death--who can tell?"

When, after saying this, the Emperor had remained for some time silent,
the youth asked him:

"But if the sunrise teaches you nothing concerning the future why should
you so often break your night's rest and climb the mountain to see it?"

"Why? Why?" repeated Hadrian, slowly and meditatively, stroking his
grizzled beard; then he went on as if speaking to himself:

"That is a question which reason fails to answer, before which my lips
find no words; and, if I had them at my command, who among the rabble
would understand me? Such questions can best be answered by means of
parables. Those who take part in life are actors, and the world is their
stage. He who wants to look tall on it wears the cothurnus, and is not a
mountain the highest vantage ground that a man can find for the sole of
his foot? Kasius there is but a hill, but I have stood on greater giants
than he, and seen the clouds rise below me, like Jupiter on Olympus."

"But you need climb no mountains to feel yourself a god," cried Antinous;
"the godlike is your title--you command and the world must obey. With a
mountain beneath his feet a man is nearer to heaven no doubt than he is
on the plain."

"Well?"

"I dare not say what came into my mind."

"Speak out."