Let's pick one of the old men and say to him: "We see you've reached the very end of human life. You're a hundred years old, or maybe even older. Now sit down and add up your whole life. Tell us how much time you spent dealing with people you owed money to. How much time on your lover. How much time serving your king. How much time with your clients. How much time fighting with your wife. How much time managing your slaves. How much time running around the city on errands. Add in the diseases we bring on ourselves, and all the time that just sat there unused."
Let us take one of the elders, and say to him, "We perceive that you have arrived at the extreme limits of human life: you are in your hundredth year, or even older. Come now, reckon up your whole life in black and white: tell us how much of your time has been spent upon your creditors, how much on your mistress, how much on your king, how much on your clients, how much in quarrelling with your wife, how much in keeping your slaves in order, how much in running up and down the city on business. Add to this the diseases which we bring upon us with our own hands, and the time which has laid idle without any use having been made of it;