"It seems hardly possible," said Bartja, "that we can be rowing against the stream. The boat flies like a swallow."
"This fresh north-wind brings us forward," answered Theopompus. "And then the Egyptian boatmen understand their work splendidly."
"And row all the better just because we are sailing against the stream," added Croesus. "Resistance always brings out a man's best powers."
"Yes," said Rhodopis, "sometimes we even make difficulties, if the river of life seems too smooth."
"True," answered Darius. "A noble mind can never swim with the stream. In quiet inactivity all men are equal. We must be seen fighting, to be rightly estimated."
"Such noble-minded champions must be very cautious, though," said Rhodopis, "lest they become contentious, and quarrelsome. Do you see those melons lying on the black soil yonder, like golden balls? Not one would have come to perfection if the sower had been too lavish with his seed. The fruit would have been choked by too luxuriant tendrils and leaves. Man is born to struggle and to work, but in this, as in everything else, he must know how to be moderate if his efforts are to succeed. The art of true wisdom is to keep within limits."
"Oh, if Cambyses could only hear you!" exclaimed Croesus. "Instead of being contented with his immense conquests, and now thinking for the welfare of his subjects, he has all sorts of distant plans in his head. He wishes to conquer the entire world, and yet, since Phanes left, scarcely a day has passed in which he has not been conquered himself by the Div of drunkenness."
"Has his mother no influence over him?" asked Rhodopis. "She is a noble woman."
"She could not even move his resolution to marry Atossa, and was forced to be present at the marriage feast."
"Poor Atossa!" murmured Sappho.