Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 6) (Burges, 1854).djvu/16

4 think you will now hear a strange discourse, and on the other hand in a certain respect not strange. For many, who meet us in life, tell the same story, that the human race will be neither blessed nor happy. Follow me, then, and see whether to you I likewise appear together with them to speak correctly on a point like this. I assert then that it is not possible for men, except a few, to be blessed and happy; I limit this to as long as we live; but there is a fair hope that a person will after death obtain every thing, for the sake of which he would desire, when alive, to live in the best manner he could, and dying to meet with such an end. And I assert nothing (very) wise, but what all of us, both Greeks and Barbarians, after a certain manner know, that to be produced is at the beginning difficult for every animal. In the first place, it is difficult to partake of the state of conception, next to be born, and, further still, to be brought up and educated; (for) all these things take place, as we all say, through ten thousand troubles. The time too would be short, not only with respect to the calculation of annoyances, but what every one would imagine to be moderate; and this seems to