tenuated; we feel
neither pleasure nor pain; we are as if we were not. The dead have
no existence here except such as the living lend them. Nevertheless I
prefer to remain here."

"But what reason didst thou give, O Virgil, for so strange a refusal?"

"I gave excellent ones. I said to the messenger of the god that I did
not deserve the honour he brought me, and that a meaning had been given
to my verses which they did not bear. In truth I have not in my fourth
Eclogue betrayed the faith of my ancestors. Some ignorant Jews alone
have interpreted in favour of a barbarian god a verse which celebrates
the return of the golden age predicted by the Sibylline oracles. I
excused myself then on the ground that I could not occupy a place which
was destined for me in error and to which I recognised that I had no
right. Then I alleged my disposition and my tastes, which do not accord
with the customs of the new heavens.

"'I am not unsociable,' said I to this man. 'I have shown in life a
complaisant and easy disposition, although the extreme simplicity of my
habits caused me to be suspected of avarice. I kept nothing for myself
alone. My library was open to all and I have conformed my conduct to
that fine saying of Euripides, "all ought to be common among friends."
Those praises that seemed obtrusive when I myself received them became
agreeable to me when addressed to Varius or to Macer. But at bottom I
am rustic and uncultivated. I take pleasure in the society of animals;
I was so zealous in observing them and took so much care of them that I
was regarded, not altogether wrongly, as a good veterinary surgeon. I am
told that the people of thy sect claim an immortal soul for themselves,
but refuse one to the animals. That is a piece of nonsense that makes
me doubt their judgment. Perhaps I love the flocks and the shepherds a
little too much. That would not seem right amongst you. There is a maxim
to which I endeavour to conform my actions, "Nothing too much." More
even than my feeble health my philosophy teaches me to use things with
measure. I am sober; a lettuce and some olives with a drop of Falernian
wine form all my meals. I have, indeed, to some extent gone with strange
women, but I have not delayed over long in taverns to watch the young
Syrians dance to the sound of the crotalum.* But if I have restrained
my desires it was for my own satisfaction and for the sake of good
discipline. To fear pleasure and to fly from joy app