They give thy letter to me, even now;
    I read and seem as if I heard thee speak. 
    The master of thy galley still unlades
    Gift after gift; they block my court at last
    And pile themselves along its portico
    Royal with sunset, like a thought of thee;
    And one white she-slave from the group dispersed
    Of black and white slaves (like the chequer work
    Pavement, at once my nation’s work and gift,
    Now covered with this settle-down of doves),
    One lyric woman, in her crocus vest
    Woven of sea-wools, with her two white hands
    Commends to me the strainer and the cup
    Thy lip hath bettered ere it blesses mine.

But he is more than luxurious.  He desires the highest life, and he praises the king because he has acknowledged by his gifts the joy that Art gives to life; and most of all he praises him, because he too aspires, building a mighty tower, not that men may look at it, but that he may gaze from its height on the sun, and think what higher he may attain.  The tower is the symbol of the cry of the king’s soul.

Then he answers the king’s letter.  “It is true, O king, I am poet, sculptor, painter, architect, philosopher, musician; all arts are mine.  Have I done as well as the great men of old?  No, but I have combined their excellences into one man, into myself.

    “I have not chanted verse like Homer, no—­
    Nor swept string like Terpander—­no—­nor carved
    And painted men like Phidias and his friend: 
    I am not great as they are, point by point. 
    But I have entered into sympathy
    With these four, running these into one soul,
    Who, separate, ignored each other’s art. 
    Say, is it nothing that I know them all?

“This, since the best in each art has already been done, was the only progress possible, and I have made it.  It is not unworthy, king!

“Well, now thou askest, if having done this, ’I have not attained the very crown of life; if I cannot now comfortably and fearlessly meet death?’ ‘I, Cleon, leave,’ thou sayest, ’my life behind me in my poems, my pictures; I am immortal in my work.  What more can life desire?’”

It is the question so many are asking now, and it is the answer now given.  What better immortality than in one’s work left behind to move in men?  What more than this can life desire?  But Cleon does not agree with that.  “If thou, O king, with the light now in thee, hadst looked at creation before man appeared, thou wouldst have said, ’All is perfect so far.’  But questioned if anything more perfect in joy might be, thou wouldst have said, ’Yes; a being may be made, unlike these who do not know the joy they have, who shall be conscious of himself, and know that he is happy.  Then his life will be satisfied with daily joy.’” O king, thou wouldst have answered foolishly.  The higher the soul climbs in joy the more it sees of joy, and when it sees the most, it perishes.