"For my part, Cephalus, I am really delighted to discuss with the very old, " I said. "Since they are like men who have proceeded on a certain road that perhaps we too will have to take, one ought, in my opinion, to learn from them what sort of road it is--whether it is rough and hard or easy and smooth. From you in particular I should like to learn how it looks to you, for you are now at just the time of life the poets call 'the threshold of old age'. Is it a hard time of life, or what have you to report of it?"well, of course the conversation goes on quite a bit longer, and this isn't accepted without question, but, the point is, I suppose, we needn't presume life would become unenjoyable if it were to become different when we become older. It's possible we could enjoy different things.
"By Zeus, I shall tell you just how it looks to me Socrates." he said. "Some of us who are about the same age often meet together and keep up the old proverb. [birds of a feather, sort of thing--ed] Now then, when they meet, most of the members of our group lament, longing for the pleasures of youth, and reminiscing about sex, about drinking bouts and feasts and all that goes with things of that sort; they take it hard as thought they were deprived of something very important and had lived well but are now not even alive. Some also bewail the abuse that old age receives from relatives and in this key they sing a refrain about all the evils old age has caused them.
But Socrates, in my opinion these men do not put their fingers on the cause. For, if this were the causee, I too would have suffered these same things insofar as they depend on old age and so would everyone else who has come to this point in life. But as it is I have encountered others for whom it was not so, especially Sophocles. I was once present when the poet was asked by someone, 'Sophocles, how are you in sex? Can you still have intercourse with a woman?'
'Silence, man' he said. 'Most joyfully did I escape it, as though I had run away from a sort of frenzied and savage master.'
I thought at the time he had spoken well and I still do. For in every way, old age brings great peace and freedom from such things. When the desires cease to strain and finally relax, then what Sophocles says comes to pass in every way; it is possible to be rid of very many mad masters..."
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posted by Avenger at 12:05 AM on August 23, 2007