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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: long as health endures make merry cheer, day in day out; or if either
of them should fall on sickness, then will their intercourse be yet
more constant; and if they cared for one another face to face, much
more will they care when parted.[39] Are not all these the outward
tokens of true loveliness?[40] In the exercise of such sweet offices,
at any rate, they show their passion for holy friendship's state, and
prove its bliss, continuously pacing life's path from youth to eld.
[38] For beauty of style (in the original) Zeune cf. "Mem." II. vi. 28
foll.; III. xi. 10.
[39] "Albeit absent from one another in the body, they are more
present in the soul." Cf. Virg. "Aen." iv. 83, "illum absens
The Symposium |
