6–7
CHARON
Do you know, Hermes, we haven’t accomplished anything, but have moved Mount Parnassus, Castaly and all, Mount Oeta and the rest of them for nothing.
CHARON
I can’t see anything plainly from on high. What I wanted was not just to look at cities and mountains as in a picture, but to observe men themselves, what they are doing and what they are saying. For instance, when we first met and you saw me laughing and asked what I was laughing at, I had heard something which amused me vastly.
5
CHARON
A man who had been invited to dinner, I take it, by one of his friends for the next day replied “Certainly I shall come,” and even as he spoke a tile from the roof which someone had dislodged fell on him and killed him. I had to laugh at him because he did not keep his promise—I_ think I shall go down a little, so as to see and_ hear better.
HERMES
Hold still; I will remedy that for you too and will. make you sharp-sighted in a minute by getting a charm out of Homer for this purpose as well as the other. When I say the verses remember not to ‘be short-sighted any longer, but to sce everything distinctly.
HERMES
Lo, from your eyes I have lifted a veil that before was upon them. So that your sight may be sure to distinguish a god from a mortal. Iliad5, 127 ff. "Lo, from your eyes I have lifted a veil that before was upon them. So that your sight may be sure to distinguish a god from a mortal.”! How about it? Do you see now?
