11
When “many a sleepless night you have pillowed” and have lived through “many a blood-stained day,”Iliad9, 325. not for the sake of Helen or of Priam’s Trojan citadel, but the five obols that you hope for, and when you have secured the backing of a tragedy god,Some person, as opportune and powerful as a deus ex machina, to press your suit. there follows an examination to see if you are learned in the arts. For the rich man that way of passing time is not unpleasant, since he is praised and felicitated, but you feel that you have then before you the struggle for your life and for your entire existence, for the thought of course steals into your mind that no one else would receive you if you were rejected by his predecessor and considered unacceptable. So you cannot help being infinitely distracted then; for you are jealous of your rivals (let us suppose that there are others competing with you for the same object); you think that everything you yourself have said has been inadequate, you fear, you hope, you watch his face with straining eyes; if he scouts anything you say, you are in distress, but if he smiles as he listens, you rejoice and become hopeful.
12
No doubt there are many who side against you and favour others in your stead, and each of them stealthily shoots at you, so to speak, from ambush. Then too imagine a man with a long beard and grey hair undergoing examination to see if he knows anything worth while, and some thinking that he does, others that he does not!
