Section 1 of FIDRUS by PLATO FIDRUS by PLATO PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE SOCRATES FIDRUS SEEN under a plain tree by the banks of the Elyseus. My dear FIDRUS, whence come you, and whither are you going? I come from Lyceas, the son of Cephalus, and I am going to take a walk outside the wall, for I have been sitting with him the whole morning, and our common friend, Acumenus, tells me that it is much more refreshing to walk in the open air than to be shut up in a cloister. There he is right, Lyceas, then, I suppose, was in the town. Yes, he was staying with Epicrates, here, at the house of Moricus, that house which is near the temple of Olympian Zeus. And how did he entertain you? Can I be wrong in supposing that Lyceas gave you a feast of discourse? You shall hear, if you can spare time to accompany me. And should I not deem the conversation of you and Lyceas a thing of higher import, as I may say in the words of Pindar, than any business, will you go on, and will you go on with the narration? My tale, Socrates, is one of your sort, for love was the theme which occupied us. Love after a fashion. Lyceas has been writing about a fair youth who was being tempted, but not by a lover. And this was the point he ingeniously proved that the non-lover should be accepted rather than the lover. Oh, that is noble of him! I wish that he would say the poor man rather than the rich, and the old man rather than the young one, then he would meet the case of me and many a man. His words would be quite refreshing, and he would be a public benefactor. For my part I do so long to hear his speech, that if you walk all the way to Magara, and when you have reached the wall, come back, as Herodicus recommends, without going in, I will keep you company. What do you mean, my good Socrates? How can you imagine that my unpracticed memory can do justice to such an elaborate work, which the greatest rhetorician of the age spent a long time in composing? Indeed, I cannot. I would give a great deal if I could. I believe that I know Fidress about as well as I know myself, and I am very sure that the speech of Lucius was repeated to him, not once only, but again and again. He insisted on hearing it many times over, and Lucius was very willing to gratify him. At last, when nothing else would do, he got hold of the book, and looked at what he most wanted to see. Fidress occupied him during the whole morning, and then, when he was tired with sitting, he went out to take a walk, not until, by the dog as I believe, he had simply learned by heart the entire discourse, unless it was unusually long, and he went to a place outside the wall that he might practice his lesson. There, he saw a certain lover of discourse who had a similar weakness. He saw and rejoiced, now thought he I shall have a partner in my revels, and he invited him to come and walk with him. But when the lover of discourse begged that he would repeat the tale, he gave himself airs and said, No, I cannot, as if he were indisposed, although if the hearer had refused, he would sooner or later have been compelled by him to listen, whether he would or no. For Fidress bid him do at once what he soon will do, whether bidden or not. I see that you will not let me off, until I speak in some fashion or other, verily, therefore, my best plan is to speak as I best can. A very true remark, that of yours. I will do as I say, but believe me, Socrates, I did not learn the very words. No, nevertheless I have a general notion of what he said, and will give you a summary of the points in which the lover differed from the non-lover. Let me begin at the beginning. Yes, my sweet one, but you must, first of all, show what you have in your left hand, under your cloak, for that role, as I suspect, is the actual discourse. Now much as I love you, I would not have you suppose that I am going to have your memory exercised at my expense, if you have Lucius himself here. Enough, I see that I have no hope of practising my art upon you, but if I am to read, where would you please to sit? Let us turn aside, and go by the illicit. We will sit down at some quiet spot. I am fortunate in not having my sandals, and as you never have any, I think that we may go along the brook and cool our feet in the water. This will be the easiest way, and at midday and in the summer is far from being unpleasant. Lead on, and look out for a place in which we can sit down. Do you see the tallest plain tree in the distance? Yes. There are shade and gentle breezes, and grass on which we may either sit or lie down. Move forward. I should like to know, Socrates, whether the place is not somewhere here at which Boreas is said to have carried off Orithea from the banks of the illicit, such is the tradition. Is this the exact spot? The little stream is delightfully clear and bright. I can fancy that there might be maidens playing near. I believe that the spot is not exactly here, but about a quarter of a mile lower down, where you cross to the temple of Artemis, and there is, I think, some sort of an altar of Boreas at the place. I have never noticed it, but I beseech you to tell me, Socrates, do you believe this tale? The wise are doubtful, and I should not be singular if, like them, I too doubted. I might have a rational explanation that Orithea was playing with Varmakia when a northern gust carried her over the neighbouring rocks, and this being the manner of her death, she was said to have been carried away by Boreas. There is a discrepancy, however, about the locality. According to another version of the story, she was taken from Ariopagus, and not from this place. Now, I quite acknowledge that these allegories are very nice, but he is not to be envied who has to invent them. Much labour and ingenuity will be required of him, and when he has once begun, he must go on and rehabilitate hippocenturs and chimeras dire. Gorgons and winged steeds flow in a pace, and numberless other inconceivable and portentous natures. And if he is sceptical about them, and would feign reduce them one after another to the rules of probability, this sort of crude philosophy will take up a great deal of time. Now I have no leisure for such inquiries. Shall I tell you why?  And therefore I bid farewell to all this. The common opinion is enough for me. For as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself. Why a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Tufo, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny? But let me ask you, friend, have we not reached the plain tree to which you were conducting us? Yes, this is the tree. By here a fair resting place. Full of summer sounds and scents, here is this lofty and spreading plain tree, and the agnus castus high and clustering in the fullest blossom and the greatest fragrance. And the stream which flows beneath the plain tree is deliciously cold to the feet. Judging from the ornaments and images, this must be a spot sacred to Aquiloas and the nymphs. Oh, how delightful is the breeze! So very sweet! There is a sound in the air, shrill and summer-like, which makes answer to the chorus of the cicadae. But the greatest charm of all is the grass, like a pillow gently sloping to the head. My dear Phytrus, you have been an admirable guide. End of Section 1. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Section 2 of Phytrus by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Joett. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen.  When you are in the country, as you say, you really are like some stranger who is led about by a guide. Do you ever cross the border? I rather think that you never venture even outside the gates. Very true, my good friend, and I hope that you will excuse me when you hear the reason, which is that I am a lover of knowledge, and the men who dwell in the city are my teachers, and not the trees or the country. Though I do indeed believe that you have found a spell with which to draw me out of the city into the country, like a hungry cow before whom a bough or a bunch of fruit is waved, for only hold up before me in like manner a book, and you may lead me all round Attica and over the wide world. And now, having arrived, I intend to lie down. And do you choose any posture in which you can read best? Begin. Listen. You know how matters stand with me, and how, as I conceived, the affair may be arranged for the advantage of both of us. And I maintain that I ought not to fail in my suit because I am not your lover, for lovers repent of the kindnesses which they have shown when their passion ceases. But to the non-lovers who are free and not under any compulsion, no time of repentance ever comes, for they confer their benefits according to the measure of their ability, in the way which is most conducive to their own interest. Then again, lovers consider how by reason of their love they have neglected their own concerns and rendered service to others. And when do these benefits conferred, they add on the troubles which they have endured. They think that they have long ago made to the beloved a very ample return. But the non-lover has no such tormenting recollections. He has never neglected his affairs or quarreled with his relations. He has no troubles to add up or excuses to invent. And being well rid of all these evils, why should he not really do what will gratify the beloved? If you say that the lover is more to be esteemed because his love is thought to be greater, for he is willing to say and do what is hateful to other men in order to please his beloved, that, if true, is only a proof that he will prefer any future love to his present and will injure his old love at the pleasure of the new. And how, in a matter of such infinite importance, can a man be right in trusting himself to one who is afflicted with a malady which no experienced person would attempt to cure, for the patient himself admits that he is not in his right mind and acknowledges that he is wrong in his mind but says that he is unable to control himself. And if he came to his right mind, would he ever imagine that the desires were good which he conceived when in his wrong mind? Once more there are many more non-lovers than lovers. And if you choose the best of the lovers, you will not have many to choose from. But if from the non-lovers the choice will be larger and you will be far more likely to find among them a person who is worthy of your friendship. If public opinion be your dread and you would avoid reproach in all probability the lover who is always thinking that other men are as emulous of him as he is of them will boast to someone of his successes and make a show of them openly in the pride of his heart. He wants others to know that his labour has not been lost. But the non-lover is more his own master and his desirous of solid good and not the opinion of mankind. Again the lover may be generally noted or seen following the beloved. This is his regular occupation and whenever they are observed to exchange two words they are supposed to meet about some affair of love either past or in contemplation. But when non-lovers meet no one asks the reason why because people know that talking to another is natural whether friendship or mere pleasure be the motive. Once more if you fear the fickleness of friendship consider that in any other case a quarrel might be a mutual calamity but now when you have given up what is most precious to you you will be the greater loser and therefore you will have more reason in being afraid of the lover for his fixations are many and he is always fancying that everyone is leaked against him wherefore also he debars his beloved from society. He will not have you intimate with the wealthy lest they should exceed him in wealth or with men of education lest they should be his superiors in understanding and he is equally afraid of anybody's influence who has any other advantage over himself. If he can persuade you to break with them you are left without a friend in the world or if out of regard to your own interest you have more sense than to comply with his desire you will have to quarrel with him. But those who are non-lovers and who success in love is the reward of their merit will not be jealous of the companions of their beloved and will rather hate those who refuse to be his associates thinking that their favourite is slighted by the latter and benefited by the former. For more love than hatred may be expected to come to him out of his friendship with others. Many lovers too have loved the person of a youth before they knew his character or his belongings so that when their passion has passed away there is no knowing whether they will continue to be his friends whereas in the case of non-lovers who were always friends the friendship is not lessened by the favours granted but the recollection of these remains with them and is an earnest of good things to come. Further I say that you are likely to be improved by me whereas the lover will spoil you for they praise your words and actions in a wrong way partly because they are afraid of offending you and also their judgment is weakened by passion. Such are the feats which love exhibits he makes things painful to the disappointed which give no pain to others he compels the successful lover to praise what ought not to give him pleasure and therefore the beloved is to be pitied rather than envied but if you listen to me in the first place I in my intercourse with you shall not merely regard present enjoyment but also future advantage being not mastered by love but my own master nor for small causes taking violent dislikes but even when the cause is great slowly laying up little wrath unintentional offences I shall forgive and intentional ones I shall try to prevent and these are the marks of a friendship which will last do you think that a lover only can be a firm friend? Reflect if this were true we should set small value on sons or fathers or mothers nor should we ever have loyal friends for our love of them arises not from passion but from other associations further if we ought to shower favors on those who are the most eager suitors on that principle we ought always to do good not to the most virtuous but to the most needy for they are the persons who will be most relieved and will therefore be the most grateful and when you make a feast you should invite not your friend but the beggar and the empty soul for they will love you and attend you and come about your doors and will be the best pleased and the most grateful and will invoke many a blessing on your head yet surely you ought not to be granting favors to those who beseech you with prayer but to those who are best able to reward you nor to the lover only but to those who are worthy of love nor to those who will enjoy the bloom of your youth but to those who will share their possessions with you in age nor to those who having succeeded will glory in their success to others but to those who will be modest and tell no tales nor to those who care about you for a moment only but to those who will continue your friends through life nor to those who when their passion is over will pick a quarrel with you but rather to those who when the charm of youth has left you will show their own virtue remember what I have said and consider yet this further point friends admonish the lover under the idea that his way of life is bad but no one of his kindred ever yet censured the non-lover or thought that he was ill advised about his own interests perhaps you will ask me whether I propose that you should indulge ever in non-lover to which I reply that not even the lover would advise you to indulge all lovers for the indiscriminate favour is less esteemed by the rational recipient and less easily hidden by him who would escape the censure of the world now love ought to be for the advantage of both parties and for the injury of neither I believe that I have said enough but if there is anything more which you desire or which in your opinion needs to be supplied ask and I will answer end of section 2 recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey section 3 of Fidress by Plato translated by Benjamin Joett this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Martin Giesen section 3 now Socrates what do you think is not the discourse excellent more especially in the matter of the language yes quite admirable the effect on me was ravishing and this I owe to you Fidress for I observed you while reading to be in an ecstasy and thinking that you are more experienced in these matters than I am I followed your example and like you my divine darling I became inspired with a frenzy indeed you are pleased to be merry do you mean that I am not in earnest now don't talk in that way Socrates but let me have your real opinion I adore you by Zeus the God of friendship to tell me whether you think that any Helene could have said more or spoken better on the same subject well but you and I expected to praise the sentiments of the author or only the clearness and roundness and finish and tournure of the language as to the first I willingly submit to your better judgment for I am not worthy to form an opinion having only attended to the rhetorical manner and I was doubting whether this could have been defended even by Lucius himself I thought, though I speak under correction that he repeated himself two or three times either from want of words or from want of pains and also he appeared to me ostentatiously to exult in showing how well he could say the same thing in two or three ways Nonsense Socrates what you call repetition was the special merit of the speech for he omitted no topic of which the subject rightly allowed and I do not think that anyone could have spoken better or more exhaustively There I cannot go along with you Ancient sages, men and women who have spoken and written of these things would rise up in judgment against me if out of complacence I assented to you Who are they and where did you hear anything better than this? I am sure that I must have heard but at this moment I do not remember from whom perhaps from Saffo the Fair or Anacreon the Wise or possibly from a prose writer Why do I say so? Why, because I perceive that my bosom is full and that I could make another speech as good as that of Lucius and different Now I am certain that this is not an invention of my own who am well aware that I know nothing and therefore I can only infer that I have been filled through the ears like a picture from the waters of another though I have actually forgotten in my stupidity was my informant That is grand, but never mind where you heard the discourse or from whom Let that be a mystery, not to be divulged even at my earnest desire only as you say promise to make another and better aeration equal in length and entirely new on the same subject and I, like the nine Archons will promise to set up a golden image at Delphi not only of myself but of you and as large as life You are a dear golden ass if you suppose me to mean that Lucius has altogether missed the mark and that I can make a speech from which all his arguments are to be excluded the worst of authors will say something which is to the point who, for example, could speak on this thesis of yours without praising the discretion of the non-lover and blaming the indiscretion of the lover These are the common places of the subject which must come in for what else is there to be said and must be allowed and excused the only merit is in the arrangement of them for there can be none in the invention but when you leave the common places then there may be some originality I admit that there is reason in what you say and I too will be reasonable and will allow you to start with the premise that the lover is more disordered in his wits than the non-lover if in what remains you make a longer and better speech than Lucius and use other arguments then I say again that a statue you shall have of beaten gold and take your place by the colossal offerings of the cubesilids at Olympia How profoundly in earnest is the lover because to tease him I lay a finger upon his love And so, Fidrus, you really imagine that I am going to improve upon the ingenuity of Lucius There I have you as you had me and you must just speak as you best can Do not let us exchange too quack where as in a farce or compel me to say to you as you said to me I know Socrates as well as I know myself and he was wanting to speak but he gave himself airs Rather, I would have you consider that from this place we stir not not until you have unbosomed yourself of the speech for here are we all alone and I am stronger, remember and younger than you wherefore, prepend and do not compel me to use violence But my sweet Fidrus how ridiculous it would be of me to compete with Lucius in an extempore speech he is a master in his art and I am an untaught man you see how matters stand and therefore let there be no more pretenses for indeed I know the word that is irresistible Then don't say it Yes, but I will and my word shall be an oath I say or rather swear but what God will be witness of my oath By this plain tree I swear that unless you repeat the discourse here in the face of this very plain tree I will never tell you another never let you have word of another Villain, I am conquered the poor lover of discourse has no more to say Then why are you still at your tricks I am not going to play tricks now that you have taken the oath for I cannot allow myself to be starved Proceed Shall I tell you what I will do what I will veil my face and gallop through the discourse as fast as I can for if I see you I shall feel ashamed and not know what to say only go on and you may do anything else which you please Come, O ye muses, melodious as ye are called whether you have received this name from the character of your strains or because the millions are a musical race Help, O help me in the tale which my good friend here desires me to rehearse in order that his friend whom he always deemed wise may seem to him to be wiser than ever Once upon a time there was a fair boy or more properly speaking a youth he was very fair and had a great many lovers and there was one special cunning one who had persuaded the youth that he did not love him but he really loved him all the same and one day when he was paying his addresses to him he used this very argument that he ought to accept the non-lover rather than the lover his words were as follows All good counsel begins in the same way a man should know what he is advising about or his counsel will all come to naught but people imagine that they know about the nature of things when they don't know about them and not having come to an understanding at first because they think that they know and as might be expected in contradicting one another and themselves Now you and I must not be guilty of this fundamental error which we condemn in others but as our question is whether the lover or the non-lover is to be preferred let us first of all agree in defining the nature and power of love and then keeping our eyes upon the definition and to this appealing let us further inquire whether love brings advantage or disadvantage Everyone sees that love is a desire and we know also that non-lovers desire the beautiful and good Now in what way is the lover to be distinguished from the non-lover Let us note that in every one of us there are two guiding and ruling principles which lead us hither they will one is the natural desire of pleasure the other is an acquired opinion which aspires after the best and these two are sometimes in harmony and then again at war and sometimes the one, sometimes the other conquers when opinion by the help of reason leads us to the best the conquering principle is called temperance but when desire which is devoid of reason rules in us and drags us to pleasure that power of misrule is called excess Now excess has many names and many members and many forms and any of these forms when very marked gives a name neither honourable nor creditable to the bearer of the name the desire of eating for example which gets the better of the higher reason and the other desires is called gluttony and he who is possessed by it is called a glutton the tyrannical desire of drink which inclines the possessor of the desire to drink has a name which is only too obvious and there can be as little doubt by what name any other appetite of the same family would be called it will be the name of that which happens to be dominant and now I think that you will perceive the drift of my discourse but as every spoken word is in a manner planer than the unspoken I had better say further that the irrational desire which overcomes the tendency of opinion towards right and is led away to the enjoyment of beauty and especially of personal beauty by the desires which are her own kindred that supreme desire I say which by leading conquers and by the force of passion is reinforced from this very force receiving a name is called love Erominos, eros End of section 3 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Section 4 of Fidress by Plato Translated by Benjamin Joett This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Martin Giesen Section 4 And now, dear Fidress, I shall pause for an instant to ask whether you do not think me as I appear to myself inspired? Yes Socrates, you seem to have a very unusual flow of words Listen to me then in silence for surely the place is holy so that you must not wonder if as I proceed I appear to be in a divine fiore for already I am getting into dithirambics Nothing can be truer The responsibility rests with you but hear what follows and perhaps the fit may be averted all is in their hands above I will go on talking to my youth Listen Thus, my friend, we have declared and defined the nature of the subject Keeping the definition in view let us now inquire what advantage or disadvantage is likely to ensue from the lover or the non-lover to him who accepts their advances He who is the victim of his passions and the slave of pleasure will of course desire to make his beloved as agreeable to himself as possible Now, to him who has a mind diseased anything is agreeable which is not opposed to him but that which is equal or superior is hateful to him and therefore the lover will not broke any superiority or equality on the part of his beloved he is always employed in reducing him to inferiority and the ignorant is the inferior of the wise the coward of the brave the slow of speech of the speaker the dull of the clever these and not these only are the mental defects of the beloved defects which when implanted by nature are necessarily a delight to the lover and when not implanted he must contrive to implant them in him if he would not be deprived of his fleeting joy and therefore he cannot help being jealous and will debar his beloved from the advantages of society which would make a man of him and especially from that society which would have given him wisdom and thereby he cannot fail to do him great harm that is to say in his excessive fear lest he should come to be despised in his eyes he will be compelled to banish from him divine philosophy and there is no greater injury which he can inflict upon him than this he will contrive that his beloved shall be wholly ignorant and in everything shall look to him he is to be the delight of the lover's heart and a curse to himself verily a lover is a profitable guardian and associate for him in all that relates to his mind let us next see how his master whose law of life is pleasure and not good will keep and train the body of his servant will he not choose a beloved who is delicate rather than sturdy and strong one brought up in shady bowers and not in the bright sun a stranger to manly exercises and the sweat of toil accustomed only to a soft and luxurious diet instead of the hues of health having the colours of paint and ornament and the rest of a piece such a life as any one can imagine and which I need not detail at length but I may sum up all that I have to say in a word and pass on such a person in war or in any of the great crises of life will be the anxiety of his friends and also of his lover and certainly not the terror of his enemies which nobody can deny and now let us tell what advantage or disadvantage the beloved will receive from the guardianship and society of his lover in the matter of his property this is the next point to be considered the lover will be the first to see what indeed will be sufficiently evident to all men that he desires above all things to deprive his beloved of his dearest and best and holiest possessions father, mother, kindred, friends of all whom he thinks may be hinderers or reproovers of their most sweet converse he will even cast a jealous eye upon his gold and silver or other property because these make him a less easy prey and when caught less manageable hence he is of necessity displeased at his possession of them and rejoices at their loss and he would like him to be wifeless childless, homeless as well and the longer the better for the longer he is old this the longer he will enjoy him there are some sort of animals such as flatterers who are dangerous and mischievous enough and yet nature has mingled a temporary pleasure and grace in their composition you may say that a courtesan is hurtful and disapprove of such creatures and their practices and yet for the time they are very pleasant but the lover is not only hurtful to his love he is also an extremely disagreeable companion the old proverb says that birds of a feather flock together I suppose that equality of years inclines them to the same pleasures and similarity begets friendship yet you may have more than enough even of this and verily constrained is always said to be grievous now the lover is not only unlike his beloved but he forces himself upon him for he is old and his love is young and neither day nor night will he leave him if he can help necessity and the sting of desire drive him on and lure him with the pleasure which he receives from seeing, hearing, touching, perceiving him in every way and therefore he is delighted to fasten upon him and to minister to him but what pleasure or consolation can the beloved be receiving all this time? must he not feel the extremity of disgust when he looks at an old shriveled face and the remainder to match which even in a description is disagreeable and quite detestable when he is forced into daily contact with his lover moreover he is jealously watched and guarded against everything and everybody and has to hear misplaced and exaggerated praises of himself and sensuous equally inappropriate which are intolerable when the man is sober and besides being intolerable are published all over the world in their indelicacy and wearisomeness when he is drunk and not only while his love continues is he mischievous and unpleasant but when his love ceases he becomes a perfidious enemy of him on whom he showered his oaths and prayers and promises yet could hardly prevail upon him to tolerate the tedium of his company even from motives of interest the hour of payment arrives and now he is the servant of another master instead of love and infatuation wisdom and temperance are his bosoms lords but the beloved has not discovered the change which has taken place in him when he asks for a return and calls to his recollection former sayings and doings he believes himself to be speaking to the same person and the other not having the courage to confess the truth and not knowing how to fulfil the oaths and promises which were made when under the dominion of folly and having now grown wise and temperate does not want to do as he did or to be as he was before and so he runs away and is constrained to be a defaulter the oyster shall in allusion to a game in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oyster shell which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost translator's footnote has fallen with the other side uppermost he changes pursuit into flight while the other is compelled to follow him with passion and implication not knowing that he ought never from the first to have accepted a demented lover instead of a sensible non-lover and that in making such a choice he was giving himself up to a faithless morose envious, disagreeable being hurtful to his estate hurtful to his bodily health and still more hurtful to the cultivation of his mind than which there neither is nor ever will be anything more honoured in the eyes both of gods and men consider this fair youth and know that in the friendship of the lover there is no real kindness he has an appetite and wants to feed upon you as wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves but I told you so I am speaking in verse and therefore I had better make an end enough I thought that you were only half-way and we're going to make a similar speech about all the advantages of accepting the non-lover why do you not proceed? does not your simplicity observe that I have got out of diddy-rambics into heroics when only uttering a censure on the lover and if I am to add the praises of the non-lover what will become of me? do you not perceive that I am already overtaken by the nymphs to whom you have mischievously exposed me and therefore I will only add that the non-lover has all the advantages in which the lover is accused of being deficient and now I will say no more there has been enough of both of them leaving the tail to its fate I will cross the river and make the best of my way home lest a worse thing be inflicted upon me by you not yet Socrates not until the heat of the day has passed do you not see that the hour is almost noon there is the midday sun standing still as people say in the meridian let us rather stay and talk over what has been said and then return in the cool End of Section 4 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Section 5 of Fightress by Plato Translated by Benjamin Joett This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Martin Giesen Section 5 Your love of discourse, Fightress, is superhuman simply marvellous and I do not believe that there is any one of your contemporaries who has either made or in one way or another has compelled others to make an equal number of speeches I would accept Simeas the Theban but all the rest are far behind you and now I do verily believe that you have been the cause of another that is good news but what do you mean? I mean to say that as I was about to cross the stream the usual sign was given to me that sign which always forbids but never bids me to do anything which I am going to do and I thought that I heard a voice saying in my ear that I had been guilty of impiety and that I must not go away until I had made an atonement now I am a diviner though not a very good one but I have enough religion for my own use as you might say of a bad writer his writing is good enough for him and I am beginning to see that I was in error oh my friend how prophetic is the human soul at the time I had a sort of misgiving and like Ibecus I was troubled I feared that I might be buying honour from men at the price of sinning against the gods now I recognise my error what error? oh that was a dreadful speech which you brought with you and you made me utter one as bad how so? it was foolish I say to a certain extent impious can anything be more dreadful? nothing if the speech was really such as you describe well and is not Eros the son of Aphrodite and a god so men say but that was not acknowledged by Lucius in his speech nor by you in that other speech which you by a charm drew from my lips for if love be as he surely is a divinity he cannot be evil yet this was the error of both the speeches there was also a simplicity about them which was refreshing having no truth or honesty in them nevertheless they pretended to be something hoping to succeed in deceiving the mannequins of earth and gain celebrity among them wherefore I must have a purgation and I rethink me of an ancient purgation of mythological error which was devised not by Homer for he never had the wit to discover why he was blind but by Stessichorus who was a philosopher and knew the reason why and therefore when he lost his eyes for that was the penalty which was inflicted upon him for reviling the lovely Helen he at once purged himself and the purgation was a recantation which began thus false is that word of mine the truth is that thou didst not embark in ships nor ever go to the walls of Troy and when he had completed his poem which is called the recantation immediately his sight returned to him now I will be wiser than either Stessichorus or Homer in that I am going to make my recantation for reviling love before I suffer and this I will attempt not as before veiled and ashamed but with forehead, bold and bare nothing could be more agreeable to me than to hear you say so only think, my good fidress what an utter want of delicacy was shown in the two discourses I mean in my own and in that which you recited out of the book would not anyone who was himself of a noble and gentle nature and who loved or ever had loved a nature like his own when we tell of the petty causes of lover's jealousies and of their exceeding animosities and of the injuries which they do to their beloved have imagined that our ideas of love were taken from some haunt of sailors to which good manners were unknown he would certainly never have admitted the justice of our censure I daresay not Socrates therefore because I blush at the thought of this person and also because I am afraid of love himself I desire to wash the brine out of my ears with water from the spring and I would counsel Lucius not to delay but to write another discourse which shall prove that Keteris Paribus the lover ought to be accepted rather than the non-lover be assured that he shall you shall speak the praises of the lover and Lucius shall be compelled by me to write another discourse on the same theme you will be true to your nature in that and therefore I believe you speak and fear not but where is the fair youth whom I was addressing before and who ought to listen now lest if he hear me not he should accept a non-lover before he knows what he is doing he is close at hand and always at your service knew then fair youth that the former discourse was the word of Vydras the son of vain man who dwells in the city of Myrchina Myrchinosios and this which I am about to utter is the recantation of Stessichorus the son of godly man Eufemus who comes from the town of Desire Chimera and is to the following effect I told a lie when I said that the beloved ought to accept the non-lover when he might have the lover because the one is sane and the other mad it might be so if madness were simply an evil but there is also a madness which is a divine gift and the source of the chiefest blessings granted to man for prophecy is a madness and the prophetess at Delphi and the priestesses at Dodona when out of their senses have conferred great benefits on Helas both in public and private life but when in their senses few or none and I might also tell you how the Sibyl and other inspired persons have given to many an one many an intimation of the future which has saved them from falling but it would be tedious to speak of what everyone knows there will be more reason in appealing to the ancient inventors of names who would never have connected prophecy Mantike which foretells the future and is the noblest of arts with madness Manike or called them both by the same name if they had deemed madness to be a disgrace or dishonour they must have thought that there was an inspired madness which was a noble thing for the two words Mantike and Manike are really the same and the letter Tau is only a modern and tasteless insertion and this is confirmed by the name which was given by them to the rational investigation of futurity whether made by the help of birds or of other signs this for as much as it is an art which supplies from the reasoning faculty mind, noise, and information, Historia, to human thought Oyesis, they originally termed Oyonoistike but the word has been lately altered and made sonorous by the modern introduction of the letter Omega Oyonoistike and Oyonistike and in proportion as prophecy, Mantike is more perfect and august than augury both in name and fact in the same proportion as the ancients testify is madness superior to a sane mind Sofrosyne for the one is only of human but the other of divine origin again where plagues and mightiest woes have bred in certain families owing to some ancient blood guiltiness their madness has entered with holy prayers and rites and by inspired utterances found a way of deliverance for those who are in need and he who has part in this gift and is truly possessed and duly out of his mind is by the use of purifications and mysteries made whole and exempt from evil future as well as present and has a release from the calamity which was afflicting him the third kind is the madness of those who are possessed by the muses which taking hold of a delicate and virgin soul and their inspiring frenzy awakens lyrical and all other numbers with these adorning the myriad actions of ancient heroes for the instruction of posterity but he who having no touch of the muses madness in his soul comes to the door and thinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art he I say and his poetry are not admitted the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into rivalry with the madman end of section 5 recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey section 6 of Fidress by Plato translated by Benjamin Joe it this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Martin Geeson section 6 I might tell of many other noble deeds which have sprung from inspired madness and therefore let no one frighten or flatter us by saying that the temperate friend is to be chosen rather than the inspired but let him further show that love is not sent by the gods for any good to lover or beloved if he can do so we will allow him to carry off the palm and we on our part will prove in answer to him that the madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings and the proof shall be one which the wise will receive and the whittling disbelieve but first of all let us view the affections and actions of the soul divine and human and try to ascertain the truth about them the beginning of our proof is as follows the soul through all her being is immortal for that which is ever in motion is immortal but that which moves another and is moved by another in ceasing to move ceases also to live only the self-moving never leaving self never ceases to move and is the fountain and beginning of motion to all that moves besides now the beginning is unbegotten for that which is begotten has a beginning but the beginning is begotten of nothing for if it were begotten of something then the begotten would not come from a beginning but if unbegotten it must also be indestructible for if beginning were destroyed there could be no beginning out of anything nor anything out of a beginning and all things must have a beginning and therefore the self-moving is the beginning of motion and this can neither be destroyed nor begotten else the whole heavens and all creation would collapse and stand still and never again have motion or birth but if the self-moving is proved to be immortal he who affirms that self-motion is the very idea and essence of the soul will not be put to confusion for the body which is moved from without is soulless but that which is moved from within has a soul for such is the nature of the soul but if this be true must not the soul be the self-moving and therefore of necessity unbegotten and immortal enough of the soul's immortality of the nature of the soul though her true form be ever a theme of large and more than mortal discourse let me speak briefly and in a figure and let the figure be composite a pair of winged horses and the charioteer now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent but those of other races are mixed the human charioteer drives his in a pair and one of them is noble and of noble breed and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed and the driving of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him I will endeavor to explain to you in what way the mortal differs from the immortal creature the soul in her totality has the care of inanimate being everywhere and traverses the whole heaven in diverse forms appearing when perfect and fully winged she soars upward and orders the whole world whereas the imperfect soul losing her wings and drooping in her flight at last settles on the solid ground there finding a home she receives an earthly frame which appears to be self-moved but is rarely moved by her power and this composition of soul and body is called a living and mortal creature for immortal no such union can be reasonably believed to be although fancy not having seen not surely known the nature of God may imagine an immortal creature having both a body and also a soul which are united throughout all time let that however be as God wills and be spoken of acceptably to him and now let us ask the reason why the soul loses her wings the wing is the corporeal element which is most akin to the divine and which by nature tends to soar aloft and carry that which gravitates downwards into the upper region which is the habitation of the gods the divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness and the like and by these the wing of the soul is nourished and grows apace but when fed upon evil and foulness and the opposite of good wastes and falls away Zeus the mighty Lord holding the reins of a winged chariot leads the way in heaven ordering all and taking care of all and there follows him the array of gods and demigods marshaled in eleven bands Hestia alone abides at home in the house of heaven of the rest they who are reckoned among the princely twelve march in their appointed order they see many blessed sites in the inner heaven and there are many ways to and fro along which the blessed gods are passing everyone doing his own work he may follow who will and can for jealousy has no place in the celestial choir but when they go to banquet and festival then they move up the steep to the top of the vault of heaven the chariots of the gods in even poise obeying the rain glide rapidly but the others labor for the vicious steed goes heavily weighing down the charioteer to the earth when his steed has not been thoroughly trained and this is the hour of agony and extremist conflict for the soul for the immortals when they are at the end of their course go forth and stand upon the outside of heaven and the revolution of the spheres carries them round and they behold the things beyond but of the heaven which is above the heavens what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily it is such as I will describe for I must dare to speak the truth when truth is my theme there abides the very being with which true knowledge is concerned the colourless, formless, intangible essence visible only to mind the pilot of the soul the divine intelligence being nurtured upon mind and pure knowledge and the intelligence of every soul which is capable of receiving the food proper to it rejoices at beholding reality and once more gazing upon truth is replenished and made glad until the revolution of the worlds brings her round again to the same place in the revolution she beholds justice and temperance and knowledge absolute not in the form of generation or of relation which men call existence but knowledge absolute in existence absolute and beholding the other true existences in like manner and feasting upon them she passes down into the interior of the heavens and returns home and there the charioteer putting up his horses at the stall gives them ambrosia to eat and nectar to drink such is the life of the gods but of other souls that which follows God best and is likeest to him lifts the head of the charioteer into the outer world and is carried round in the revolution troubled indeed by the steeds and with difficulty beholding true being while another only rises and falls and sees and again fails to see by reason of the unruliness of the steeds the rest of the souls are also longing after the upper world and they all follow but not being strong enough they are carried round below the surface plunging, treading on one another each striving to be first and there is confusion and perspiration and the extremity of effort and many of them are lame or have their wings broken through the ill driving of the charioteers and all of them after a fruitless toil not having attained to the mysteries of true being go away and feed upon opinion the reason why the souls exhibit this exceeding eagerness to behold the plane of truth is that pastureage is found there which is suited to the highest part of the soul and the wing on which the soul soars is nourished with this and there is a law of destiny that the soul which attains any vision of truth in company with a God is preserved from harm until the next period and if attaining always is always unharmed but when she is unable to follow and fails to behold the truth and through some ill hap sinks beneath the double load of forgetfulness and vice and her wings fall from her and she drops to the ground then the law ordains that this soul shall at her first birth pass not into any other animal but only into man and the soul which has seen most of truth shall come to the birth as a philosopher or artist or some musical and loving nature that which has seen truth in the second degree shall be some righteous king or warrior chief the soul which is of the third class shall be a politician or economist or trader the fourth shall be a lover of gymnastic toils or a physician the fifth shall lead the life of a prophet or hierophant to the sixth the character of poet or some other imitative artist will be assigned to the seventh the life of an artisan or husbandman to the eighth that of a sophist or demagogue to the ninth that of a tyrant all these are states of probation in which he who does righteously improves and he who does unrighteously deteriorates his lot ten thousand years must elapse before the soul of each one can return to the place from whence she came for she cannot grow her wings in less only the soul of a philosopher, guile less and true or the soul of a lover who is not devoid of philosophy may acquire wings in the third of the recurring periods of a thousand years he is distinguished from the ordinary good man who gains wings in three thousand years and they who choose this life three times in succession have wings given them and go away at the end of three thousand years but the others the philosopher alone is not subject to judgment, crisis for he has never lost the vision of truth received judgment when they have completed their first life and after the judgment they go some of them to the houses of correction which are under the earth and are punished others to some place in heaven whether they are likely born by justice and there they live in a manner worthy of the life which they led here when in the form of men and at the end of the first thousand years the good souls and also the evil souls both come to draw lots and choose their second life and they may take any which they please the soul of a man may pass into the life of a beast or from the beast return again into the man but the soul which has never seen the truth will not pass into the human form for a man must have intelligence of universals and be able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to one conception of reason this is the recollection of those things which our soul once saw while following God when regardless of that which we now call being she raised her head up towards the true being and therefore the mind of the philosopher alone has wings and this is just for he is always according to the measure of his abilities clinging in recollection to those things in which God abides and in beholding which he is what he is and he who employs a right these memories is ever being initiated into perfect mysteries and alone becomes truly perfect but as he forgets earthly interests and is wrapped in the divine the vulgar deem him mad and rebuke him they do not see that he is inspired End of Section 6 Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey Section 7 of Fidress by Plato Translated by Benjamin Joett This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Martin Geeson Section 7 Thus far I have been speaking of the fourth and last kind of madness which is imputed to him who when he sees the beauty of earth is transported with the recollection of the true beauty he would like to fly away but he cannot he is like a bird fluttering and looking upward and careless of the world below and he is therefore thought to be mad and I have shown this of all inspirations to be the noblest and highest and the offspring of the highest to him who has or shares in it and that he who loves the beautiful is called a lover because he partakes of it for as has been already said every soul of man has in the way of nature beheld true being this was the condition of her passing into the form of man but all souls do not easily recall the things of the other world they may have seen them for a short time only or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly lot and having had their hearts turned to unrighteousness through some corrupting influence they may have lost the memory of the holy things which once they saw few only retain an adequate remembrance of them and they when they behold here any image of that other world are wrapped in amazement but they are ignorant of what this rapture means because they do not clearly perceive for there is no light of justice or temperance or any of the higher ideas which are precious to souls in the earthly copies of them they are seen through a glass dimly and there are few who going to the images behold in them the realities and these only with difficulty there was a time when with the rest of the happy band they saw beauty shining in brightness we philosophers following in the train of Zeus others in company with other gods and then we beheld the beatific vision and were initiated into a mystery which may be truly called most blessed celebrated by us in our state of innocence before we had any experience of evils to come when we were admitted to the sight of apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy which we beheld shining in pure light pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about now that we are imprisoned in the body like an oyster in his shell let me linger over the memory of scenes which have passed away but of beauty I repeat again that we saw her there shining in company with the celestial forms and coming to earth we find her here too shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense for sight is the most piercing of our bodily senses though not by that his wisdom seen her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a visible image of her and the other ideas if they had visible counterparts would be equally lovely but this is the privilege of beauty that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight now he who is not newly initiated or who has become corrupted does not easily rise out of this world to the sight of true beauty in the other he looks only at her earthly namesake and instead of being awed at the sight of her he is given over to pleasure and like a brutish beast he rushes on to enjoy and beget he consorts with wantonness and is not afraid or ashamed of pursuing pleasure in violation of nature but he whose initiation is recent who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world is amazed when he sees anyone having a godlike face or form which is the expression of divine beauty and at first a shudder runs through him and again the old awe steals over him then looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him and if he were not afraid of being thought a downright madman he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god then while he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction and the shudder passes into an unusual heat and perspiration for as he receives the effluence of beauty through the eyes the wing moistens and he warms and as he warms the parts out of which the wing grew and which had been hitherto closed and rigid and had prevented the wing from shooting forth are melted and as nourishment streams upon him the lower end of the wing begins to swell and grow from the root upwards and the growth extends under the whole soul for once the whole was winged during this process the whole soul is all in a state of ebullition and effervescence which may be compared to the irritation and uneasiness in the gums at the time of cutting teeth bubbles up and has a feeling of uneasiness and tickling but when in like manner the soul is beginning to grow wings the beauty of the beloved meets her eye and she receives the sensible warm motion of particles which flow towards her therefore called emotion Chimeros and is refreshed and warmed by them and then she ceases from her pain with joy but when she is parted from her beloved and her moisture fails then the orifices of the passage out of which the wing shoots dry up and close and intercept the germ of the wing which being shut up with the emotion throbbing as with the pulsations of an artery pricks the aperture which is nearest until at length the entire soul is pierced and maddened and pained and at the recollection of beauty is again delighted and from both of them together the soul is oppressed at the strangeness of her condition and is in a great strait and excitement and in her madness can neither sleep by night nor abide in her place by day and wherever she thinks that she will behold the beautiful one thither in her desire she runs and when she has seen him and bathed herself in the waters of beauty her constraint is loosened and she is refreshed and has no more pangs and pains and this is the sweetest of all pleasures at the time and is the reason why the soul of the lover will never forsake his beautiful one whom he esteems above all he has forgotten mother and brethren and companions and he thinks nothing of the neglect and loss of his property the rules and proprieties of life on which he formerly prided himself he now despises he is ready to sleep like a servant wherever he is allowed as near as he can to his desired one who is the object of his worship and the physician who can alone assuage the greatness of his pain and this state dear imaginary youth to whom I am talking is by men called love and among the gods has a name at which you in your simplicity may be inclined to mock there are two lines in the apocryphal writings of Homer in which the name occurs one of them is rather outrageous and not altogether metrical they are as follows mortals call him flattering love but the immortals call him winged one because the growing of wings or reading Pterothoiton the movement of wings is a necessity to him you may believe this but not unless you like at any rate the loves of lovers and their causes are such as I have described now the lover who is taken to be the attendant of Zeus is better able to bear the winged god and can endure a heavier burden but the attendants and companions of Ares went under the influence of love if they fancy that they have been at all wronged are ready to kill and put an end to themselves and their beloved and he who follows in the train of any other god while he is unspoiled and the impression lasts honors and imitates him as far as he is able and after the manner of his god he behaves in his intercourse with his beloved and with the rest of the world during the first period of his earthly existence everyone chooses his love from the ranks of beauty according to his character and this he makes his god and fashions and adorns as a sort of image which he is to fall down and worship the followers of Zeus desire that their beloved should have a soul like him and therefore they seek out someone of a philosophical and imperial nature and when they have found him and loved him they do all they can to confirm such a nature in him and if they have no experience of such a disposition either too they learn of anyone who can teach them and themselves follow in the same way and they have the less difficulty in finding the nature of their own god in themselves because they have been compelled to gaze intensely on him their recollection clings to him and they become possessed of him and receive from him their character and disposition so far as man can participate in god the qualities of their god they attribute to the beloved wherefore they love him all the more and if like the Bacchic nymphs they draw inspiration from Zeus they pour out their own fountain upon him wanting to make him as like as possible to their own god but those who are the followers of Hera seek a royal love and when they have found him they do just the same with him and in like manner the followers of Apollo and of every other god walking in the ways of their god seek a love who is to be made like him whom they serve and when they have found him they themselves imitate their god and persuade their love to do the same and educate him into the manner and nature of the god as far as they each can for no feelings of envy or jealousy are entertained by them towards their beloved but they do their utmost to create in him the greatest likeness of themselves and of the god whom they honour thus fair and blissful to the beloved is the desire of the inspired lover and the initiation of which I speak into the mysteries of true love if he be captured by the lover and their purpose is effected now the beloved is taken captive in the following manner as I said at the beginning of this tale I divided each soul into three two horses under charioteer and one of the horses was good and the other bad the division may remain but I have not yet explained in what the goodness or badness of either consists and to that I will now proceed the right hand horses are bright and cleanly made he has a lofty neck and an aquiline nose his colour is white and his eyes dark he is a lover of honour and modesty and temperance and the follower of true glory he needs no touch of the whip but is guided by word and admonition only the other is a crooked lumbering animal put together anyhow he has a short thick neck he is flat faced and of a dark colour with grey eyes and blood red complexion the mate of insolence and pride shaggiered and deaf hardly yielding to whip and spur now when the charioteer beholds the vision of love and has his whole soul warmed through sense and is full of the prickings and ticklings of desire the obedient steed then as always under the government of shame refrains from leaping on the beloved but the other heedless of the pricks and of the blows of the whip plunges and runs away giving all manner of trouble to his companion and the charioteer whom he forces to approach the beloved and to remember the joys of love they at first indignantly oppose him and will not be urged on to do terrible and unlawful deeds but at last when he persists in plaguing them they yield and agree to do as he bids them and now they are at the spot and behold the flashing beauty of the beloved which when the charioteer sees his memory is carried to the true beauty whom he beholds in company with modesty like an image placed upon a holy pedestal he sees her but is afraid and falls backwards in adoration and by his fall is compelled to pull back the reins with such violence as to bring both the steeds on their haunches the one willing and unresisting the unruly one very unwilling and when they have gone back a little the one is overcome with shame and wonder and his whole soul is bathed in perspiration the other when the pain is over which the bridle and the fall had given him having with difficulty taken breath is full of wrath and reproaches which he heaps upon the charioteer and his fellow steed full want of courage and manhood declaring that they have been false to their agreement and guilty of desertion again they refuse and again he urges them on and will scarce yield to their prayer that he would wait until another time when the appointed hour comes they make as if they had forgotten and he reminds them fighting and neighing and dragging them on until at length he on the same thoughts intent forces them to draw near again and when they are near he stoopes his head and puts up his tail and takes the bit in his teeth and pulls shamelessly then the charioteer is worse off than ever he falls back like a racer at the barrier and with a still more violent wrench drags the bit out of the teeth of the wild steed and covers his abusive tongue and jaws with blood and forces his legs and haunches to the ground and punishes him sorely and when this has happened several times and the villain has ceased from his wanton way he is tamed and humbled and follows the will of the charioteer and when he sees the beautiful one he is ready to die of fear and from that time forward the soul of the lover follows the beloved in modesty and holy fear


I can take you there. I'll do all the digging if you'll just stay until I've hit bone if only to prove that I'm not crazy. I understand if you won't, of course. Ignorance is a privilege. I can't blame you for clinging to it.  Back in the good days, when I was a bartender, that was my whole identity for a while. A single guy, no family, working late nights with a weird sleep schedule. My older friends went for early morning runs and bragged about owning expensive juicers while my younger friends somehow embraced hedonism without experiencing back pain or gum soreness. How did they do it? When did I get too old to party? When the bars all shut down, I lost everything. Losing my income was one thing and losing my social outlet hurt. But what really stung was losing my identity. Who was I without my job? Who would I become? I took up gardening to pass the time. It seemed like an innocent enough hobby. There was a small plant bed outside my front door, maybe a two by four foot plot with some ratty half-dead shrubs in it. My landlord didn't mind if I made some changes, just as long as unemployment kept covering my rent. I trashed the shrubs and gave myself a clean slate to work with, then spent the back half of spring developing a green thumb. When fall rolled around, I had a design plan and I executed it flawlessly. It felt great. By new years, I was through waiting for things to get back to normal. I'd made my resolution to quit smoking, cut back on drinking, and to finally quit bartending and get my life back on track. I swore to start running in the mornings, even buy a juicer. I took a job at a local nursery to put my newfound interest in gardening to use. It was grunt work, loading and unloading trucks, hauling trees and dirt, but I loved earning money again. But then, that once in a century freeze hit back in February and everyone's plants died. My plants died. And by the time the weather broke, everyone in town was looking to replace what they'd lost. Suddenly, business was booming.   Maybe I can get back there someday. Landscaping was in high demand come spring and there simply weren't enough landscapers to keep up. To compound the issue, the city was also full of new residents, seemingly a thousand a day moving in and they were looking for landscapers too. So I wasn't surprised when I got offered a side gig doing some planning. I just said, sure. This is where I'll freely admit that I should have been more suspicious. It was a big job, first of all, well beyond my level of competency. It came to me outsourced through a legit landscaper who said he couldn't handle the sporadic on-demand workload from the client. He said they'd call him up on a whim and need a few hundred square feet planted that next morning and he just couldn't keep up without blowing off other jobs. He referred me and I got a call that afternoon from a private number. A woman named Kira told me that she was the personal assistant to the client and she asked if I'd be available to do some work early the next morning. I told her I had to be at the nursery by nine, but she insisted that I quit that job and just work for them full time instead.  So I did. I aimed high, too, expecting her to balk, but she accepted without hesitation. I started work the next morning, showing up with my few cheap tools, hardly looking the part. Only then did I realize that it was the site where the new botanical gardens were being developed by the billionaire Errol Zane.  Kira sent me the passcode to get in, a schematic on where to work, and the rest was pretty self-explanatory. The design was mapped out and the plants were already on site. There were plenty of tools handy and a massive hill of soil. All I had to do was plant stuff in designated plots and get paid. The site was steady, but not overwhelming, and I got a weekly salary whether I worked much or not. There'd be days where I didn't hear from Kira at all, which left me with mornings to go out for a run. I even bought an expensive juicer and bragged about it online. In unseasonably wet summer meant fewer calls though, I started to worry that the next thing I'd hear would be that the gig was up and I'd be left to piece together a new identity for myself. But then Kira called one afternoon, despite a respite from the week's deluge and insisted that I catch up on some planning. The site was a mess when I arrived. The soil mounds hadn't been covered properly and were reduced to mush. It was late in the afternoon and more rain was in the forecast so I trudged through the soft mud to the plot and got right to work and did the best I could with the resources available to leave a good impression I needed to keep the job after all. I worked for hours non-stop until I completed the section and by then the sun was setting. I needed to put down some mulch to protect the plants from the heat but everything on site was too soggy and more rain was starting to fall. I checked my watch and realized that the nursery up the road was open for another half hour so I rushed over to get a few bags on my own dime to set my mind at ease. But by the time I got loaded up the rain was coming down in sheets. I stayed nearby to wait it out, popping into a restaurant for a quick bite and a beer. One beer became two, then three and halfway into my fourth the weather cleared up. It was dark outside. I drove back to the garden, punched in the code and flipped on my high beams. I drove down to the work site, pointed my truck towards the spot and set about laying mulch under the headlights. That's when I heard the work trucks on the other side of the property. I'd always wondered when these sites were prepared for me to plant but I guess I'd never considered that it was done overnight. When I was through and felt confident that I'd done all I could I decided to get a peek at the machines in action. So under the influence of four beers I innocently wandered across the property toward the bright lights and warring motors. I hung back behind some trees and watched as a large van backed up to a deep hole. It was from Errol Zane's transitional housing charity and at first I assumed it was there to ferry workers to and from the site as a way to get people to work. That's great, right? But then someone opened the back doors to the van and a couple guys started shoving bodies down into the pit. I ran blindly through the dark. I got back to my truck, hopped in and sped off. I was terrified. I went home and locked myself inside. I didn't know what to do or who to tell. I mean, how many bodies were out there?  I convinced myself to sleep it off but I couldn't sleep. I just laid in bed and worried, who could I tell? Who would believe me? The next morning I drove to the last pay phone in town and I called the cops. I tried to tell the woman everything I knew but not who I was, who could I trust, you know? What if everyone knew what was happening, like it was the plan all along? The woman who answered didn't believe me so she transferred me to a man who didn't believe me, who then transferred me to another man but eventually I hung up and waited in my truck until they left. I tried calling the news but they wanted me to come in and speak in person. They said they could protect me if I was a credible source. If my claim hit pay dirt for them but they seemed to think I was making it all up. It was too sensational to claim that a philanthropic billionaire had been slaughtering and burying the city's homeless population. Sure, I told them, when you put it that way it does sound nuts. That's when they disclosed that Errol had a voting stake in their parent company. I hung up and came here. Look, I wish I hadn't seen what I did. I wish I was ignorant to the whole operation. Right now, I wish I were you. I know it's not your job to listen to me ramble. I mean, it kind of is, but not like this. Like I said, I was a bartender once too. Like when I had a proper identity, before I owned a nice juicer and routinely enjoyed the benefits of restful sleep. I just need you to tell me that I'm not crazy, even if it's a lie. Hold on, I've got a call coming in. Oh, it's a private number. I guess it's time for me to settle up my cab.