[26]
A pleasure, rather than a bore, say I. For just as
wise men, when they are old, take delight in the
society of youths endowed with sprightly wit, and
the burdens of age are rendered lighter to those who
are courted and highly esteemed by the young,
so young men find pleasure in their elders, by whose,
precepts they are led into virtue's paths; nor
indeed do I feel that I am any less of a pleasure to
you than you are to me. But you see how old
age, so far from being feeble and inactive, is even
busy and is always doing and effecting something—
that is to say, something of the same nature
in each case as were the pursuits of earlier years.
And what of those who even go on adding to their
store of knowledge? Such was the case with Solon,
whom we see boasting in his verses that he grows
old learning something every day.1 And I have
done the same, for in my old age I have learned
Greek, which I seized upon as eagerly as if I had
been desirous of satisfying a long-continued thirst,
with the result that I have acquired first-hand the
information which you see me using in this discussion by way of illustration. And when I read
what Socrates2 had done in the case of the lyre, an
instrument much cultivated by the ancients, I should
have liked to do that too, if I could; but in literature
I have certainly laboured hard.
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