But now, if my years are prolonged, I know that the frailties of old age will inevitably be realized, that my vision must be less perfect and my hearing less keen, that I shall be slower to learn and more forgetful of what I have learned.
νῦν δὲ εἰ ἔτι προβήσεται ἡ ἡλικία, οἶδ ̓ ὅτι ἀνάγκη ἔσται τὰ τοῦ γήρως ἀποτελεῖσθαι καὶ ὁρᾶν τε χεῖρον καὶ ἀκούειν ἧττον καὶ δυσμαθέστερον εἶναι καὶ ὧν ἔμαθον ἐπιλησμονέστερον.
"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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Wednesday, May 13, 2026
The Frailities of Old Age
Xenophon, Apology of Socrates 6 (tr. O.J. Todd):