reached it, there is nothing more to be feared; but you seem to me
to follow the opinion of Epicharmus,(56) a man of some discernment, and
sharp enough for a Sicilian.

_A._ What opinion? for I do not recollect it.

_M._ I will tell you if I can in Latin, for you know I am no more used to
bring in Latin sentences in a Greek discourse, than Greek in a Latin one.

_A._ And that is right enough: but what is that opinion of Epicharmus?

_M._

I would not die, but yet
Am not concerned that I shall be dead.

_A._ I now recollect the Greek, but since you have obliged me to grant
that the dead are not miserable, proceed to convince me that it is not
miserable to be under a necessity of dying.

_M._ That is easy enough, but I have greater things in hand.

_A._ How comes that to be so easy? and what are those things of more
consequence?

_M._ Thus: because, if there is no evil after death, then even death
itself can be none; for that which immediately succeeds that is a state
where you grant that there is no evil; so that even to be obliged to die
can be no evil; for that is only the being obliged to arrive at a place
where we allow that no evil is.

_A._ I beg you will be more explicit on this point, for these subtle
arguments force me sooner to admissions than to conviction. But what are
those more important things about which you say that you are occupied?

_M._ To teach you, if I can, that death is not only no evil, but a good.

_A._ I do not insist on that, but should be glad to hear you argue it, for
even though you should not prove your point, yet you will prove that death
is no evil: but I will not interrupt you, I would rather hear a continued
discourse.

_M._ What, if I should ask you a question, would you not answer?

_A._ That would look like pride; but I would rather you should not ask but
where necessity requires.

IX. _M._ I will comply with your wishes, and explain as well as I can,
what you require; but not with any idea that, like the Pythian Apollo,
what I say must needs be certain and indisputable; but as a mere man,
endeavouring to arrive at probabilities by conjecture, for I have no
ground to proceed further on than probability. Those men may call their
statements indisputable who assert that what they say can be perceived by
the senses, and who proclaim themselves philosophers by profession.

_A._ Do as you please, we are ready to hear you.

_M._ The first thing, then, is to