Phaedrus — Plato

no PLATO THE TEACHER proverb. For after picturing Agamemnon ^ as the most valiant of men, he makes Menelaus, who is but a soft-hearted warrior, come of his own accord to the sacrificial feast of Agamemnon, the worse to the better. I am afraid, Socrates, said Aristodemus, that I shall rather be the inferior person, who, like Menelaus in Homer, — **To the feasts of the wise unbidden goes.

But I shall say that I was bidden of you, and then you will have to make the excuse. " Two going together," he replied, in Homeric fashion, may invent an excuse by the way. This was the style of their conversation as they went along; and a comical thing happened — Socrates stayed behind in a fit of abstraction, and desired Aristodemus, who was waiting, to go on before him.

When he reached the house of Agathon he found the doors wide open, and a servant coming out met him, and led him at once into the banqueting-hall in which the guests were reclining, for the banquet was about to begin. Welcome, Aristodemus, said Agathon ; you are just in time to sup with ns ; if you come on any other errand put that off, and niake one of us, as I was looking for you yesterday and meant to have asked you, if I could have found you.

But what have you done with Socrates ? I turned round and saw that Socrates was missing, and I had to explain that he had been with me a moment before, and that I came by his invitation. You were quite right in coming, said Agathon ; and where is he himself? He was behind me just now, as I entered, he said, and '^ I cannot think what has become of him.

Go and look for him, boy, said Agathon, and bring him in; do you, Aristodemus, meanwhile take the place by Eryximachns. Then he said that the attendant assisted him to wash, and that he lay down, and presently another servant came in and said that our friend Socrates had retired into the portico of the neighboring house. ** There he is fixed, and when I call to him," said the servant, ** he will not stir. How strange, said Agathon ; then you must call him again, and keep calling him. » See Apology, note 21.

THE SYMPOSIUM III Let him alone, said my informant ; he has just a habit of stopping anywhere and losing himself without any reason ; don*t disturb him, as I believe he will soon appear. Well, if you say that, I will not interfere with him, said Agathon.

My domestics, who on these occasions become my masters, shall entertain us as their guests. ** Put on the table whatever you like,*' he said to the servants, ** as usual when there is no one to give you orders, which I never do.

Imagine that you are our hosts, and that I and the company are your guests; and treat us well, and then we shall commend you.*' After this they supped ; and during the meal Agathon several times expressed a wish to send for Socrates, but Aristodemus would not allow him ; and when the feast was half over — for the fit, as usual, was not of long duration — Socrates entered.

Agathon, who was reclining alone at the end of the table, begged that he would take the place next to him ; that I may touch the sage, he saicj, and get some of that wisdom which came into your mind in the portico. For I am certain that you would not have left until you had found what you were seeking.

How I wish, said Socrates, taking his place as he was desired, that wisdom could be infused through the medium of touch, out of the full into the empty man, like the water which the wool sucks out of the full vessel into an empty one ; in that case how much I should prize sitting by you !

For you would have filled me full of gifts of wisdom, plenteous and fair, in comparison of which my own is of a very mean and questionable sort, no better than a dream ; but yours is bright and only beginning, and was manifested forth in all the splendor of youth the day before yesterday, in the presence of more than thirty thousand Hellenes.^ You are insolent, said Agathon; and you and I will have to settle hereafter who bears off the palm of wisdom, and of this Dionysus' shall be the judge ; but at present you are better occupied with the banquet. , Socrates took his place on the couch; and when the ' meal was ended, and the libations offered, and after a hymn had been sung to the God, and there had been the usual ceremonies,— as they were about to commence drinking, Pausanias reminded them that they had had a bout yesterday, from which •Greeks. See Protagoras, note ii. » The god whose festival the city was then celebrating.

p. 112he and most of them were still suffering, and they ought to be allowed to recover, and not go on drinking to-day. He would therefore ask. How the drinking could be made easiest ? I entirely agree, said Aristophanes, that we should, by all means, get off the drinking, having been myself one of those who were yesterday drowned in drink.

I think that you are right, said Eryximachus the son of Acumenus ; but I should like to hear one other person speak. What are the inclinations of our host ? I am not able to drink, said Agathon.

Then, said Eryximachus, the weak heads like myself, Aristodemus, Phaedrus, and others who never can drink, are fortunate in finding that the stronger ones are not in a drinking mood. (I do not include Socrates, who is an exceptional being, and able either to drink or to abstain.) Well, then, as the company seem indisposed to drink much, I may be forgiven for saying, as a physician, that drinking is a bad practice, which I never, if I can help, follow, and certainly do not recommend to another, least of all to any one who still feels the effects of yesterday's carouse.

I always follow what you advise, and especially what you prescribe as a physician, rejoined Phaedrus the Myrrhinusian, and the rest of the company, if they are wise, will do the same. All agreed that drinking was not to be the order of the day.

Then, said Eryximachus, as you are all agreed that drinking is to be voluntary, and that there is to be no compulsion, I move, in the next place, that the flute girl, who has just made her appearance, be told to go away ; she may play to herself, or, if she has a mind, to the women who are within. But on this day let us have conversation instead; and, if you will allow me, I will tell you what sort of conversation.

This proposal having been accepted, Eryximachus proceeded as follows : — I will begin, he said, after the manner of Melanippe in Euripides ^, — "Not mine the word" which I am about to speak, but that of Phaedrus. For he is in the habit of complaining that, whereas other gods have * Euripides (u-rfp'i-dez, 480-406 B.C.): a celebrated Athenian tragic poet. Melanippe (m^l'a-nfp'pe) : a character in a lost play by him.