‘They dwell not in the clouds, nor on Olympos’ top, lovely son of Kleinias! That was, but Homer’s image. They dwell around us, and within us, all day long. And when you feel the strong desire to find them out, and a yearning of your soul to see and know the gods, it is the gods themselves within you struggling against your lower passions, striving to give you wings with which to fly above your small desires.’ ‘Oh, oh, oh! hah, hah, hah! So have we found you, Sokrates, alone with Alkibiades. And has your daimôn thus at length permitted you to speak to him, or is it that only now for the first time you have found an opportunity?’ ‘Hush, Kritias and Sikias, hush! See how you have angered Alkibiades, and sent him off blushing and frowning in a rage.’ ‘Oh, wisest of the Greeks, seek not to make it seem it was our coming that has angered Alkibiades. What were you telling him when we came up and interrupted you? We have been looking for you all the afternoon. Hippokrates has a great feast to-night. Harmonidas of Skios will be there, and a new flute-player from Delos, and we know not who besides—but all the greatest wits in Athens. He tells us to bid you to his house.’ ‘Oh, Sikias! I have feasted here already, and at a finer feast than your Hippokrates can make. But tell me, Kritias, or you, Sikias, son of Sikias, would not a feast of thistles seem more sumptuous to an ass than all the dainties of Hippokrates?’ ‘Doubtless it would, Sokrates.’ ‘And the harsh croaking of a frog, does not that seem more melodious to him than the flute-playing of Harmonidas?’ ‘Perhaps it does. Why do you ask such questions?’ ‘But one more. Tell me, Kritias, to the male frog does not his female seem more beautiful than the face and form of Alkibiades?’ ‘I believe it does, Sokrates.’ ‘Then are these things really beautiful, or do they only seem so according to the eyes with which we look, or the ears we listen to the sounds withal?’ ‘I should say, Sokrates, to the frog the ugly female seems more beautiful, because he is a frog; as to the ass, the thistle seems the better fare, because of his dull bestiality.’ ‘Just so, Kritias! To the dull asses who appear to us as men the converse of the soul with soul will ever seem a fitting theme for jest and ridicule.’ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III ‘Vivere, Lucili, militare est.’—SENECA.