{"id":31297,"date":"2024-03-11T10:11:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T14:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=31297"},"modified":"2024-08-19T14:40:24","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T18:40:24","slug":"cephalus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=31297","title":{"rendered":"Cephalus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
I am so lucky: near the finish line\nWith no tragedies. My three sons are fine.\nI may never have to open the door\nTo wrenching news or the grim stench of war.\n\nI sleep all right these days, now that lust is less\nA master, and guilt, that dogged hunter,\nLets me burrow in a secret shelter\nWhere I tell myself I deserve success.\n\nWhen I heard Socrates had come down here,\nI sent a boy to stop him. My knees are such\nI cannot walk uphill to Athens much.\nI hate to miss the clever talk, and I fear\nThe wise and famous will forget Cephalus.\n\nIt was like old times; we quoted lovely lines.\nBut I knew he'd start to press: \u201cWhat do you mean,\nCephalus? Doesn't that come in different kinds?\u201d\nThe more we examine hope, the more hope declines.\nI left Socrates to my son, exited the scene,\nAnd, wearing my silly wreath, resumed my place,\nPerforming prayers in the marketplace.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Cf. Plato, Republic<\/em> 331d: “‘Very well,\u2019 said Cephalus, \u2018I will turn the whole argument\u00a0over to you. For now is the time when I must take charge of the sacrifices.\u2019 \u2018Well,\u2019 he said, \u2018Aren\u2019t I, Polemarchus, the heir to everything you have?\u2019 \u2018Certainly,\u2019 he laughed, and he went at once to the sacrifices.\u201d See also: Pindar on hope<\/a>; philosophy and self-help<\/a>; shelter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am so lucky: near the finish line With no tragedies. My three sons are fine. I may never have to open the door To wrenching news or the grim stench of war. I sleep all right these days, now that lust is less A master, and guilt, that dogged hunter, Lets me burrow in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,5,1,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-greek-philosophy","category-philosophy","category-uncategorized","category-verse-and-worse"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31297"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31324,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31297\/revisions\/31324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}