Lysis

— “That’s because I’m not yet of age,¹ Socrates,” he said. — “I rather think it isn’t that which stops you, son of Democrates, since this much at least, I imagine, your father and mother do entrust to you, and they don’t wait until you are of age: when they want something read or written for them, it’s you, I imagine, 209b they put to this first of all the household. Isn’t that so?” — “Very much so,” he said. — “Then here you are allowed to write whichever letter you want first and whichever second; and you are allowed to read in the same way. And when, I imagine, you take up the lyre, neither your father nor your mother prevents you from both tightening and loosening whichever of the strings you want, and plucking them with your fingers and striking them with the plectrum. Or do they prevent you?” — “Certainly not.” — “Then what can the reason be, Lysis, that here 209c they don’t prevent you, but in the things we were speaking of just now they stop you?” — “I think it’s because I know these things,” he said, “and I don’t know those.” — “Very well, my excellent boy,” I said. “So your father isn’t waiting for you to be of age before he entrusts everything to you, but on whatever day he believes that you understand better than he does, on that day he will entrust to you both himself and what is his.” — “I think so,” he said. — “Very well,” I said. “What then? Hasn’t your neighbor the same standard as your father where you are concerned? 209d Do you think he will entrust you with managing his house, when he believes that you understand managing a house better than he does,² or will he oversee it himself?” — “He’ll entrust it to me, I think.” — “What then? Don’t you think the Athenians will entrust what is theirs to you, when they perceive that you understand well enough?” — “I do.” — “In the name of Zeus,” I said, “what, then, about the Great King? Would he sooner, when meat is boiling, entrust his eldest son, to whom the rule of Asia passes, with throwing whatever he wants