(3) See Arist. "Clouds," {on o kakodaimon Sokrates kai Khairephon}.

Thus challenged, Socrates replied: One thing to me is certain, Antiphon;
you have conceived so vivid an idea of my life of misery that for
yourself you would choose death sooner than live as I do. Suppose now we
turn and consider what it is you find so hard in my life. Is it that he
who takes payment must as a matter of contract finish the work for which
he is paid, whereas I, who do not take it, lie under no constraint to
discourse except with whom I choose? Do you despise my dietary on the
ground that the food which I eat is less wholesome and less stengthening
than yours, or that the articles of my consumption are so scarce and
so much costlier to procure than yours? Or have the fruits of your
marketing a flavour denied to mine? Do you not know the sharper the
appetite the less the need of sauces, the keener the thirst the less the
desire for out-of-the-way drinks? And as to raiment, clothes, you know,
are changed on account of cold or else of heat. People only wear boots
and shoes in order not to gall their feet and be prevented walking.
Now I ask you, have you ever noticed that I keep more within doors than
others on account of the cold? Have you ever seen me battling with
any one for shade on account of the heat? Do you not know that even a
weakling by nature may, by dint of exercise and practice, come to outdo
a giant who neglects his body? He will beat him in the particular point
of training, and bear the strain more easily. But you apparently will
not have it that I, who am for ever training myself to endure this,
that, and the other thing which may befall the body, can brave all
hardships more easily than yourself for instance, who perhaps are not
so practised. And to escape slavery to the belly or to sleep or lechery,
can you suggest more effective means than the possession of some
powerful attraction, some counter-charm which shall gladden not only in
the using, but by the hope enkindled of its lasting usefulness? And yet
this you do know; joy is not to him who feels that he is doing well in
nothing--it belongs to one who is persuaded that things are progressing
with him, be it tillage or the working of a vessel, (4) or any of the
thousand and one things on which a man may chance to be employed. To
him it is given to rejoice as he reflects, "I am doing well." But is
the pleasured derived from all these put together half as joyous as the
cons