Symposium

me, you see, to agree that, though I myself am still in lack of much, I neglect myself and manage the affairs of the Athenians. So by force, stopping my ears as if from the Sirens,¹ I go off in flight, so that I may not grow old sitting here beside him. And I have experienced 216b towards this man alone of human beings what no one would think was in me: being ashamed before anyone at all. But before this man alone I am ashamed. For I am conscious in myself that I am not able to argue against him that one must not do what he tells me, yet whenever I go away, I am overcome by the honour that comes from the many. So I play the runaway slave from him and flee, and whenever I see him, I am ashamed of what has been agreed. 216c And often I would gladly see him no longer among human beings; but if, again, this were to happen, I know well that I would be far more grieved, so that I do not know what to do with this person.

“And from the pipe-tunes of this satyr, then, both I and many others have had such experiences; but hear from me other things: how like he is to those I likened him to, and how marvellous a power he has. For know well that none of you 216d knows him; but I will make him plain, since I have begun. For you see that Socrates is disposed by love towards the beautiful ones, and is always about them and is struck, and again that he is ignorant of everything and knows nothing. Is not this guise of his like a silenus? Very much indeed. For this he has thrown around himself on the outside, like the carved silenus; but inside, when he is opened, how full do you think he is, gentlemen, fellow-drinkers, of temperance? Know that if anyone is beautiful it matters nothing to him, but he despises it as much 216e as no one would even think, nor if anyone is rich, nor if he has any other honour of those that the multitude count blessed; he believes all these possessions worth nothing, and us nothing — I tell you — and he goes on all his life being ironic² and playing with human beings. But when he is in earnest