al wars with the
Eretrians, and at last lost his life in one of the battles fought for
the possession of the Lelantine plain. Now, because the writings of
those poets were set to verse and so made the argument more knotty and
the decision more arduous, and the great names of the antagonists,
Homer and Hesiod, whose excellence was so well known, made the umpires
timorous and shy to determine; they therefore betook themselves to these
sorts of questions, and Homer, says Lesches, propounded this riddle:--

Tell me, O Muse, what never was
And never yet shall be.

Hesiod answered readily and extempore in this wise:--

When steeds with echoing hoof, to win
The prize, shall run amain;
And on the tomb of lofty Jove
Their chariots break in twain.

For this reply he was infinitely commended and got the tripod. Pray tell
me, quoth Cleodemus, what difference there is between these riddles and
those of Eumetis, which she frames and invents to recreate herself with
as much pleasure as other virgins make nets and girdles? They may be fit
to offer and puzzle women withal; but for men to beat their brains to
find out their mystery would be mighty ridiculous. Eumetis looked like
one that had a great mind to reply; but her modesty would not permit
her, for her face was filled with blushes. But Aesop in her vindication
asked: Is it not much more ridiculous that all present cannot resolve
the riddle she propounded to us before supper? This was as follows:--

A man I saw, who by his fire
Did set a piece of brass
Fast to a man, so that it seemed
To him it welded was.

Can you tell me, said he, how to construe this, and what the sense of it
may be? No, said Cleodemus, it is no profit to know what it means. And
yet, quoth Aesop, no man understands this thing better and practises it
more judiciously and successfully than yourself. If you deny it, I
have my witnesses ready; for there are your cupping-glasses. Cleodemus
laughed outright; for of all the physicians in his time, none used
cupping-glasses like him, he being a person that by his frequent and
fortunate application thereof brought them first into request in the
world.

Mnesiphilus the Athenian, a friend and favorite of Solon's, said: O
Periander, our discourse, as our wine, ought to be distributed not
according to our power or priority, but freely and equally, as in a
popular state; for what hath been already discoursed