Lysis

“That’s because they hardly use his own name,” he said; “he is still called after his father, because his father is exceedingly well known. Though I know well that you are far from not knowing the boy’s figure; for he can be known even by that alone.”

“Let it be said whose son he is,” I said.

“Democrates’ of Aexone,” he said: “his eldest son.”¹

“Very well, Hippothales,” I said. “How noble and dashing in every way is this love you have found! Come, show me what 205a you show these people too, so that I may know whether you know what a lover should say about his darling, to the boy himself or to others.”

“But do you take any account, Socrates,” he said, “of anything this fellow says?”

“Do you deny,” I said, “even being in love with the one this fellow names?”

“No, I don’t,” he said; “but I deny that I make verses for my darling, or write compositions.”

“He’s not well,” said Ctesippus; “he’s babbling, he’s raving.”

And I said, “Hippothales, I have no need 205b to hear any of your meters, or any lyric you may have made for the young man; but the thought, so that I may know how you conduct yourself toward your darling.”

“This fellow will tell you, I’m sure,” he said; “for he knows it exactly and remembers it, if, as he says, he’s been talked deaf by hearing me all the time.”

“By the gods,” said Ctesippus, “very much so. And indeed it’s ridiculous, Socrates. A lover who pays attention to the boy beyond all the others, and 205c has nothing of his own to say that even a boy wouldn’t say: how is that not ridiculous? But what the whole city sings about Democrates and Lysis, the boy’s grandfather, and about all his ancestors, their wealth and horse-breeding and victories at Pytho and