Nevertheless let this speech of the poet, Lie still at ease, poor wretch, in thy own bed, both be and seem to be spoken for the dissuading of him who shall, when he is now grown gray with age, begin to play the youth; and for the restraining an old man who, rising from a long administration of his domestic affairs, as from a lingering disease, shall set himself to lead an army to the field, or perform the office of secretary of state. But altogether senseless, and nothing like to this, is he who will not suffer one that has spent his whole time in political administrations, and been thoroughly beaten to them, to go on to his funeral torch and the conclusion of his life, but shall call him back, and command him (as it were) to turn out of the long road he has been travelling in. He who, to draw off from his design an old fellow who is crowned and is perfuming himself to go a wooing, should say to him, as was heretofore said to Philoctetes, What virgin will her blooming maidenhead Bestow on such a wretch? Why would’st thou wed? would not be at all absurd, since even old men break many such jests upon themselves, and say, I, old fool, know, I for my neighbors wed; but he who should think, that a man which has long cohabited and lived irreprehensibly with his wife ought, because he is grown old, to dismiss her and live alone, or take a concubine in her place, would have attained the utmost excess of perverseness. So he would not act altogether unreasonably, that should admonish an old man who is making his first approaches to the people, whether he be such a one as Chlidon the farmer, or Lampon the mariner, or some old dreaming philosopher of the garden, and advise him to continue in his accustomed unconcernedness for the public; but he who, taking hold of Phocion, Cato, or Pericles, should say to him, My Athenian or Roman friend, who art come to thy withered old age, make a divorce, and henceforth quit the state; and dismissing all conversations and cares about either council or camp, retire into the country, there with an old maid-servant looking after thy husbandry, or spending the remainder of thy time in managing thy domestic affairs and taking thy accounts,—would persuade a statesman to do things misbeseeming him and unacceptable.