republic (books 1 - 5)   

Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race
on horseback in honor of the goddess which will take place
in the evening?

With horses! I replied. That is a novelty. Will horsemen
carry torches and pass them one to another during the race?

Yes, said Polemarchus; and not only so, but a festival will
be celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let
us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be
a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk.
Stay then, and do not be perverse.

Glaucon said, I suppose, since you insist, that we must.

Very good, I replied.

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 down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then he said:

You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought:
If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to
come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and
therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. For, let
me tell you that the more the pleasures of the body fade away,
the greater to me are the pleasure and charm of conversation.
Do not, then, deny my request, but make our house your re-
sort and keep company with these young men; we are old
friends, and you will be quite at home with us.

I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like bet-
ter, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard
them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may
have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire 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 toward the end, or what report do you give of it?

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 love are 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 experi-
ence, 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