“I fear there is no chance of it. He never leaves Athens; never has left it except when he served abroad with the army, and as for money, he is quite careless about it.”
“But he takes a fee for his teaching, I suppose.”
“Well, that astonishes me. Why, Georgias would not teach anyone for less than half a talent, and has got together, I suppose, a pretty heap of money by this time. But, perhaps, if I could not get the great man himself, I might get one of his disciples. Whom do men reckon to be the first among them?”
“I think that one Plato is the most famous. He was a poet when he was quite young, indeed he is young now, and had a great reputation; but he has given up poetry for philosophy.”
“That seems a pity. I don’t see why a man should not be both poet and philosopher. I am a little of both myself. Can you remember anything that he has written?”
“Yes; there was an epigram which everyone was repeating when I left Athens. It was written for the tomb of one of his fellow disciples.”
“Let me hear it.”
Callias repeated,
“In life like Morning star thy shining head;
And now the star of Evening ’mid the dead.”