Whom next?--I asked, "Two Argive brothers,
Whose pious pattern of fraternal love
And filial duty and affection,
Is worthy of example and remembrance.
Their mother was a priestess of the queen
Of the supreme and mighty Jupiter!
And she besought her goddess to send down
The best of blessings on her duteous sons.
Her prayers were heard--they slept and died!"
Then you account me not among the happy?
To which the sage gave answer--
"King of Lydia! Our philosophy
Is but ill suited to the courts of kings.
We do not glory in our own prosperity,
Nor yet admire the happiness of others.
All bliss is brief and superficial,
And should not be accounted as a good,
But that which lasts unto our being's end.
The life of man is threescore years and ten,
Which being summed in the whole amount
Unto some thousands of swift-winged days,
Of which there are not two alike;
So those which are to come, being unknown,
Are but a series of accidents:
Therefore esteem we no man happy,
But him whose happiness continues to the end!
We cannot win the prize until the contest's o'er!"

_Cyrus_.--Solon hath saved one king
And taught another! Torchmen, we reprieve