ance from Cnosus to the cave and temple of Zeus is
considerable, and doubtless there are shady places under the lofty
trees which will protect us from the scorching sun. Being no longer
young, we may often stop to rest beneath them, and get over the whole
journey without difficulty, beguiling the time by conversation."

"Yes, Stranger," answers Cleinias the Cretan, "and if we proceed
onward we shall come to groves of cypresses, which are of rare height
and beauty, and there are green meadows in which we may repose and
converse."

"Very good."

"Very good indeed; and still better when we see them. Let us move on
cheerily."

So, now walking, anon pausing in the shade to rest, the three strangers
beguile their journey, which (as the Athenian was made, by one of Plato's
cunning touches, to foresee) is a long one; and the dialogue, moving with
their deliberate progress, extends to a length which no doubt in the
course of some 2,300 years has frightened away many thousands of general
readers. Yet its slow amplitude, when you come to think of it, is
appropriate; for these elderly men are in no hurry, although they have
plenty to talk about, especially on the subjects of youth and religion.
"They have," says Jowett, "the feelings of old age about youth, about the
state, about human things in general. Nothing in life seems to be of much
importance to them: they are spectators rather than actors, and men in
general appear to the Athenian speaker to be the playthings of the gods
and of circumstances. Still they have a fatherly care of the young, and
are deeply impressed by sentiments of religion. . . ."

"Human affairs," says the Athenian, "are hardly worth considering in
earnest, and yet we must be in earnest about them--a sad necessity
constrains us. . . . And so I say that about serious matters a man
should be serious, and about a matter which is not serious he should
not be serious; and that God is the natural and worthy object of our
most serious and blessed endeavours. For man, as I said before, is
made to be the plaything of God, and this, truly considered, is the
best of him; wherefore also every man and woman should walk seriously
and pass life in the noblest of pastimes, and be of another mind from
what they are at present."

But on the subject of youth, too, our Athenian is anxiously, albeit
calmly, serious: