第2页

On these occasions, most of us give way to lamentations, and regret the pleasures of youth, and call up the memory of amours and drinking parties and banquets and similar proceedings. They are grievously discontented at the loss of what they consider great privileges, and describe themselves as living well in those days, whereas now, by their own account, they cannot be said to live at all. Some also complain of the manner in which their relations insult their infirmities, and make this a ground for reproaching old age with the many miseries it occasions them. But in my opinion, Socrates, these persons miss the true cause of their unhappiness. For if old age was the cause, the same discomforts would have been also felt by me, as an old man, and by every other person that has reached that period of life. But, as it is, I have before now met with several old man who expressed themselves quite in a different manner, and in particular I may mention Sophocles the poet, who was once asked in my presence, 'How do you feel about love, Sophocles?Are you still capable of it?' To which he replied, 'Hush! if you please: to my great delight I have escaped from it, and feel as if I had escaped from a frantic and savage monster. ' I thought then, as I do now, that he spoke wisely. For unquestionably old age brings us profound repose and freedom from this and other passions. When the appetites have abated, and their force is diminshed, the description of Sophocles is perfectly realised. It is like being delivered from a multitude of furious monsters. But the complaints on this score, as well as the troubles with relatives, may all be referred to one cause, and that is, not the age, Socrates, but the character, of the men. If they possess well-regulated minds and easy tempers, old age itself is no intolerable burden: if they are differently constituted, why in that case, Socrates, they find even youth as irksome to them as old age.