16
If his son should receive permission from Aeacus and Aidoneus to put his head out of the mouth of the pit for a moment and stop his father’s silliness, he would say: “Unfortunate man, why do you shriek? Why do you trouble me? Stop tearing your hair and marring the skin of your face!- Why do you call me names and speak of me as wretched and ill-starred when I have become far better off and happier than you? What dreadful misfortune do you think I am undergoing? Is it that I did not get to be an old man like you, with your head bald, your face wrinkled, your back bent, and your knees trembling,—like you, who in short are rotten with age after filling out so many months and so many Olympiads, and who now, at the last, go out of your mind in the presence of so many witnesses? Foolish man, what advantage do you think there is in life that we shall never again partake of? You will say drinking, no doubt, and dinners, and dress, and love, and you are afraid that for the want of all this I shall die! But are you unaware that not to thirst is far better than drinking, not to hunger than eating, and not to be cold than to have quantities of clothing?
17
“Come now, since you apparently do not know how to mourn, I will teach you to do it more truth- fully. Begin afresh, and ery, ‘Poor child, never again will you be thirsty, never again hungry or cold! You are gone from me, poor boy, escaping diseases, no longer fearing fever or foeman or tyrant. Love shall not vex you nor its pleasures rack you, nor shal] you squander your strength in them twice and thrice a day, woe is me! You shall not be scorned in your old age, nor shall the sight of you offend the young!’
