Republic

”By Zeus, Socrates,” he said, “I will tell you how it appears to me. For often several of us who are of a similar age come together, preserving the old proverb. Now, most of us, when we meet, lament, longing for the pleasures of youth and recalling sexual pleasures, drinking, feasting, and other things that go with them, and they are vexed as if they had been deprived of some great things, and as if they were living well then, but now not even living. And some also lament the abuses of their relatives toward old age, and on this account they sing a dirge for old age, saying how many evils it causes them. But to me, Socrates, these people seem not to blame the real cause. For if this were the cause, I too would have suffered these same things, as far as old age is concerned, and so would all others who have reached this point in age. But as it is, I have already met others who are not thus disposed, and indeed I was once present when Sophocles the poet was asked by someone: ‘How, Sophocles,’ he said, ’do you stand in regard to sexual pleasures? Are you still able to have intercourse with a woman?’ And he said, ‘Hush, man! Most gladly indeed have I escaped it, as if fleeing from some raging and savage master.’ He seemed to me to speak well then, and no less so now. For in old age there comes great peace and freedom from such things. When the desires cease straining and slacken, completely is fulfilled the saying of Sophocles: to be rid of masters, very many and mad. But both about these things and about those regarding relatives, there is one cause, Socrates, not old age, but the character of men. For if they are orderly and content, even old age is moderately painful; but if not, both old age and youth turn out to be difficult for such a person.” And I, admiring him for saying this, wishing him to speak further, stirred him up and said, “Cephalus, I think the many, when you say these things, do not accept them but think you bear old age easily not because of your character but because you possess great wealth; for they say that for the rich there are many consolations.”

”You speak the truth,” he said, “for they do not accept it. And they do say something, yet not as much as they think; but the saying of Themistocles holds well, who, when the Seriphian was abusing him and saying that he was famous not through himself but through his city, replied that neither would he himself have become famous if he had been a Seriphian, nor would that man if he had been an Athenian. And indeed, for those who are not rich and bear old age with difficulty, the same saying holds well: that neither would the decent man bear old age with poverty very easily, nor would the indecent man, even if he became rich, ever become content with himself.” “And did you, Cephalus,” I said, “inherit the greater part of what you possess, or did you acquire it additionally?” ”What did I acquire additionally, Socrates?” he said. “I have been a sort of middle money-maker between my grandfather and my father. For my grandfather, who had the same name as I, having inherited about as much property as I now possess, made it many times as great, but Lysanias, my father, made it even less than its present state. I am content if I leave to these sons of mine not less, but some little more than I inherited.” “The reason why I asked,” I said, “is that you seemed to me not to be excessively fond of money. And this is generally the case with those who have not acquired it themselves; whereas those who have acquired it cherish it doubly compared to others. For just as poets love their own poems and fathers their children, in this way also those who have made money are devoted to their money as their own work, and also, as others do, for its utility. Thus they are difficult even to associate with, being willing to praise nothing but wealth.” “You speak the truth,” he said. ”Indeed so,” I said. “But tell me this much more: what do you think is the greatest good you have enjoyed from possessing great wealth?” “That,” he said, “which I perhaps would not persuade many by telling. For be well assured, Socrates, that when someone is near to thinking he will die, there enters into him fear and anxiety about things that did not enter before. For the stories told about those in Hades—how he who has done wrong here must pay the penalty there—though mocked until then, then indeed twist his soul with the fear that they may be true. And he himself—either from the weakness of old age or because he is already closer to the things there and sees them somewhat more clearly—becomes full of suspicion and dread, and already calculates and considers whether he has done wrong to anyone in any way.”