But this same Hesiod says that the beginning is half-way there, Hesiod, Works and Days, 40. so that we should not wrong you if we said that you were half-way up.

No, not even that yet. That would be a great achievement.

Well, where on the road may we put you?

Still down in the foothills, Lycinus, though lately struggling on. It is slippery and rough and needs a hand to help.

Your teacher can do that: he can let down his own teaching from the top like Zeus’s golden rope in Homer, Homer, Il. viii, 19. and clearly pull and lift you up to himself and Virtue. He made the climb long ago.

That is just what happens, Lycinus. As far as he is concerned I should have been pulled up long ago and been in their company. But my share still falls short.

Be brave now and keep cheerful. Look to the end of the journey and the happiness up there, especially since he is as keen as you are. But when does he suggest you may hope to come up? Did he suggest next year to reach the top—after the other Mysteries, say, or the Panathenaea?

Too soon, Lycinus.

Next Olympiad, then?

Too soon again for a training in virtue and the winning of happiness.

After two Olympiads, surely? Or shall we accuse you of excessive sloth, if you cannot succeed even in all that time? You could easily make three journeys from Gibraltar to India and back in that time, even if you did not go straight without breaking your journey, but made excursions occasionally to visit the nations on the way. But this summit where your Virtue lives—how much higher and smoother are we to put it than Aornos which Alexander stormed in a few days?