Two women, taking me by the hands, were each
trying to drag me toward herself with might and
main ; in fact, they nearly pulled me to pieces in
their rivalry. Now one of them would get the
better of it and almost have me altogether, and now
I would be in the hands of the other. They
shouted at each other, too, one of them saying,
‘He is mine, and you want to get him!” and the
other: “It is no good your claiming what belongs
to someone else.” One was like a workman, masculine, with unkempt hair, hands full of callous
places, clothing tucked up, and a heavy layer of

 

warble-dust upon her, just as my uncle looked when
he cut stone. The other, however, was very fair of
face, dignified in her appearance, and nice in her
dress. 
At length they allowed me to decide which of
them I wanted to be with. The first to state her
case was the hard-favoured, masculine one.
 
“Dear boy, I am the trade of Sculpture which
you began to learn yesterday, of kin to you and
related by descent ; for your grandfather”—and she
gave the name of my mother’s father—“was a
sculptor, and so are both your uncles, who are very
famous through me. If you are willing to keep
clear of this woman’s silly nonsense” —with a gesture
toward the other—“and to come and live with me,
you will be generously kept and will have powerful
shoulders, and you will be a stranger to jealousy of
any sort; besides you will never go abroad, leaving
your native country and your kinsfolk, and it will
not be for mere words, either, that everyone will
praise you.

 
“Do not be disgusted at my humble figure and
my soiled clothing, for this is the way in which
Phidias began, who revealed Zeus, and Polycleitus,
who made Hera, Myron, whom men praise, and
Praxiteles, at whom they marvel. Indeed, these men
receive homage second only to the gods. If you
become one of them, will you not yourself be
famous in the sight of all mankind, make your

 

father envied, and cause your native land to be
admired ?” 
Sculpture said all this, and even more than this,
with a great deal of stumbling and bad grammar,
talking very hurriedly and trying to convince me:
I do not remember it all, however, for most of it has
escaped my memory by this time. 
When she stopped, the other began after this
fashion :
 

“My child, I am Education, with whom you are
already acquainted and familiar, even if you have
not yet completed your experience of me. What
it shall profit you to become a sculptor, this
woman has told you; you will be nothing but
a labourer, toiling with your body and putting in it
your entire hope of a livelihood, personally inconspicuous, getting meagre and_ illiberal returns,
humble-witted, an insignificant figure in public,
neither sought by your friends nor feared by your
enemies nor envied by your fellow-citizens—nothing
but just a labourer, one of the swarming rabble, ever
cringing to the man above you and courting the man
who can use his tongue, leading a hare’s life, and
counting as a godsend to anyone stronger. Even
if you should become a Phidias or a Polycleitus and
should create many marvellous works, everyone
would praise your craftsmanship, to be sure, but
none of those who saw you, if he were sensible,
would pray to be like you; for no matter what you
might be, you would be considered a mechanic, a
man who has naught but his hands, a man who lives
by his hands.
 

“If you follow my advice, first of all I shall show
you many works of men of old, tell you their

 

wondrous deeds and words, and make you conversant
with almost all knowledge, and I shall ornament your
soul, which concerns you most, with many noble
adornments—temperance, justice, piety, kindliness,
reasonableness, understanding, steadfastness, love of
all that is beautiful, ardour towards all that is sublime ;
for these are the truly flawless jewels of the soul.
Nothing that came to pass of old will escape you;
and nothing that must now come to pass; nay, you
will even foresee the future with me. In a word,
I shall speedily teach you everything that there is,
whether it pertains to the gods or to man.