: If I were
still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But
at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come
oftener to the Piraeus. For let me tell you, that the more the pleasures
of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm
of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house your
resort and keep company with these young men; we are old friends, and
you will be quite at home with us.

I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus,
than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who
have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to
enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.
And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have
arrived at that time which the poets call the 'threshold of old age'--Is
life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it?

I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my
age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says;
and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is--I cannot
eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away:
there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer
life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations,
and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the
cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which
is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too being old,
and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But this is not
my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I
remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How
does love suit with age, Sophocles,--are you still the man you were?
Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you
speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His
words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to
me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has
a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold,
then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad
master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets,
and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the
same cause, which is not old age, but men's cha