n,
The man who loved his life so over-much,
Sleep in my urn. It is so horrible,
I dare at times imagine to my need
Some future state revealed to us by Zeus,
Unlimited in capability
For joy, as this is in desire for joy,
--To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us:
That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait
On purpose to make prized the life at large-- 330
Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death,
We burst there as the worm into the fly,
Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no!
Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas,
He must have done so, were it possible!

Live long and happy, and in that thought die;
Glad for what was! Farewell. And for the rest,
I cannot tell thy messenger aright
Where to deliver what he bears of thine
To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame 340
Indeed, if Christus be not one with him--
I know not, nor am troubled much to know.
Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew,
As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised,
Hath access to a secret shut from us?
Thou wrongest our philosophy, 0 king,
In stooping to inquire of such an one,
As if his answer could impose at all!
He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write.
Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves 350
Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ;
And (as I gathered from a bystander)
Their doctrine could be held by no sane man.

NOTES

"Cleon" expresses the approach of Greek thought at the time of
Christ towards the idea of immortality as made known by Cleon, a
Greek poet writing in reply to a Greek patron whose princely gifts
and letter asking comment on the philosophical significance of death
have just reached him. The important conclusions reached by Cleon
in his answer are that the composite mind is greater than the minds
of the past, because it is capable of accomplishing much in many
lines of activity, and of sympathizing with each of those simple
great minds that had reached the highest possible perfection "at one
point." It is, indeed, the necessary next step in development,
though all classes of mind fit into the perfected mosaic of life, no
one achievement blotting out any other. This soul and mind
development he deduces from the physical development he sees about
him. But since with the growth of human consciousness and the
increase of knowledge comes greater capability to the soul for joy
while the failure of physical powers shuts off the poss