Apollo. "Agathon, the father omnipotent does not live only in the
aether. He runs invisibly within the sun and stars, and as they
whirl round and round, they break out into woods and flowers and
streams, and the winds are shaken away from them like leaves from
off the roses. Great, strange and bright, he busies himself within,
and at the end of time his light shall shine through and men shall
see it, moving in a world of flame.

Think then, as you bend over your fields, of what you nourish and
what rises up within them. Know that every flower as it droops in
the quiet of the woodland feels within and far away the approach
of an unutterable life and is glad, they reflect that life even
as the little pools take up the light of the stars. Agathon, Agathon,
Zeus is no greater in the aether than he is in the leaf of grass,
and the hymns of men are no sweeter to him than a little water
poured over one of his flowers."

Agathon the husbandman went away and bent tenderly over his fruits
and vines, and he loved each one of them more than before, and he
grew wise in many things as he watched them and he was happy working
for the gods.

Then spake Damon the shepherd, "Father, while the flocks are browsing
dreams rise up within me; they make the heart sick with longing;
the forests vanish, I hear no more the lamb's bleat or the rustling
of the fleeces; voices from a thousand depths call me, they whisper,
they beseech me, shadows lovelier than earth's children utter music,
not for me though I faint while I listen. Father, why do I hear
the things others hear not, voices calling to unknown hunters of