STRANGER: There did really happen, and will again happen, like many

other events of which ancient tradition has preserved the record, the

portent which is traditionally said to have occurred in the quarrel of

Atreus and Thyestes. You have heard, no doubt, and remember what they

say happened at that time?

YOUNG SOCRATES: I suppose you to mean the token of the birth of the

golden lamb.

STRANGER: No, not that; but another part of the story, which tells how

the sun and the stars once rose in the west, and set in the east, and

that the god reversed their motion, and gave them that which they now

have as a testimony to the right of Atreus.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes; there is that legend also.

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.

Statesman