein we shared not, grew his face at whiles
Sad with much thought; and silent fits befell
When voices that we heard not threw their spell.
The vision past, again we claimed our friend;
But those strong comrades conquered in the end.
He went; to us he left the wondering dread
If unto life or death the voices led.

So wrote and so thought Agathon. But so many blows had fallen on him that even this passing of Evenus touched him only momentarily. He saw in it the rehearsal of his own destiny, which lightened the load of his sorrow while deepening its awe. Many things weighed on our dear friend’s spirit besides the death of his son. His mind sank beneath the contemplation of the long-continued wars of Hellene with Hellene, the slaughter and wounding of so many. He saw our bravest going to death, the young, the fair, the lovable, leaving their playtime to die. Nothing of empire that Athens could keep, he said, could weigh against the death of some that he had known. They vanished; and the years swung idly by him. Long ere the end his art became to him vanity and a waste of spirit, and he wrote no more.”

“Indeed, Socrates,” I said, “we must so feel, seeing what is the finish of all that is noble and rejoices our eyes and mind.”

“The finish, Hermogenes?”

“For we can see nothing beyond their withdrawal and perishing.”

“But, dying, these saved that which the Gods and their years had given them. I too have felt as Agathon, and I have seen our noblest fall. I remember him who died first of all of those I have loved, Aristodemus, whom the Thebans slew. He was the best runner of Hellas and expert in all games; him I saw, day after day on the wearing march and amid the snows and swollen marshes of Boeotia and in the torment of battle itself, cheerful and at ease as in old times of peace and triumph. Him death took swiftly, by a spear which flew from ambush; and sorrow came, not to him, but to those who loved him. Yet it was from his death that this my sure hope came, that the soul is undying; for he was so strong with life and carried even to the cloud which enwrapt him eyes of such joy that I could not think him dead. And this belief was strengthened by a dream wherein I saw him as I lay on the wet earth by Asopus. So these who died in their flower, ‘the steadfast among spears,’ bore hence no enfeebled life to Hades, as we that are aged do.” And Socrates looked round with a smile.

Crito, who had just come in, laughed. “If your life is enfeebled, Socrates, I would I might meet the man whose life is strong.”

“Seek, and he may meet you. But, if you would know my belief, you will not meet him here. I shall find him in Hades, whither the Eleven will send me; for there are Neander, and Achilles, and all who died preferring darkness with the Gods to a shameful life amid the light. There too is our loved Agathon; not him whom we saw in Cithaeron, weary with many sorrows, but Agathon who has found his son, and found him not among the dead, but among the living. You also, who marvel seeing me in this time so glad and calm of mind, know that in my dreams Loxias has shown me that which makes my spirit leap within me. I stand with face that turns one way, to where is Persephassa’s throne and the company of those that have lived—for I will not call them, as the common manner is, those that have died. There my place too is preparing, and Agathon knows this, for he has spoken. I mourn that he has gone hence; but the Master he serves is wealthy and will send you other servants.”

“Yet no master, Socrates, even though all worlds were his, could have many servants such as Agathon.”

“Therefore cannot Agathon be dead, but must still be labouring; and in all years to come those souls that enter earth from Hades will be in some sort his pupils and will bring his noble mood hither, till a time comes when the God may send him also here again.”

“To me, Socrates, these words bring nothing of comfort, for they seem words only,” said Simmias. “I know that Agathon, the dear friend, is dead, that Neander and Euripides are gone, that you are leaving us; and my heart is heavy with a weariness no words can touch, though they be your own. When my own time of death draws nigh, as I pray all Gods may be soon, perchance I shall feel as you; but now I may not look up with any hope.”

Hearing these words, Socrates smiled. “Then, if the light comes at the end, will it not be well? And, if you had this sure confidence, that it would so come, would you not be content, though the days which ran before were all to be uncheerful?”

“By Zeus, I would, Socrates; and from henceforward I will try so to believe.”

“And for my part I have faith that Agathon has found his words true, as my own spirit has found them in these days of waiting for that which must be:

Think not the dark, though to our vision bare,
Is void of light; for fire may lurk in air;
Joy amid pain; and secret depths abhorred
May couch the spirit with the spirit’s lord.”

With these words Socrates dismissed us, smiling. Such, Ecechrates, was the conversation on the night after that one when news came of Agathon’s death.