3
Don’t be angry any longer, Charon; here he is close by, you see, bringing us a lot of people, or I should say waving them along with his wand, all in a huddle, like a herd of goats. But what’s this? There is a man in fetters among them and another who is laughing, I see, and one fellow with a wallet over his shoulder and a club in his hand, who has a piercing eye and hurries the others along. Don’t you see, too, that Hermes himself is dripping with sweat and dusty-footed and panting? In fact, he is gasping for breath. What’s all this, Hermes? What’s the excitement? You seem to be in a stew, you know.
3
Why, Clotho, this miserable sinner ran away and I chased him, and so almost failed to make your boat to-day, that’s all!
3
Who is he, and what was his object in trying to run away?
3
That’s easy to see—he preferred to live! He isa king or a tyrant, to judge from his lamentations and the wailing that he makes, in which he makes out that he has had great happiness taken away from him.
3
So the poor fool tried to run away, thinking that he could live longer, when the thread of life apportioned to him had already run short?
