(1)
And do thou give ear, Pausanias, son of Anchitos the wise!
For straitened are the powers that are spread over their bodily parts, and many are the woes that burst in on them and blunt the edge of their careful thoughts! They behold but a brief span of a life that is no life,[[540]] and, doomed to swift death, are borne up and fly off like smoke. Each is convinced of that alone which he had chanced upon as he is 5 hurried to and fro, and idly boasts he has found the whole. So hardly can these things be seen by the eyes or heard by the ears of men, so hardly grasped by their mind! Thou,[[541]] then, since thou hast found thy way hither, shalt learn no more than mortal mind hath power. R. P. 163.
(3)
... to keep within thy dumb heart.
But, O ye gods, turn aside from my tongue the madness of those men.[[542]] Hallow my lips and make a pure stream flow from them! And thee, much-wooed, white-armed Virgin Muse, do I beseech that I may hear what is lawful for the children of a day! Speed me on my way from the abode of 5 Holiness and drive my willing car! Thee shall no garlands of glory and honour at the hands of mortals constrain to lift them from the ground, on condition of speaking in thy pride beyond that which is lawful and right, and so to gain a seat upon the heights of wisdom.
Go to now, consider with all thy powers in what way each thing is clear. Hold not thy sight in greater credit as 10 compared with thy hearing, nor value thy resounding ear above the clear instructions of thy tongue;[[543]] and do not withhold thy confidence in any of thy other bodily parts by which there is an opening for understanding,[[544]] but consider everything in the way it is clear. R. P. 163.