"Indeed, my friend," answered Polemo, "I think you very unreasonable in expecting that she should submit to such a change. She is certainly obliged as a wife to be faithful and kind, but it does not seem to me that as a wife she is obliged to be air whenever you may think fit to desire it."
"But is she not acting contrary to her own happiness in refusing such an opportunity?"
"Why, perhaps she has not, like you, felt the hardship of a body, but having passed many years in hers very comfortably, has no reason for desiring to break out of it. Not only do I commend her prudence, but I believe that you even, philosopher as you are, will soon repent of having allowed yourself to be thus despoiled; and I earnestly advise you to repair instantly to this household god which takes away men's bodies, and entreat that it will again let you into the human frame, which you have so unadvisedly abandoned; that is, if it has not quite decayed since your desertion of it, but can still be repaired so as to be habitable."
"That, I rejoice to say, is impossible," answered Aristus: "my body is gone—quite annulled—I saw it abolished. But even if there were still a frame fit for my reception, do you imagine, that after having once escaped from that carcass I shall ever suffer myself to be inveigled into it again?"
"And pray what advantages have you gained by being shut out?"
"I have gained the power of passing my life in uninterrupted thought, the proper employment of the human mind."
"But why could not you think in your body? I do not understand why your limbs should interfere with your studies. When I wish to think I never find that my arm interrupts me, or that my leg breaks in upon my meditations."
"Nor did his body interrupt him," exclaimed Cleopatra: "I have seen him sit in it and think for hours together without any one of his limbs molesting him."
"Indeed," replied Polemo, "I think he had as much time for contemplation as a man moderately thoughtful could wish."