If you thought a wife would make you happy, why did not you do as I have done?
I am only twenty-two years old and have five stately wives and a troop of the most beautiful slaves in my house." Araspes smiled bitterly.
"And what hinders you from marrying now ?" said Gyges.

"You are a match for many a younger man in appearance, strength, courage and perseverance.
You are one of the king's nearest relations too--I tell you, Araspes, you might have twenty young and beautiful wives." "Look after your own affairs," answered Araspes.

"In your place, I certainly should not have waited to marry till I was thirty." "An oracle has forbidden my marrying." "Folly?
how can a sensible man care for what an oracle says?
It is only by dreams, that the gods announce the future to men.

I should have thought that your own father was example enough of the shameful way in which those lying priests deceive their best friends." "That is a matter which you do not understand, Araspes." "And never wish to, boy, for you only believe in oracles because you don't understand them, and in your short-sightedness call everything that is beyond your comprehension a miracle.

And you place more confidence in anything that seems to you miraculous, than in the plain simple truth that lies before your face.