y
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
characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will
hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite
disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go
on--Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in general
are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age
sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but
because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is
something in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I
might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was
abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits but
because he was an Athenian: 'If you had been a native of my country or
I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.' And to those who are
not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made; for
to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad
rich man ever have peace with himself.

May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part
inherited or acquired by you?

Acquired! Socrates; do you want to know how much I acquired? In the
art of making money I have been midway between my father