Part 172

“You do well,” said I. “But who teaches there?”

“Your friend and encomiast,” said he, “Miccus.”

“By Jupiter,” said I, “he is no mean person, but an apt sophist.”

“Will you follow us then,” said he, “that you may see those that are there?”

2. “I should be glad to hear this first, and on that condition I enter, who is the beauty?”

“To some of us,” said he, “Socrates, one appears so, to some, another.”

“But who appears so to you, Hippothales? Tell me this.” Then he blushed at the question. And I said, “Hippothales, son of Hieronymus, you need no longer tell me this, whether you are in love with any one or not: for I know that you are not only in love, but are already pretty far gone in love. I, for my part, am in other matters poor and useless, but this somehow has been given me by the deity, to be able quickly to discern both a lover, and one that is beloved.”

On hearing this, he blushed still more. Whereupon Ctesippus said, “It is a fine thing in you to blush, Hippothales, and hesitate to tell Socrates the name, though if he were to stay here with you even for a short time he would be tired to death with hearing you frequently telling it. 3. He has certainly deafened our ears, Socrates, and filled them with the name of Lysis: and if he is somewhat tipsy, it is easy for us, even when we awake out of sleep, to fancy that we hear the name of Lysis. And what he tells of him in his ordinary talk, though wearisome, is not so very much so; but when he attempts to overwhelm us with his poems and set-speeches! and what is still more wearisome than these, is that he sings about his favourite with a wonderful voice, which we must endure to listen to. But now when questioned by you, he blushes.”

“This Lysis, then,” said I, “is a youth, as it seems. I conjecture this, because on hearing the name I did not know it.”

“They don’t often call him by his own name,” said he, “but he still goes by his father’s name, because his father is so very well known. For I am very sure, that you are far from being unacquainted with the form of the youth; for he may be sufficiently known from this only.”

4. “Tell me then,” said I, “whose son he is.”

“The eldest son of Democrates, of Æxone,” he replied.

“Well done, Hippothales,” said I, “what a noble and in every way admirable love is this you have met with! Come then, display to me what you display to these also, that I may discover whether you know what a lover ought to say about his favourite, either to himself or to others.”

“Do you really put any weight, Socrates,” said he, “on any thing that he says?”

“Do you deny,” said I, “that you are in love with the person whom he speaks of?”

“I do not,” said he, “but I do deny that I make verses on my favourite or compose speeches.”

“He is not in his right senses,” said Ctesippus, “but is delirious and mad.”

Upon this I said, “Hippothales, I do not wish to hear your verses, nor any song that you may have made on the youth, but their meaning, that I may know in what way you behave towards your favourite.”

“He doubtless will tell you,” said he, “for he knows and remembers it well, since, as he says, he has been stunned by constantly hearing it from me.”

5. “By the gods,” said Ctesippus, “assuredly I do; and ridiculous it is too, Socrates. For that being a lover, and devoting himself to the youth beyond all others, he should have nothing of his own to say, that even a boy might not say, how can it be otherwise than ridiculous? For what the whole city resounds with about Democrates and Lysis the boy’s grandfather, and all his ancestors, their wealth, their breed of horses, and their victories in the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games, with four horses and with one, these things he puts into poems and speeches, and besides these, things still more absurd: for he lately described to us in a poem, the entertainment of Hercules, how an ancestor of theirs received Hercules on account of his relationship to him, being himself sprung from Jupiter and the daughter of the founder of his borough, such things as old women sing, and many others of the same kind, Socrates. 6. These are the things that he speaks of and sings and compels us to listen to.”

Upon hearing this, I said, “O ridiculous Hippothales, before you have gained the victory do you compose and sing an encomium on yourself?”

“But I neither compose nor sing on myself, Socrates.”

“You do not think so,” I replied.

“How is that?” said he.

“These songs,” said I, “most of all relate to you. For if you gain your favourite being such as you describe, what you have said and sung will be an honour to you, and in reality an encomium on yourself as victorious in having won such a favourite. But if he should escape you, by how much greater the encomiums are which you uttered on your favourite, by so much the more ridiculous will you appear in being deprived of greater blessings. Whoever therefore, my friend, is skilled in matters of love, does not praise his beloved before he has caught him, fearing how the event will turn out. Moreover such as are beautiful when any one praises and extols them, are filled with pride and arrogance. Do you not think so?”

“I do,” he replied.

7. “And by how much the more arrogant they are, are they not more difficult to be caught?”

“That is probable at least.”