7
When, accordingly, we had joined their company and seated ourselves among them and Demetrius had laid the subject before them, up sprang at once the Cynic Didymus, by nickname Planetiades, and, striking the ground two or three times with his staff, cried out, Aha! a difficult matter to decide and one requiring much investigation is that which you have come bringing to us! It is indeed a wonder, when so much wickedness has been disseminated upon earth that not only Modesty and Righteous Indignation, as Hesiod Works and Days, 199. said long ago, have deserted the life of mankind, but that Divine Providence also has gathered up its oracles and departed from every place! Quite the contrary, I propose that you discuss how it happens that the oracle here has not also given out, and Heracles for a second time, or some other god, has not wrested away the tripod Cf. 387 d, supra, and the note. which is constantly being occupied with shameful and impious questions which people propound Cf. 408 c, supra. to the god, some of whom try to make a test of him as though his wisdom were an affectation, while others init questions about treasures or inheritances or unawful marriages; so Pythagoras Cf.Moralia, 169 e. is proved to be utterly wrong in asserting that men are at their best when they approach the gods. Thus those maladies and emotions of the soul which it would be good to disclaim and conceal in the presence of an older man, they bring naked and exposed before the god.
