STRANGER: Again, we have been often told of the reign of Cronos.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, very often.
STRANGER: Did you ever hear that the men of former times were earth-born,
and not begotten of one another?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, that is another old tradition.
STRANGER: All these stories, and ten thousand others which are still more
wonderful, have a common origin; many of them have been lost in the lapse
of ages, or are repeated only in a disconnected form; but the origin of
them is what no one has told, and may as well be told now; for the tale is
suited to throw light on the nature of the king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good; and I hope that you will give the whole story,
and leave out nothing.
STRANGER: Listen, then. There is a time when God himself guides and helps
to roll the world in its course; and there is a time, on the completion of
a certain cycle, when he lets go, and the world being a living creature,
and having originally received intelligence from its author and creator,
turns about and by an inherent necessity revolves in the opposite
direction.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why is that?
STRANGER: Why, because only the most divine things of all remain ever
unchanged and the same, and body is not included in this class. Heaven and
the universe, as we have termed them, although they have been endowed by
the Creator with many glories, partake of a bodily nature, and therefore
cannot be entirely free from perturbation.
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