Heracl. I am thinking, friend, upon human affairs; and well may I weep and lament, for the doom of all is sealed. Hence my compassion and my sorrow. For the present, I think not of it; but the future!—the future is all bitterness. Conflagration and destruction of the world. I weep to think that nothing abides. All things are whirled together in confusion. Pleasure and pain, knowledge and ignorance, great and small; up and down they go, the playthings of Time.
Fourth D. And what is Time?
Heracl. A child; and plays at draughts and blindman’s-bluff.
Fourth D. And men?
Heracl. Are mortal Gods.
Fourth D. And Gods?
Heracl. Immortal men.
Fourth D. So! Conundrums, fellow? Nuts to crack? You are a very oracle for obscurity.
Heracl. Your affairs do not interest me.
Fourth D. No one will be fool enough to bid for you at that rate.