Symposium

form, you are like these, Socrates, not even you yourself, I take it, would dispute; but that you resemble them in the rest as well, hear next. You are insolent; or not? For if you do not agree, I shall bring witnesses. But are you not a piper? Indeed, far more marvellous than he. 215c He, you see, enchanted human beings through instruments, by the power from his mouth, and still now, whoever pipes his tunes — for what Olympus piped I say are Marsyas’, since he taught him — his tunes, then, whether a good piper pipes them or a paltry pipe-girl, alone make people possessed, and make plain those who are in need of the gods and of rites, because they are divine. You differ from him only in this much, that without instruments, with bare words, you 215d do this same thing. We at any rate, whenever we hear someone else speaking other speeches, even a very good orator, it matters nothing to anyone, so to speak; but whenever anyone hears you, or your speeches spoken by another, even if the speaker is quite paltry, whether a woman hears or a man or a lad, we are struck and possessed. I at any rate, gentlemen, if I were not going to seem entirely drunk, would have told you on oath what I myself have experienced from this man’s speeches, and experience still even 215e now. For whenever I hear him, my heart leaps far more than the Corybants’,¹ and tears pour out under his speeches; and I see very many others experiencing the same things. When I heard Pericles² and other good orators, I believed they spoke well, but I experienced nothing of the kind, nor was my soul thrown into confusion, nor was it vexed that I was disposed like a slave; but by this Marsyas here I have often been 216a so disposed that it seemed to me life was not worth living in the condition I am in. And this, Socrates, you will not say is not true. And even now I am conscious in myself that if I were willing to offer him my ears, I would not hold out, but would experience the same things. He compels