THE MAIN PURPOSE OF A LABOR UNION / TUTORIALOUTLET DOT COM THE MAIN PURPOSE OF A LABOR UNION / TUTORIALOUTLET | Page 43

for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and
said: ―Polemarchus desires you to wait…‖ S: I replied: There is
nothing which for my part I like better,
Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as
travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go,
and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth
and easy, or rugged and difficult. And this is a question which I
should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which
the poets call the 'threshold of old age' --Is life harder towards
the end, or what report do you give of it?
C: I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is.
Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the
old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my
acquaintance commonly is --I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the
pleasures of youth and sex have fled away: there was a good
time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some
complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations,
and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is
the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to
blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the
cause, I too being old, and every other old man, would have
felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of
others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged
poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, ―How does
love suit with age, Sophocles? Are you still the man you
were?‖ ―Peace,‖ he replied; ―most gladly have I escaped the
thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad
and furious master.‖ His words have often occurred to my S:
Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and
there we found his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with
them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the
Paeanian, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonymus. There too
was Cephalus the father of Polemarchus, whom I had not seen
for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was
seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for
he had been sacrificing in the court; and there were some other
chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle, upon which we sat