CLEINIAS: By heaven, sir, you're quite right. You've the sharp eye of an old man for these things.
ATHENIAN: Yes, when we're young, we're all pretty blind to them; old age is the best time to see them clearly.
Κλεινίας. ναὶ μὰ Δία, ὦ ξένε· καθ᾽ ἡλικίαν γὰρ ὀξὺ βλέπεις.
Ἀθηναῖος. νέος μὲν γὰρ ὢν πᾶς ἄνθρωπος τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀμβλύτατα αὐτὸς αὑτοῦ ὁρᾷ, γέρων δὲ ὀξύτατα.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Sunday, March 29, 2026
Old Men
Plato, Laws 4.715d-e (tr. Trevor J. Saunders):