d this country with a light heart, for the gods are wont to bless
you Ionians with that precious gift from your very birth, but we shall
remember you long and sadly. I know of no worse loss than that of a
friend tried through years, indeed some of us have lived too long on the
Nile not to have imbibed a little of the constant, unchanging Egyptian
temperament. You smile, and yet I feel sure that long as you have
desired to revisit your dear Hellas, you will not be able to leave us
quite without regret. Ah, you admit this? Well, I knew I had not been
deceived. But now tell us why you are obliged to leave Egypt, that we
may consider whether it may not be possible to get the king's decree
reversed, and so keep you with us."

Phanes smiled bitterly, and replied: "Many thanks, Rhodopis, for these
flattering words, and for the kind intention either to grieve over my
departure, or if possible, to prevent it. A hundred new faces will soon
help you to forget mine, for long as you have lived on the Nile, you are
still a Greek from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, and
may thank the gods that you have remained so. I am a great friend of
constancy too, but quite as great an enemy of folly, and is there
one among you who would not call it folly to fret over what cannot be
undone? I cannot call the Egyptian constancy a virtue, it is a delusion.
The men who treasure their dead for thousands of years, and would rather
lose their last loaf than allow a single bone belonging to one of their
ancestors to be taken from them, are not constant, they are foolish. Can
it possibly make me happy to see my friends sad? Certainly not! You must
not imitate the Egyptians, who, when they lose a friend, spend months
in daily-repeated lamentations over him. On the contrary, if you will
sometimes think of the distant, I ought to say, of the departed, friend,
(for as long as I live I shall never be permitted to tread Egyptian
ground again), let it be with smiling faces; do not cry, 'Ah! why was
Phanes forced to leave us?' but rather, 'Let us be merry, as Phanes used
to be when he made one of our circle!' In this way you must celebrate my
departure, as Simonides enjoined when he sang:

"If we would only be more truly wise,
We should not waste on death our tears and sighs,
Nor stand and mourn o'er cold and lifeless clay
More than one day.

For Death, alas! we have no lack of time;
But Life is go