The waves
broke on the rocky coast with a growl of lament. Their booming sounded
like a funeral dirge.
He turned away, left, the shore, and went on further without looking
before him. He forgot time and space and his own ego, filled only with
the afflicting thought of Socrates!
"Yesterday he still was, yesterday his mild words still could be
heard. How is it possible that to-day he no longer is? O night, O
giant mountain shrouded in mist, O heaving sea moved by your own life,
O restless winds that carry the breath of an immeasurable world on
your wings, O starry vault flecked with flying clouds--take me to you,
disclose to me the mystery of this death, if it is revealed to you!
And if ye know not, then grant my ignorant soul your own lofty
indifference. Remove from me these torturing questions. I no longer
have strength to carry them in my bosom without an answer, without
even the hope of an answer. For who shall answer them, now that the
lips of Socrates are sealed in eternal silence, and eternal darkness
is laid upon his lids?"
Thus Ctesippus cried out to the sea and the mountains, and to the dark
night, which followed its invariable course, ceaselessly, invisibly,
over the slumbering world.
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