Symposium

and is opened, I do not know whether anyone has seen the statues inside; but I once saw them, and they seemed to me so divine and 217a golden and all-beautiful and marvellous that I must do whatever at all Socrates told me. Believing that he was in earnest about my youth,¹ I believed it a godsend² and a marvellous piece of luck of mine, since it was open to me, by gratifying Socrates, to hear everything that he knew; for I thought marvellously much of my youth. So, with this in mind, though before I was not used to being alone with him without a follower, I then sent 217b the follower away and was alone with him — for I must tell you the whole truth; but pay attention, and if I lie, Socrates, refute me — for I was with him, gentlemen, alone with him alone, and I thought he would at once converse with me as a lover would converse with his darling in solitude, and I was glad. But nothing of this at all happened; rather, as he used to, he would converse with me and, having spent the day with me, go off and away. After this 217c I invited him to exercise with me, and I exercised with him, thinking to accomplish something there. So he exercised with me and wrestled with me, often with nobody present; and what need is there to say it? For I got nothing more out of it. Since I was achieving nothing this way, it seemed to me I must attack the man by main force and not let go, since I had once set my hand to it, but must know now what the matter was. So I invite him to dine with me, exactly like a lover laying plots for his darling. And he did not even 217d comply with me in this quickly, but all the same in time he was persuaded. When he came the first time, after dining he wanted to leave. And that time, being ashamed, I let him go; but plotting again, when we had dined I kept conversing with him far into the night,³ and when