Charon, or the Inspectors (16-20)

HERMES

If you look close, you will also see the Fatés up above, drawing off each man’s thread from the spindle to which, as it happens, one and all are attached by slender threads. Do you see cobwebs, if I may call them so, coming down to each man from the spindles?

CHARON

I see that each man has a very slender thread, and it is entangled in most cases, this one with that and that with another.

HERMES

With good reason, ferryman; it is fated for that man to be killed by this man and this man by another, and for this man to be heir to that one, whose thread is shorter, and that man in turn to this one. That is what the entanglement means. You see, however, that they all hang by slender threads. Furthermore, this man has been drawn up on high and hangs in mid-air, and after a little while, when the filament, no longer strong enough to hold his weight, breaks and he falls to earth, he will make a great noise; but this other, who is lifted but little above the ground, will come down, if at all, so noiselessly that even his neighbours will hardly hear his fall.

CHARON

All this is very funny, Hermes.

HERMES

Indeed, you cannot find words to tell how ridiculous it is, Charon, especially their inordinate ambition and the way in which they disappear from the scene in the midst of their hopes, carried off by our good friend Death. His messengers and servants are very many, as you see—chills, fevers, wasting sicknesses, inflammations of the lungs, swords, pirate vessels, bowls of hemlock, judges, and tyrants; and no thought of any of these occurs to them while they are prosperous, but when the come to grief, many are the cries of “Oh!” and

“Ah!” and “O dear me!” If they had realized at the very beginning that they were mortal, and that after this brief sojourn in the world they would go away as from a dream, taking leave of everything above ground, they would live more sanely and would be less unhappy after death.[*] But as it is, they have imagined that what they have now will be theirs forever, and so, when the servant, standing at their bedside, summons them and hales them off in the bonds of fever or consumption, they make a great to-do about it, for they never expected to be torn away from their gear. For example, that man who is busily building himself a house and driving the workmen on; w hat would not he do if he knew that although the house will be finished, as soon as he gets the roof on, he himself will depart and leave his heir the enjoyment of it without even dining in it, poor fellow? And as for the man over there, who rejoices because his wife has borne him a son and entertains his friends in honour of the occasion and gives the boy his father’s name, if he knew that the boy willdie atthe age of seven, do you think he would rejoice over his birth? No, it is because he sees yonder man who is fortunate in his son, the father of the athlete who has been victor at the Olympic games, but does not see his next door neighbour, who is burying his son, and does not know what manner of thread his own son has been attached to. Again, take those who quarrel about boundaries—you see how numerous they are; likewise those who heap up money and then, before enjoying it, receive a summons from the messengers and servants that I mentioned.

CHARON

I see all this, and am wondering what pleasure they find in life and what it is that they are distressed to lose. For example, if one considers their kings, who are counted most happy, quite apart from the instability and uncertainty of their fortune which you allude to, one will find that the pleasures which they have are fewer than the pains, for terrors, alarums, enmities, plots, rage, and flattery are with them always. I say nothing of sorrows, diseases, and misadventures, which of course dominate them without partiality; but when their lot is hard, one is driven to conjecture what the lot of common men must be.

CHARON

Let me tell you, Hermes, what I think men and the whole life of man resemble. You have noticed bubbles in water, caused by a streamlet plashing down—I mean those that mass to make foam? Some of them, being small, burst and are gone in an instant, while some last longer and as others join them, become swollen and grow to exceeding great compass; but afterwards they also burst without fail in time, for it cannot be otherwise. Such is the life of men; they are all swollen with wind, some to greater size, others to less; and with some the swelling is short-lived and swift-fated, while with others it is over as soon as it comes into being; but in any case they all must burst.

HERMES

Charon, your simile is every bit as good as Homer's, who compares the race of man to leaves.[*]

CHARON

And although they are like that, Hermes, you see what they do and how ambitious they are, vying with each other for offices, honours, and possessions, all of which they must leave behind them and come down to us with but a single obol. As we are ina high place, would you like me to call out in a great voice and urge them to desist from their vain labours and live always with death before their eyes, saying: “Vain creatures, why have you set your hearts on these things? Cease toiling, for your lives will not endure forever. Nothing that is in honour here is eternal, nor can a man take anything with him when he dies; nay, it is inevitable that he depart naked, and that his house and his land and his money go first to one and then to another, changing their owners.” If I should call to them out of a commanding place and say all this and more, do you not think that they would be greatly assisted in life and made saner by far?