BOOK IV. XI. 14-19
whom you meet. 15You are doing something of the sort even here, and do not realize it. You think that you are worthy of the smell.[1] Very well, be worthy of it. Do you think, though, that those who sit by your side, those who recline beside you, those who kiss you, are worthy of it too?[2] Bah, go away into a wilderness somewhere or other, a place worthy of you, and live alone, smelling of yourself! For it is only right that you should enjoy your uncleanliness all by yourself. But since you are living in a city, what kind of character do you fancy you are exhibiting, to behave so thoughtlessly and inconsiderately? If nature had committed to your care a horse, would you have utterly neglected it? And now I would have you think that your body has been entrusted to you like a horse; wash it, rub it down, make it so that nobody will turn his back on you or move aside. But who does not avoid a dirty fellow that smells and has an unsightly skin, even more than a man bespattered with dung? In this latter case the smell is external and acquired, in the other it comes from slovenliness that is internal, and is characteristic of one who has grown rotten through and through.
But Socrates bathed infrequently,[3] says someone.—Why, his body was radiant; why, it was so attractive and sweet that the handsomest and most high-born were in love with him, and yearned to sit by his side rather than beside those who had the prettiest
- ↑ That is, so good that his smell makes no real difference.
- ↑ That is, bad enough to deserve such treatment (ἄξιος meaning both "good enough" and "bad enough").
- ↑ Plato, Symposium, 174 A.
