Saturnian son of Rhea's womb,
God of the noblest games divine,

And Alpheus's stream that wanders near,
Sooth'd with our song, to all his line
Vouchsafe their Sire's dominion long to bear.

EPODE I

Virtue's achievement, Folly's crime,

Whate'er of guilt or good the past has known, Not e'en the Sire of all things, mighty Time, Hath power to change, or make the deed undone. But, when the prosperous hour returns,

O'er woes long wept Oblivion softly lays

Her shadowy veil; and from the heart that mourns, By goodlier joys subdued, th' inveterate bane decays.

STROPHE II

Thus rewarding Heaven and Fate
Exalted bliss at length bestow;

As Cadmus's daughters, throned in state,
Teach the moral strain to show.
Great their ills; but heaviest woe
Mightier good can soon o'erthrow:
For Semelè, once to vengeance given,
Now waves her flowing locks in Heaven;
She, by the rattling thunder slain,
To Pallas dear, caress'd by Jove,
Among the Olympians lives again,
And meets her Ivied Boy's requited love.

ANTISTROPHE II

Bosom'd in the briny deep,

'Mong Nereids green, as story tells, While Time his circling course shall keep, Ay immortal Ino dwells.

'Tis not given for man to know

When pale Death shall strike the blow,

Nor e'en if one serener Day,
The Sun's brief child, shall pass away
Unclouded as it rose. The waves
Of life with ceaseless changes flow,
And, as the tempest sleeps or raves,
Bring triumph or disaster, weal or woe.

ANTISTROPHE III

'Midst Olympia's shouting bands

With the proud prize himself was crown'd;
While rival wreaths from Isthmian hands
Waved his brother's temples round;
Fortune's favorite! o'er his brow
Blended hung the Pythian bough.

With fourfold team in rapid race

Twelve times he scour'd the circling space:
Before Success the Sorrows fly.

And Wealth more bright with Virtue join'd,
Brings golden Opportunity,

The sparkling star, the sunbeam of mankind;

EPODE III

Brings to the rich man's restless heart
Ambition's splendid cares. No less he knows
The day fast comes when all men must depart,
And pay for present pride in future woes.
The deeds that frantic mortals do

In this disorder'd nook of Jove's domain,

All meet their meed; and there's a Judge below Whose hateful doom inflicts th' inevitable pain.

STROPHE IV

O'er the Good soft suns the while

Through the mild day, the night serene,

Alike with cloudless luster smile,

Tempering all the tranquil scene.

Theirs is leisure; vex not they
Stubborn soil or watery way,

To wring from toil want's worthless bread:
No ills they know, no tears they shed,

But with the glorious Gods below

Ages of peace contented share.

Meanwhile the Bad with bitterest woe
Eye-startling tasks, and endless tortures wear.

ANTISTROPHE IV

All, whose steadfast virtue thrice

Each side the grave unchanged hath stood
Still unseduced, unstain'd with vice,
They by Jove's mysterious road

Pass to Saturn's realm of rest,
Happy isle that holds the blest;
Where sea-born breezes gently blow

O'er blooms of gold that round them glow,
Which Nature boon from stream or strand

Or goodly tree profusely pours;

Whence pluck they many a fragrant band,
And braid their locks with never-fading flowers.

PLATO

PLATO, the great Grecian philosopher and idealist. Born in Athens, about 427 B.C.; died 347 B.C. Author of forty-four Socratic dialogues, all admirably available to English readers in Jowett's revised translation. The twenty-one most notable are: the "Apology," "Lysis," "Charmides," "Laches," "Protagoras," "Meno," "Georgias," "Ion," "Euthyphro," "Crito," "Theætetus," "The Sophist," "The Politician," "Parmenides," "Phædrus," "Symposium," "Phædo," "Philebus," "The Republic," "Timæus," "The Laws." "Of Plato," says Emerson, "I hesitate to speak, lest there should be no end. Who can overestimate the images with which Plato has enriched the minds of men, and which pass like bullion in the currency of all nations?"

SOCRATES was born in Athens about 470 B.C.; died 399 B.C. He figures throughout the writings of Plato, whose earlier dialogues are certainly Socratic. Throughout Christendom, Socrates, as a moral philosopher, is accorded the highest rank outside the New Testament Scriptures.

(From "THE APOLOGY")

THE TRIAL OF SOCRATES

Socr. I cannot tell what impression my accusers have made upon you, Athenians: for my own part, I know that they nearly made me forget who I was, so plausible were they; and yet they have scarcely uttered one single word of truth. But of all their many falsehoods, the one which astonished me most was when they said that I was a clever speaker, and that you must be careful not to let me mislead you. I thought that it was most impudent of them not to be ashamed to talk in that way; for as soon as I open my mouth the lie will be exposed, and I shall prove that I am not a clever speaker in any way at all: unless, indeed, by a clever speaker they mean a man who speaks the truth. If that is their meaning, I agree with them that I am a much greater orator than they. My accusers, then, I repeat, have said little or nothing that is true; but from me you shall hear the whole truth. Certainly you will not hear an elaborate speech, Athenians, dressed up, like theirs, with words and phrases. I will say to you what I have to say, without preparation, and in the words which come first, for I believe that my cause is just; so let none of you expect anything else. Indeed, my friends, it would hardly be seemly for me, at my age, to come before you like a young man with his specious falsehoods. But there is one thing, Athenians, which I do most earnestly beg and entreat of you. Do not be surprised and do not interrupt, if in my defense I speak in the same way that I am accustomed to speak in the market-place, at the tables of the money-changers, where many of you have heard me, and elsewhere. The truth is this: I am more than seventy years old, and this is the first time that I have ever come before a Court of Law; so your manner of speech here is quite strange to me. If I had been really a stranger, you would have forgiven me for speaking in the language and the fashion of my native country and so now I ask you to grant me what I think I

have a right to claim. Never mind the style of my speech, it may be better or it may be worse, - give your whole attention to the question, Is what I say just, or is it not? That is what makes a good judge, as speaking the truth makes a good advocate.

I have to defend myself, Athenians, first, against the old false charges of my old accusers, and then against the later ones of my present accusers. For many men have been accusing me to you, and for very many years, who have not uttered a word of truth: and I fear them more than I fear Anytus and his companions, formidable as they are. But, my friends, those others are still more formidable; for they got hold of most of you when you were children, and they have been more persistent in accusing me with lies, and in trying to persuade you that there is one Socrates, a wise man, who speculates about the heavens, and who examines into all things that are beneath the earth, and who can make the worse appear the better reason. These men, Athenians, who spread abroad this report, are the accusers whom I fear; for their hearers think that persons who pursue such inquiries never believe in the gods. And then they are many, and their attacks have been going on for a long time, and they spoke to you when you were at the age most readily to believe them; for you were all young, and many of you were children; and there was no one to answer them when they attacked me. And the most unreasonable thing of all is that commonly I do not even know their names: I cannot tell you who they are, except in the case of the comic poets. But all the rest who have been trying to prejudice you against me, from motives of spite and jealousy, and sometimes, it may be, from conviction, are the enemies whom it is hardest to meet. For I cannot call any one of them forward in Court, to cross-examine him: I have, as it were, simply to fight with shadows in my defense, and to put questions which there is no one to answer. I ask you, therefore, to believe that, as I say, I have been attacked by two classes of accusers-first by Meletus and his friends, and then by those older ones of whom I have spoken. And, with your leave, I will defend myself first against my old enemies; for you heard their accusations first, and they were much more persistent than my present accusers are.