I know (replied the poet) that you were once a private person, (3) and are now a monarch. It is but likely, therefore, that having tested both conditions, (4) you should know better than myself, wherein the life of the despotic ruler differs from the life of any ordinary person, looking to the sum of joys and sorrows to which flesh is heir.
(3) Or, "a common citizen," "an ordinary mortal," "a private
individual."
(4) Or, "having experienced both lots in life, both forms of
existence."
Would it not be simpler (Hiero replied) if you, on your side, (5) who are still to-day a private person, would refresh my memory by recalling the various circumstances of an ordinary mortal's life? With these before me, (6) I should be better able to describe the points of difference which exist between the one life and the other.
(5) Simonides is still in the chrysalis or grub condition of private
citizenship; he has not broken the shell as yet of ordinary
manhood.
(6) Lit. "in that case, I think I should best be able to point out the
'differentia' of either."
Thus it was that Simonides spoke first: Well then, as to private persons, for my part I observe, (7) or seem to have observed, that we are liable to various pains and pleasures, in the shape of sights, sounds, odours, meats, and drinks, which are conveyed through certain avenues of sense—to wit, the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth. And there are other pleasures, those named of Aphrodite, of which the channels are well known. While as to degree of heat and cold, things hard and soft, things light and heavy, the sense appealed to here, I venture to believe, is that of the whole body; (8) whereby we discern these opposites, and derive from them now pain, now pleasure. But with regard to things named good and evil, (9) it appears to me that sometimes the mind (or soul) itself is the sole instrument by which we register our pains and pleasures; whilst at other times such pains and pleasures are derived conjointly through both soul and body. (10) There are some pleasures, further, if I may trust my own sensations, which are conveyed in sleep, though how and by what means and when precisely, are matters as to which I am still more conscious of my ignorance. Nor is it to be wondered at perhaps, if the perceptions of waking life in some way strike more clearly on our senses than do those of sleep. (11)
(7) Or, "if I may trust my powers of observation I would say that
common men are capable of pains and pleasures conveyed through
certain avenues of sense, as sight through our eyes, sounds
through our ears, smells through our noses, and meats and drinks
through our mouths."
(8) Cf. Cic. "de N. D." ii. 56, S. 141.
(9) Reading {edesthai te kai lupeisthai...} or if with Breit
reading {ote d' au lupeisthai}, transl. "then as to good and evil
we are affected pleasurably or painfully, as the case may be:
sometimes, if I am right in my conclusion, through the mind itself
alone; at other times..."
(10) Or, "they are mental partly, partly physical."
(11) Lit. "the incidents of waking life present sensations of a more
vivid character."
To this statement Hiero made answer: And I, for my part, O Simonides, would find it hard to state, outside the list of things which you have named yourself, in what respect the despot can have other channels of perception. (12) So that up to this point I do not see that the despotic life differs in any way at all from that of common people.
(12) i.e. "being like constituted, the autocratic person has no other
sources of perception: he has no claim to a wider gamut of
sensation, and consequently thus far there is not a pin to choose
between the life of the despot and that of a private person."
Then Simonides: Only in this respect it surely differs, in that the pleasures which the "tyrant" enjoys through all these several avenues of sense are many times more numerous, and the pains he suffers are far fewer.
To which Hiero: Nay, that is not so, Simonides, take my word for it; the fact is rather that the pleasures of the despot are far fewer than those of people in a humbler condition, and his pains not only far more numerous, but more intense.