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. Most of the dead are unhappy, as Hermes and Charon well know. See the Downward Journey, and even Homer’s Achilles (Odyssey 11, 488). 
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.
 

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. Iliad 6, 146. 

 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 ?