He continued: I desire to make known to you, Simonides,[1] those divers pleasures which were mine whilst I was still a private citizen, but of which to-day, nay, from the moment I became a tyrant, I find myself deprived. In those days I consorted with my friends and fellows, to our mutual delectation;[2] or, if I craved for quietude,[3] I chose myself for my companion. Gaily the hours flitted at our drinking-parties, ofttimes till we had drowned such cares and troubles as are common to the life of man in Lethe's bowl;[4] or ofttimes till we had steeped our souls in song and dance[5] and revelry; ofttimes till the flame of passion kindled in the breasts of my companions and my own.[6] But now, welladay, I am deprived of those who took delight in me, because I have slaves instead of friends as my companions; I am robbed of my once delightful intercourse with them, because I discern no vestige of goodwill towards me in their looks. And as to the wine-cup and slumber--these I guard against, even as a man might guard against an ambuscade. Think only! to dread a crowd, to dread solitude, to dread the absence of a guard, to dread the very guards that guard, to shrink from having those about one's self unarmed, and yet to hate the sight of armed attendants. Can you conceive a more troublesome circumstance?[7] But that is not all. To place more confidence in foreigners than in your fellow-citizens, nay, in barbarians than in Hellenes, to be consumed with a desire to keep freemen slaves and yet to be driven, will he nill he, to make slaves free, are not all these the symptoms of a mind distracted and amazed with terror?
[1] Or, "I wish I could disclose to you (he added) those heart-easing joys." For {euphrosunas} cf. "Od." vi. 156; Aesch. "P. V." 540; Eur. "Bacch." 376. A favourite word with our author; see "Ages." ix. 4; "Cyrop." passim; "Mem." III. viii. 10; "Econ." ix. 12. [2] Lit. "delighting I in them and they in me."[3] Or, "when I sought tranquility I was my own companion." [4] Or, "in sheer forgetfulness."[5] Or, "absorbed our souls in song and festal cheer and dance." Cf.
"Od." viii. 248, 249, {aiei d' emin dais te phile kitharis te khoroi te} |{eimata t' exemoiba loetra te therma kau eunai}, "anddear to us ever is the banquet and the harp and the dance, and changes of raiment, and the warm bath, and love and sleep" (Butcher and Lang).
[6] Reading as vulg. {epithumias}. Breit. cf. "Mem." III. ix. 7; Plat. "Phaed." 116 E, "he has eaten and drunk and enjoyed the society of his beloved" (Jowett). See "Symp." the finale; or if, after Weiske and Cobet, {euthumias}, transl. "to the general hilarity of myself and the whole company" (cf. "Cyrop." I. iii. 12, IV. v. 7), but this is surely a bathos rhetorically.
[7] Or, "a worse perplexity." See "Hell." VII. iii. 8.
For terror, you know, not only is a source of pain indwelling in the breast itself, but, ever in close attendance, shadowing the path,[8] becomes the destroyer of all sweet joys.
[8]Reading{sumparakolouthonlumeon}.Stob.gives{sumparomarton lumanter}. For the sentiment cf. "Cyrop." III. i. 25.
