Symposium

after spending a long time, as was his custom, but when they were about midway through their dinner. Then Agathon — for he was in fact reclining alone in the last place — said, he said, “Here, Socrates, recline beside me, so that by touching you¹ I too may 175d enjoy the wise thing that came to you in the porch. For plainly you have found it and have it; for you would not have left off before.”

And Socrates sat down and said, “It would be well, Agathon,” he said, “if wisdom were the sort of thing to flow from the fuller of us into the emptier, if we touch each other, as the water in cups flows through the wool from the fuller into the emptier.² For if 175e wisdom too is like this, I put a high price on my place beside you; for I think I shall be filled from you with much and beautiful wisdom. For mine would be a paltry sort, or even disputable, being like a dream, but yours is brilliant and has much growth in it, yours that shone out so strongly from you,³ young as you are, and was made manifest the day before yesterday, with more than thirty thousand Greeks as witnesses.”⁴

“You are insolent, Socrates,” said Agathon. “These things you and I shall take to court a little later, about our wisdom, with Dionysus as our judge;⁵ but now turn first to your dinner.”

176aAfter this, he said, when Socrates had lain down and dined, and the others too, they made libations, and after singing to the god and the other customary things they turned to the drinking. Then Pausanias,⁶ he said, began the talk somewhat like this: “Very well, gentlemen,” he said, “in what way shall we drink most easily? For my part, I tell you that I am really in a very bad way from yesterday’s drinking, and am in need of some respite — and so, I think, are most of you; for you were there yesterday — 176b so look into what way we might drink most easily.”