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'Perseus, you must do an errand for me.'
'Who are you, lady? And how do you know my name?'
'I am Pallas Athene; and I know the thoughts of all men's
hearts, and discern their manhood or their baseness. And
from the souls of clay I turn away, and they are blest, but
not by me. They fatten at ease, like sheep in the pasture,
and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They
grow and spread, like the gourd along the ground; but, like
the gourd, they give no shade to the traveller, and when they
are ripe death gathers them, and they go down unloved into
hell, and their name vanishes out of the land.
'But to the souls of fire I give more fire, and to those who
are manful I give a might more than man's. These are the
heroes, the sons of the Immortals, who are blest, but not
like the souls of clay. For I drive them forth by strange
paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and the
monsters, the enemies of Gods and men. Through doubt and
need, danger and battle, I drive them; and some of them are
slain in the flower of youth, no man knows when or where; and
some of them win noble names, and a fair and green old age;
but what will be their latter end I know not, and none, save
Zeus, the father of Gods and men. Tell me now, Perseus,
which of these two sorts of men seem to you more blest?'
Then Perseus answered boldly: 'Better to die in the flower
of youth, on the chance of winning a noble name, than to live
at ease like the sheep, and die unloved and unrenowned.'
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