Symposium.
Alcibiades.
The disconsolate lover. 589 actions of Socrates when I come to praise him. Moreover Sym- I have felt the serpent's sting; and he who has suffered, T"^"""- as they say, is wilHng to tell his fellow-sufferers only, as they 218 alone will be likely to understand him, and will not be ex- treme 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 any- thing. 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 liimself, 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 The be- away, I thought that I must be plain with him and have Saviour of -" " ^ T • 1 Socrates, no more ambiguity. So I gave him a shake, and I said : and his re- ' Socrates, are you asleep ? ' ' No,' he said. ' Do you know Jection of what I am meditating ? ' ' What are you meditating ? ' he vances of said. 'I tliink/ I replied, 'that of all the lovers whom I have Aicibiades. 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 m.e 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 : — 'Aicibi- ades, 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 Jiigherthan any which I see in you.
