Lysis | Page 8

with his poems
and other compositions, it is really too bad; and worse still is his
manner of singing them to his love; he has a voice which is truly
appalling, and we cannot help hearing him: and now having a question
put to him by you, behold he is blushing. Who is Lysis? I said: I
suppose that he must be young; for the name does not recall any one to
me. Why, he said, his father being a very well-known man, he retains
his patronymic, and is not as yet commonly called by his own name;
but, although you do not know his name, I am sure that you must know
his face, for that is quite enough to distinguish him. But tell me whose
son he is, I said. He is the eldest son of Democrates, of the deme of
Aexone. Ah, Hippothales, I said; what a noble and really perfect love
you have found! I wish that you would favour me with the exhibition
which you have been making to the rest of the company, and then I
shall be able to judge whether you know what a lover ought to say
about his love, either to the youth himself, or to others. Nay, Socrates,
he said; you surely do not attach any importance to what he is saying.
Do you mean, I said, that you disown the love of the person whom he
says that you love? No; but I deny that I make verses or address

compositions to him. He is not in his right mind, said Ctesippus; he is
talking nonsense, and is stark mad. O Hippothales, I said, if you have
ever made any verses or songs in honour of your favourite, I do not
want to hear them; but I want to know the purport of them, that I may
be able to judge of your mode of approaching your fair one. Ctesippus
will be able to tell you, he said; for if, as he avers, the sound of my
words is always dinning in his ears, he must have a very accurate
knowledge and recollection of them. Yes, indeed, said Ctesippus; I
know only too well; and very ridiculous the tale is: for although he is a
lover, and very devotedly in love, he has nothing particular to talk
about to his beloved which a child might not say. Now is not that
ridiculous? He can only speak of the wealth of Democrates, which the
whole city celebrates, and grandfather Lysis, and the other ancestors of
the youth, and their stud of horses, and their victory at the Pythian
games, and at the Isthmus, and at Nemea with four horses and single
horses--these are the tales which he composes and repeats. And there is
greater twaddle still. Only the day before yesterday he made a poem in
which he described the entertainment of Heracles, who was a
connexion of the family, setting forth how in virtue of this relationship
he was hospitably received by an ancestor of Lysis; this ancestor was
himself begotten of Zeus by the daughter of the founder of the deme.
And these are the sort of old wives' tales which he sings and recites to
us, and we are obliged to listen to him. When I heard this, I said: O
ridiculous Hippothales! how can you be making and singing hymns in
honour of yourself before you have won? But my songs and verses, he
said, are not in honour of myself, Socrates. You think not? I said. Nay,
but what do you think? he replied. Most assuredly, I said, those songs
are all in your own honour; for if you win your beautiful love, your
discourses and songs will be a glory to you, and may be truly regarded
as hymns of praise composed in honour of you who have conquered
and won such a love; but if he slips away from you, the more you have
praised him, the more ridiculous you will look at having lost this fairest
and best of blessings; and therefore the wise lover does not praise his
beloved until he has won him, because he is afraid of accidents. There
is also another danger; the fair, when any one praises or magnifies them,
are filled with the spirit of pride and vain-glory. Do you not agree with
me? Yes, he said. And the more vain-glorious they are, the more

difficult is the capture of them? I believe you. What should you say of a
hunter who frightened away his prey, and made the capture of the
animals which he is hunting more difficult? He would be a bad hunter,
undoubtedly. Yes; and if, instead of soothing them, he were to infuriate
them with words and songs, that would show a great