Oh, what effrontery! Will you never stop laughing? (Zo the other.) But you, why do youcry? For I think it is much more becoming to talk with you.

Because I consider, O stranger, that the affairs of man are woeful and tearful, and there is naught in them that is not foredoomed; therefore I pity and grieve for men. And their present woes I do not consider great, but those to come in future will be wholly bitter; I speak of the great conflagrations and the collapse of the universe. It is for this that I grieve, and because nothing is fixed, but all things are in a manner stirred up into porridge, and joy and joylessness, wisdom and unwisdom, great and small are all but the same, circling about, up and down, and interchanging in the game of Eternity.

And what is Eternity?

A child playing a game, moving counters, in discord, in concord.

What are men?

Mortal gods.

And the Gods?

Immortal men.

Are you telling riddles, man, or making conundrums? You are just like Apollo, for you say nothing plainly.Heraclitus was nicknamed ὁ σκοτεινός, “the Obscure.”

Because you matter naught to me.

Then nobody in his sense will buy you.

I bid ye go weep, one and all, buy you or buy you not.

Do you want the Athenian over there, who has so much to say?Both Socrates and Plato contribute to the picture of the typical Academic. Consequently some editors, misled by the manuscripts (see introductory note) ascribe the part of Academic to Socrates, some to Plato, and some divide it between the two.

By all means.

Come here, sir. We are putting up a righteous and intelligent philosophy. Who'll buy the height of sanctity?

Tell me what you know best?

I am a lover, and wise in matters of love.

How am I to buy you, then? What I wanted was a tutor for my son, who is handsome.

But who would be more suitable than I to associate with a handsome lad? It is not the body I love, it is the soul that I hold beautiful. As a matter of fact, even if they lie beneath the same cloak with me, they will tell you that I have done them no wrong.See Plato’s Symposium, particularly 216 p-219 D.

I can’t believe what you say, that you, though a lover, take no interest in anything beyond the soul, even when you have the opportunity, lying beneath the same cloak.