not to speak in detail f the present state of affairs, when the wicked and he selfish are happy and the good are driven about from pillar to post, caught in the pinch of poverty and disease and other ills without number?

Why, don’t you know, Cyniscus, what punishments await the wicked when life is over, and in what happiness the good abide?

Do you talk to me of Hades and of Tityus and Tantalus and their like? For my part, when I die I shall find out for certain whether there is really any such thing, but for the present I prefer to live out my time in happiness, however short it may be, and then have my liver torn by sixteen vultures after my death, rather than go as thirsty as Tantalus here on earth and do my drinking in the Isles of the Blest, lying at my ease among the heroes in the Elysian Fields.