"You know, the young inquirer comes to a group of penitent sinners by the
brink of a stream. They howl, and answer:

Faithful she is, but she forsakes:
And fond, yet endless woe she makes:
And fair! but with this curse she's cross'd;
To know her not till she is lost!'

"Then the doleful party march off in single file solemnly, and the
fabulist pursues:

'She hath a palace in the West:
Bright Hesper lights her to her rest:
And him the Morning Star awakes
Whom to her charmed arms she takes.

So lives he till he sees, alas!
The maids of baser metal pass.'

"And prodigal of the happiness she lends him, he asks to share it with one
of them. There is the Silver Maid, and the Copper, and the Brassy Maid,
and others of them. First, you know, he tries Argentine, and finds her
only twenty to the pound, and has a worse experience with Copperina, till
he descends to the scullery; and the lower he goes, the less obscure
become the features of his Bride of Gold, and all her radiance shines
forth, my uncle."

"Verse rather blunts the point. Well, keep to her, now you've got her,"
says Hippias.