The Ferry (14)

Mikyllos

Tell me, Klotho, do you take no account of me at all? Or because I am a poor man, is that a reason why I ought to be the last to embark, too?

Klotho

And who are you?

Mikyllos

Mikyllos the shoemaker.

Klotho

And you object to lingering? Do you not see what promises the tyrant makes on condition of being let off for a little while? I am amazed, then, if you, too, are not pleased at the delay.

Mikyllos

Listen, best of Fates. I am not greatly cheered by such a boon as the Cyclops gave to "Noman" in promising to eat him last. First or last, the same teeth are waiting. Moreover, I am not in the same plight as the rich. Our lives are poles asunder, as they say. Now the despot was considered happy while he lived. He was feared and stared at by all. When he left behind him so much gold and silver and raiment, so many horses and banquets and lovely boys and beautiful women, it was natural that he should take it ill and grieve at being dragged from them. For the soul sticks to such things as if it were somehow glued to them, and it is loth to give them up without a struggle, because it has clung to them so long. Or, rather, it is as

if they had come to be bound by fetters that cannot be broken. Of course if any one drags them off by force they shriek and beg mercy; and though they have a bold face for other things, they show themselves cowards about this, the road that leads to Hades. They turn back and have a lovesick longing to see the things of daylight even if from afar, just as this fool here did, trying to run away on the road and persecuting you with entreaties here.