Chapter XLV. Further Concerning the Same

THE Hebrew prophecy says: ‘From fear of thee, O Lord, we have been with child, and we have been in pain, and have brought forth wind [of deliverance]’[1]: and Plato in the Theaetetusrepresents Socrates as speaking thus:

[P] [2] ‘Those who associate with me are in fact affected in the same way as women in childbirth: for they travail in pain and are full of perplexity night and day far more than the women. And this pain my art is able both to arouse and to allay.’