Symposium
therefore I must speak. Nor, again, should I be justified in concealing
the lofty actions of Socrates when I come to praise him. Moreover I
have felt the serpent's sting; and he who has suffered, as they say, is
willing to tell his fellow-sufferers only, as they alone will be likely
to understand him, and will not be extreme in judging of the sayings or
doings which have been wrung from his agony. For I have been bitten by a
more than viper's tooth; I have known in my soul, or in my heart, or in
some other part, that worst of pangs, more violent in ingenuous youth
than any serpent's tooth, the pang of philosophy, which will make a man
say or do anything. And you whom I see around me, Phaedrus and Agathon
and Eryximachus and Pausanias and Aristodemus and Aristophanes, all of
you, and I need not say Socrates himself, have had experience of the
same madness and passion in your longing after wisdom. Therefore listen
and excuse my doings then and my sayings now. But let the attendants and
other profane and unmannered persons close up the doors of their ears.
When the lamp was put out and the servants had gone away, I thought that
I must be plain with him and have no more ambiguity. So I gave him a
shake, and I said: 'Socrates, are you asleep?' 'No,' he said. 'Do
you know what I am meditating? 'What are you meditating?' he said. 'I
think,' I replied, 'that of all the lovers whom I have ever had you are
the only one who is worthy of me, and you appear to be too modest to
speak. Now I feel that I should be a fool to refuse you this or any
other favour, and therefore I come to lay at your feet all that I have
and all that my friends have, in the hope that you will assist me in the
way of virtue, which I desire above all things, and in which I believe
that you can help me better than any one else. And I should certainly
have more reason to be ashamed of what wise men would say if I were to
refuse a favour to such as you, than of what the world, who are mostly
fools, would say of me if I granted it.' To these words he replied in
the ironical manner which is so characteristic of him:--'Alcibiades, my
friend, you have indeed an elevated aim if what you say is true, and if
there really is in me any power by which you may become better; truly
you must see in me some rare beauty of a kind infinitely higher than any
which I see in you. And therefore, if you mean to share with me and to
exchange beauty for beauty, you will have greatly the advantage of me;
you will gain true beauty in return for appearance--like Diomede, gold
in exchange for brass. But look again, sweet friend, and see whether you
are not deceived in me. The mind begins to grow critical when the bodily
eye fails, and it will be a long time before you get old.' Hearing this,
I said: 'I have told you my purpose, which is quite serious, and do you
consider what you think best for you and me.' 'That is good,' he said;
'at some other time then we will consider and act as seems best about
this and about other matters.' Whereupon, I fancied that he was smitten,
and that the words which I had uttered like arrows had wounded him, and
so without waiting to hear more I got up, and throwing my coat about him
crept under his threadbare cloak, as the time of year was winter, and
there I lay during the whole night having this wonderful monster in
my arms. This again, Socrates, will not be denied by you. And yet,
notwithstanding all, he was so superior to my solicitations, so
contemptuous and derisive and disdainful of my beauty--which really, as
I fancied, had some attractions--hear, O judges; for judges you shall
be of the haughty virtue of Socrates--nothing more happened, but in the
morning when I awoke (let all the gods and goddesses be my witnesses) I
arose as from the couch of a father or an elder brother.
What do you suppose must have been my feelings, after this rejection, at
the thought of my own dishonour? And yet I could not help wondering
at his natural temperance and self-restraint and manliness. I never
imagined that I could have met with a man such as he is in wisdom and
endurance. And therefore I could not be angry with him or renounce his
company, any more than I could hope to win him. For I well knew that if
Ajax could not be wounded by steel, much less he by money; and my only
chance of captivating him by my personal attractions had failed. So
I was at my wit's end; no one was ever more hopelessly enslaved by
another. All this happened before he and I went on the expedition
to Potidaea; there we messed together, and I had the opportunity of
observing his extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue. His endurance
was simply marvellous when, being cut off from our supplies, we were
compelled to go without food--on such occasions, which often happen in
time of war, he was superior not only to me but to everybody; there was
no one to be compared to him. Yet at a festival he was the only person
who had any real powers of enjoyment; though not willing to drink, he
could if compelled beat us all at that,--wonderful to relate! no
human being had ever seen Socrates drunk; and his powers, if I am not
mistaken, will be tested before long. His fortitude in enduring cold was
also surprising. There was a severe frost, for the winter in that region
is really tremendous, and everybody else either remained indoors, or if
they went out had on an amazing quantity of clothes, and were well shod,
and had their feet swathed in felt and fleeces: in the midst of this,
Socrates with his bare feet on the ice and in his ordinary dress marched
better than the other soldiers who had shoes, and they looked daggers at
him because he seemed to despise them.
I have told you one tale, and now I must tell you another, which is
worth hearing,
'Of the doings and sufferings of the enduring man'
while he was on the expedition. One morning he was thinking about
something which he could not resolve; he would not give it up, but
continued thinking from early dawn until noon--there he stood fixed
in thought; and at noon attention was drawn to him, and the rumour ran
through the wondering crowd that Socrates had been standing and thinking
about something ever since the break of day. At last, in the evening
after supper, some Ionians out of curiosity (I should explain that this
was not in winter but in summer), brought out their mats and slept in
the open air that they might watch him and see whether he would stand
all night. There he stood until the following morning; and with the
return of light he offered up a prayer to the sun, and went his way
(compare supra). I will also tell, if you please--and indeed I am bound
to tell--of his courage in battle; for who but he saved my life? Now
this was the engagement in which I received the prize of valour: for I
was wounded and he would not leave me, but he rescued me and my arms;
and he ought to have received the prize of valour which the generals
wanted to confer on me partly on account of my rank, and I told them so,
(this, again, Socrates will not impeach or deny), but he was more eager
than the generals that I and not he should have the prize. There was
another occasion on which his behaviour was very remarkable--in the
flight of the army after the battle of Delium, where he served among the
heavy-armed,--I had a better opportunity of seeing him than at Potidaea,
for I was myself on horseback, and therefore comparatively out of
danger. He and Laches were retreating, for the troops were in flight,
and I met them and told them not to be discouraged, and promised to
remain with them; and there you might see him, Aristophanes, as you
describe (Aristoph. Clouds), just as he is in the streets of Athens,
stalking like a pelican, and rolling his eyes, calmly contemplating
enemies as well as friends, and making very intelligible to anybody,
even from a distance, that whoever attacked him would be likely to
meet with a stout resistance; and in this way he and his companion
escaped--for this is the sort of man who is never touched in war; those
only are pursued who are running away headlong. I particularly observed
how superior he was to Laches in presence of mind. Many are the marvels
which I might narrate in praise of Socrates; most of his ways might
perhaps be paralleled in another man, but his absolute unlikeness to any
human being that is or ever has been is perfectly astonishing. You
may imagine Brasidas and others to have been like Achilles; or you may
imagine Nestor and Antenor to have been like Pericles; and the same may
be said of other famous men, but of this strange being you will never be
able to find any likeness, however remote, either among men who now are
or who ever have been--other than that which I have already suggested of
Silenus and the satyrs; and they represent in a figure not only himself,
but his words. For, although I forgot to mention this to you before,
his words are like the images of Silenus which open; they are ridiculous
when you first hear them; he clothes himself in language that is like
the skin of the wanton satyr--for his talk is of pack-asses and smiths
and cobblers and curriers, and he is always repeating the same things
in the same words (compare Gorg.), so that any ignorant or inexperienced
person might feel disposed to laugh at him; but he who opens the bust
and sees what is within will find that they are the only words which
have a meaning in them, and also the most divine, abounding in fair
images of virtue, and of the widest comprehension, or rather extending
to the whole duty of a good and honourable man.
This, friends, is my praise of Socrates. I have added my blame of him
for his ill-treatment of me; and he has ill-treated not only me, but
Charmides the son of Glaucon, and Euthydemus the son of Diocles, and
many others in the same way--beginning as their lover he has ended by
making them pay their addresses to him. Wherefore I say to you, Agathon,
'Be not deceived by him; learn from me and take warning, and do not be a
fool and learn by experience, as the proverb says.'
When Alcibiades had finished, there was a laugh at his outspokenness;
for he seemed to be still in love with Socrates. You are sober,
Alcibiades, said Socrates, or you would never have gone so far about
to hide the purpose of your satyr's praises, for all this long story is
only an ingenious circumlocution, of which the point comes in by the
way at the end; you want to get up a quarrel between me and Agathon, and
your notion is that I ought to love you and nobody else, and that you
and you only ought to love Agathon. But the plot of this Satyric or
Silenic drama has been detected, and you must not allow him, Agathon, to
set us at variance.
I believe you are right, said Agathon, and I am disposed to think that
his intention in placing himself between you and me was only to divide
us; but he shall gain nothing by that move; for I will go and lie on the
couch next to you.
Yes, yes, replied Socrates, by all means come here and lie on the couch
below me.
Alas, said Alcibiades, how I am fooled by this man; he is determined to
get the better of me at every turn. I do beseech you, allow Agathon to
lie between us.
Certainly not, said Socrates, as you praised me, and I in turn ought to
praise my neighbour on the right, he will be out of order in praising me
again when he ought rather to be praised by me, and I must entreat you
to consent to this, and not be jealous, for I have a great desire to
praise the youth.
Hurrah! cried Agathon, I will rise instantly, that I may be praised by
Socrates.
The usual way, said Alcibiades; where Socrates is, no one else has any
chance with the fair; and now how readily has he invented a specious
reason for attracting Agathon to himself.