in which, though an old man’s grey hair may be hidden by his |D| helmet,
Yet in secret his thews are aweary,
and, though the spirit be willing, the strength can no longer respond.
But the ministers of Zeus—the God of Council, of Assembly, of the State—are not asked for deeds of hand and foot, but for counsel and foresight. We ask them for advice, not such as to evoke roars of mere noise in the Assembly, but full of sense and shrewdness, and safe to follow. In their case the despised white hair and wrinkles become the visible tokens of experience. They suggest moral force, and are therefore a help to persuasion. |E| It is the part of youth to obey; of old age to guide; and that state is safest where
Best are the old men’s counsels,
And best the young man’s spear.
Homer’s
And first he summon’d to council the old men mighty-hearted
By the side of the ship of Nestor,
is a touch greatly admired. For the same reason the Select Board associated with the kings at Sparta was called by the Pythian oracle ‘elder-born’, but by Lycurgus ‘old men’ sans phrase, while the Roman Council is called Senatus down to the present time. The law crowns a man with the circlet and the wreath, Nature crowns him with grey hair, and both are the venerable emblems of sovereign rank. Moreover, the words |F| geras, ‘prerogative,’ and gerairein, ‘honour with prerogative’—derived from geron, ‘old man’—retain a dignified sense, not because the old man’s bath is warmed and his bed a softer one, but because he amounts to a king in the state by virtue of his wisdom; and wisdom is like a late-fruiting plant, it is only in old age that nature brings out its special excellence and perfect quality.