Then come straight to us, he said, and put in here; you may as well.
Who are you, I said; and where am I to come?
He showed me an enclosed space and an open door over against the wall.
And there, he said, is the building at which we all meet: and a goodly
company we are.
And what is this building, I asked; and what sort of entertainment have
you?
The building, he replied, is a newly erected Palaestra; and the
entertainment is generally conversation, to which you are welcome.
Thank you, I said; and is there any teacher there?
Yes, he said, your old friend and admirer, Miccus.
Indeed, I replied; he is a very eminent professor.
Are you disposed, he said, to go with me and see them?
Yes, I said; but I should like to know first, what is expected of me,
and who is the favourite among you?
Some persons have one favourite, Socrates, and some another, he said.
And who is yours? I asked: tell me that, Hippothales.
At this he blushed; and I said to him, O Hippothales, thou son of
Hieronymus! do not say that you are, or that you are not, in love; the
confession is too late; for I see that you are not only in love, but are
already far gone in your love. Simple and foolish as I am, the Gods have
given me the power of understanding affections of this kind.
Whereupon he blushed more and more.
Ctesippus said: I like to see you blushing, Hippothales, and hesitating
to tell Socrates the name; when, if he were with you but for a very
short time, you would have plagued him to death by talking about nothing
else. Indeed, Socrates, he has literally deafened us, and stopped our
ears with the praises of Lysis; and if he is a little intoxicated, there
is every likelihood that we may have our sleep murdered with a cry of
Lysis. His performances in prose are bad enough, but nothing at all in
comparison with his verse; and when he drenches us with his poems and
other compositions, it is really too bad; and worse still is his manner
of singing them to his love; he has a voice which is truly appalling,
and we cannot help hearing him: and now having a question put to him by
you, behold he is blushing.
Who is Lysis? I said: I suppose that he must be young; for the name does
not recall any one to me.
Why, he said, his father being a very well-known man, he retains his
patronymic, and is not as yet commonly called by his own name; but,
although you do not know his name, I am sure that you must know his
face, for that is quite enough to distinguish him.
But tell me whose son he is, I said.
He is the eldest son of Democrates, of the deme of Aexone.
Ah, Hippothales, I said; what a noble and really perfect love you have
found! I wish that you would favour me with the exhibition which you
have been making to the rest of the company, and then I shall be able to
judge whether you know what a lover ought to say about his love, either
to the youth himself, or to others.
Nay, Socrates, he said; you surely do not attach any importance to what
he is saying.
Do you mean, I said, that you disown the love of the person whom he says
that you love?
No; but I deny that I make verses or address compositions to him.
He is not in his right mind, said Ctesippus; he is talking nonsense, and
is stark mad.
O Hippothales, I said, if you have ever made any verses or songs in
honour of your favourite, I do not want to hear them; but I want to
know the purport of them, that I may be able to judge of your mode of
approaching your fair one.
Ctesippus will be able to tell you, he said; for if, as he avers, the
sound of my words is always dinning in his ears, he must have a very
accurate knowledge and recollection of them.
Yes, indeed, said Ctesippus; I know only too well; and very ridiculous
the tale is: for although he is a lover, and very devotedly in love, he
has nothing particular to talk about to his beloved which a child might
not say. Now is not that ridiculous? He can only speak of the wealth of
Democrates, which the whole city celebrates, and grandfather Lysis, and
the other ancestors of the youth, and their stud of horses, and their
victory at the Pythian games, and at the Isthmus, and at Nemea with
four horses and single horses--these are the tales which he composes
and repeats. And there is greater twaddle still. Only the day before
yesterday he made a poem in which he described the entertainment of
Heracles, who was a connexion of the family, setting forth how in virtue
of this relationship he was hospitably received by an ancestor of
Lysis; this ancestor was himself begotten of Zeus by the daughter of the
founder of the deme. And these are the sort of old wives' tales which he
sings and recites to us, and we are obliged to listen to him.
When I heard this, I said: O ridiculous Hippothales! how can you be
making and singing hymns in honour of yourself before you have won?
But my songs and verses, he said, are not in honour of myself, Socrates.
You think not? I said.
Nay, but what do you think? he replied.
Most assuredly, I said, those songs are all in your own honour; for if
you win your beautiful love, your discourses and songs will be a glory
to you, and may be truly regarded as hymns of praise composed in honour
of you who have conquered and won such a love; but if he slips away from
you, the more you have praised him, the more ridiculous you will look at
having lost this fairest and best of blessings; and therefore the wise
lover does not praise his beloved until he has won him, because he is
afraid of accidents. There is also another danger; the fair, when any
one praises or magnifies them, are filled with the spirit of pride and
vain-glory. Do you not agree with me?
Yes, he said.
And the more vain-glorious they are, the more difficult is the capture
of them?