Page 810 sur 1391

And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in

his opinion is more glorious than

'When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer

carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into

the cups,'

is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such

words? Or the verse

'The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger?'

What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other

gods and men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay

devising plans, but forgot them all in a moment through his lust,

and was so completely overcome at the sight of Here that he would

not even go into the hut, but wanted to lie with her on the

ground, declaring that he had never been in such a state of

rapture before, even when they first met one another

'Without the knowledge of their parents;'

or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings

on, cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite?