With these words Antinous stretched out his legs
on the ground, pushed away the dog, and raised his curly head on both
hands.

"Are you tired?" asked the Emperor.

"Yes."

"We both kept watch for an equal portion of the night, and I, who am so
much older, feel quite wide awake."

"It was only yesterday that you were saying that old soldiers were the
best for night-watches."

The Emperor nodded, and then said:

"At your age while we are awake we live three times as fast as at mine,
and so we need to sleep twice as long. You have every right to be tired.
To be sure it was not till three hours after midnight that we climbed
the mountain, and how often a supper party is not over before that."

"It was very cold and uncomfortable up there."

"Not till after the sun had risen."

"Ah! before that you did not notice it, for till then you were busy
thinking of the stars."

"And you only of yourself--very true."

"I was thinking of your health too when that cold wind rose before
Helios appeared."

"I was obliged to await his rising."

"And can you discern future events by the way and manner of the rising
of the sun?"

Hadrian looked in surprise at the speaker, shook his head in negation,
looked up at the top of the tent, and after a long pause said, in abrupt
sentences, with frequent interruptions:

"Day is the present merely, and the future is evolved out of darkness;
the corn grows from the clods of the field; the rain falls from the
darkest clouds; a new generation is born of the mother's womb; the limbs
recover their vigor in sleep. And what is begotten of the darkness of
death--who can tell?"

When, after saying this, the Emperor had remained for some time silent,
the youth asked him:

"But if the sunrise teaches you nothing concerning the future why should
you so often break your night's rest and climb the mountain to see it?"

"Why? Why?" repeated Hadrian, slowly and meditatively, stroking his
grizzled beard; then he went on as if speaking to himself:

"That is a question which reason fails to answer, before which my lips
find no words; and, if I had them at my command, who among the rabble
would understand me? Such questions can best be answered by means of
parables. Those who take part in life are actors, and the world is their
stage. He who wants to look tall on it wears the cothurnus, and is not a
mountain the highest vantage ground that a man can find for the sole of
his foot? Kasius there is