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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: course, and muffling up his face, fell prostrate on the couch.
Then Callias: What ails you, sirrah? Have you the cramp? the
toothache? what?
To which the other heaving a deep groan: Yes, Callias, an atrocious
ache; since laughter has died out among mankind, my whole estate is
bankrupt.[30] In old days I would be asked to dinner to amuse the
company with jests.[31] Now all is changed, and who will be at pains
to ask me out to dinner any more? I might as well pretend to be
immortal as to be serious. Nor will any one invite me in hopes of
reclining at my board in his turn. Everyone knows so serious a thing
as dinner in my house was never heard of; it's against the rules--the
The Symposium |
