" In the streets of Cecilia, an illustrious city, I met once a goatherd, driving a tinkling flock along the walls." Man blessed by heaven," he asked me, stopping, " can you tell me the name of the city in which we are?" " May the gods accompany you!" I cried. " How can you fail to recognise the illustrious city of Cecilia?" " Bear with me," that man answered. " I am a wandering herdsman. Sometimes my goats and I have to pass through cities; but we are unable to distinguish them. Ask me the names of the grazing lands: I know them all, the Meadow between the Cliffs, the Green Slope, the Shadowed Grass. Cities have no name for me: they are places without leaves, separating one pasture from another, and where the goats are frightened at street corners and scatter. The dog and I run to keep the flock together." " I am the opposite of you," I said. " I recognise only cities and cannot distinguish what is outside them. In uninhabited places each stone and each clump of grass mingles, in my eyes, with every stone and clump. "