herodotus

"O king, how far different from one another are the things which thouhast done now and a short while before now! for having pronouncedthyself a happy man, thou art now shedding tears." He said: "Yea, forafter I had reckoned up, it came into my mind to feel pity at thethought how brief was the whole life of man, seeing that of thesemultitudes not one will be alive when a hundred years have gone by."He then made answer and said: "To another evil more pitiful than thiswe are made subject in the course of our life; for in the period oflife, short as it is, no man, either of these here or of others, ismade by nature so happy, that there will not come to him many times,and not once only, the desire to be dead rather than to live; formisfortunes falling upon us and diseases disturbing our happiness makethe time of life, though short indeed, seem long: thus, since life isfull of trouble, death has become the most acceptable refuge for man;and God, having given him to taste of the sweetness of life, isdiscovered in this matter to be full of jealousy." 47. Xerxes madeanswer saying: "Artabanos, of human life, which is such as thou dostdefine it to be, let us cease to speak, and do not remember evils whenwe have good things in hand: but do thou declare to me this:--If thevision of the dream had not appeared with so much evidence, wouldestthou still be holding thy former opinion, endeavouring to prevent mefrom marching against Hellas, or wouldest thou have changed from it?Come, tell me this exactly." He answered saying: "O king, may thevision of the dream which appeared have such fulfilment as we bothdesire! but I am even to this moment full of apprehension and cannotcontain myself, taking into account many things besides, and alsoseeing that two things, which are the greatest things of all, areutterly hostile to thee." 48. To this Xerxes made answer in thesewords: "Thou strangest of men,[47] of what nature are these two thingswhich thou sayest are utterly hostile to me? Is it that the land-armyis to be found fault with in the matter of numbers, and that the armyof the Hellenes appears to thee likely to be many times as large asours? or dost thou think that our fleet will fall short of theirs? oreven that both of these things together will prove true? For if thouthinkest that in these respects our power is deficient, one might makegathering at once of another force." 49. Then he made answer and said:"O king, neither with this army would any one who has understandingfind fault, nor with the number of the ships; and indeed if thou shaltassemble more, the two things of which I speak will be made therebyyet more hostile: and these two things are--the land and the sea. Forneither in the sea is there, as I suppose, a harbour anywhere largeenough to receive this fleet of thine, if a storm should arise, and toensure the safety of the ships till it be over; and yet not onealone[48] ought this harbour to be, but there should be such harboursalong the whole coast of the continent by which thou sailest; and ifthere are not harbours to receive thy ships, know that accidents will