[219]
And if on espying this you are trying for a mutual exchange of beauty for beauty, it is no slight advantage you are counting on—you are trying to get genuine in return for reputed beauties,
219a
and in fact are designing to fetch off the old bargain of
To this I answered: You have heard what I had to say; not a word differed from the feeling in my mind: it is for you now to consider what you judge to be best for you and me.
Ah, there you speak to some purpose, he said: for in the days that are to come 219b we shall consider and do what appears to be best for the two of us in this and our other affairs.
Well, after I had exchanged these words with him and, as it were, let fly my shafts, I fancied he felt the wound: so up I got, and without suffering the man to say a word more I wrapped my own coat about him—it was winter-time; drew myself under his cloak, so; 219c wound my arms about this truly spiritual and miraculous creature; and lay thus all the night long. Here too, Socrates, you are unable to give me the lie. When I had done all this, he showed such superiority and contempt, laughing my youthful charms to scorn, and flouting the very thing on which I prided myself, gentlemen of the jury—for you are here to try Socrates for his lofty disdain: you may be sure, by gods—and goddesses—that when I arose I had in no more particular sense slept a night 219d with Socrates than if it had been with my father or my elder brother.
After that, you can imagine what a state of mind I was in, feeling myself affronted, yet marvelling at the sobriety and integrity of his nature: for I had lighted on a man such as I never would have dreamt of meeting—so sensible and so resolute. Hence I could find neither a reason for being angry and depriving myself of his society nor a ready means 219e of enticing him. For I was well aware that he was far more proof against money on every side than Ajax against a spear; 2 and in what I thought was my sole means of catching him he had eluded me. So I was at a loss, and wandered about in the most abject thraldom to this man that ever was known. Now all this, you know, had already happened to me when we later went on a campaign together to Potidaea ; 3 and there we were messmates.
gold for bronze.
1
But be more wary, my gifted friend: you may be deceived and I may be worthless. Remember, the intellectual sight begins to be keen when the visual is entering on its wane; but you are a long way yet from that time.
To this I answered: You have heard what I had to say; not a word differed from the feeling in my mind: it is for you now to consider what you judge to be best for you and me.
Ah, there you speak to some purpose, he said: for in the days that are to come 219b we shall consider and do what appears to be best for the two of us in this and our other affairs.
Well, after I had exchanged these words with him and, as it were, let fly my shafts, I fancied he felt the wound: so up I got, and without suffering the man to say a word more I wrapped my own coat about him—it was winter-time; drew myself under his cloak, so; 219c wound my arms about this truly spiritual and miraculous creature; and lay thus all the night long. Here too, Socrates, you are unable to give me the lie. When I had done all this, he showed such superiority and contempt, laughing my youthful charms to scorn, and flouting the very thing on which I prided myself, gentlemen of the jury—for you are here to try Socrates for his lofty disdain: you may be sure, by gods—and goddesses—that when I arose I had in no more particular sense slept a night 219d with Socrates than if it had been with my father or my elder brother.
After that, you can imagine what a state of mind I was in, feeling myself affronted, yet marvelling at the sobriety and integrity of his nature: for I had lighted on a man such as I never would have dreamt of meeting—so sensible and so resolute. Hence I could find neither a reason for being angry and depriving myself of his society nor a ready means 219e of enticing him. For I was well aware that he was far more proof against money on every side than Ajax against a spear; 2 and in what I thought was my sole means of catching him he had eluded me. So I was at a loss, and wandered about in the most abject thraldom to this man that ever was known. Now all this, you know, had already happened to me when we later went on a campaign together to Potidaea ; 3 and there we were messmates.
Symposium. Plato. Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1925.
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