Kitap 16
1
Is this just, Pluto? Me to die at thirty, and old Thucritus, already over ninety, to go on living?
1
Perfectly just, Terpsion; he lives on without praying for the death of any of his friends, but you spent all your time plotting against him and waiting for his possessions.
1
Well, oughtn’t an old man like him, who can no longer make use of his wealth, to depart from life and make way for young men?
1
I never heard the like of this edict of yours, Terpsion, requiring the death of anyone who can no longer use his wealth on pleasure. But Fate and Nature have arranged things otherwise.
2
Then I object to the present arrangement. It ought to be a matter of turn, with the oldest man first, and after him the next oldest, without the slightest change in the order. Your Methuselah shouldn’t live on, when he has no more than three teeth still left, and is scarcely able to see, supported by four servants, with his nose always running and his eyes bleary, past knowing any of the pleasures of life, a living tomb laughed at by the young men. He shouldn’t live, while handsome lusty young men die. That’s as unnatural as “rivers running backwards ”. Cf. Euripides, Medea, 410. The young men ought at least to know when each old man is going to die, so that they wouldn’t waste their attentions upon some of them. But at present, it’s just one more case of the proverbial cart coming before the horse.
