Oh, would the gods such grace bestow,
That opening each man's breast,
One might survey his heart, and know
How true the friendship that could stand that test.
VII.
Health's the best gift to mortal given;
Beauty is next; the third great prize
Is to grow rich, free both from sin and vice;
The fourth, to pass one's youth with friends beloved by heaven.
And when this had been sung, and everybody had been delighted with it; and when it had been mentioned that even the incomparable Plato had spoken of this scolium as one most admirably written, Myrtilus said, that Anaxandrides the comic poet had turned it into ridicule in his Treasure, speaking thus of it—