The Economist | Page 9

must make trial of yourself and see if you have wit to understand. At present, I will bear you witness that if it is to go and see a party of players performing in a comedy, you will get up at cock-crow, and come trudging a long way, and ply me volubly with reasons why I should accompany you to see the play. But you have never once invited me to come and witness such an incident as those we were speaking of just now.
Crit. And so I seem to you ridiculous?[7]
[7] Or, "a comic character in the performance." Soc. "Not so comic as you must appear to yourself (i.e. with your keen sense of the ludicrous)."
Soc. Far more ridiculous to yourself, I warrant. But now let me point out to you another contrast: between certain people whose dealing with horses has brought them to the brink of poverty, and certain others who have found in the same pursuit the road to affluence,[8] and have a right besides to plume themselves upon their gains.[9]
[8] Or, "who have not only attained to affluence by the same pursuit, but can hold their heads high, and may well pride themselves on their thrift."
[9] Cf. Hom. "Il." xii. 114, {ippoisin kai okhesphin agallomenos}, et passim; "Hiero," viii. 5; "Anab." II. vi. 26.
Crit. Well, then, I may tell you, I see and know both characters as well as you do; but I do not find myself a whit the more included among those who gain.
Soc. Because you look at them just as you might at the actors in a tragedy or comedy, and with the same intent--your object being to delight the ear and charm the eye, but not, I take it, to become yourself a poet. And there you are right enough, no doubt, since you have no desire to become a playright. But, when circumstances compel you to concern yourself with horsemanship, does it not seem to you a little foolish not to consider how you are to escape being a mere amateur in the matter, especially as the same creatures which are good for use are profitable for sale?
Crit. So you wish me to set up as a breeder of young horses,[10] do you, Socrates?
[10] See "Horsemanship," ii. 1.
Soc. Not so, no more than I would recommend you to purchase lads and train them up from boyhood as farm-labourers. But in my opinion there is a certain happy moment of growth whuch must be seized, alike in man and horse, rich in present service and in future promise. In further illustration, I can show you how some men treat their wedded wives in such a way that they find in them true helpmates to the joint increase of their estate, while others treat them in a way to bring upon themselves wholesale disaster.[11]
[11] Reading {e os pleista}, al. {e oi pleistoi} = "to bring about disaster in most cases."
Crit. Ought the husband or the wife to bear the blame of that?
Soc. If it goes ill with the sheep we blame the shepherd, as a rule, or if a horse shows vice we throw the blame in general upon the rider. But in the case of women, supposing the wife to have received instruction from her husband and yet she delights in wrong-doing,[12] it may be that the wife is justly held to blame; but supposing he has never tried to teach her the first principles of "fair and noble" conduct,[13] and finds her quite an ignoramus[14] in these matters, surely the husband will be justly held to blame. But come now (he added), we are all friends here; make a clean breast of it, and tell us, Critobulus, the plain unvarnished truth: Is there an one to whom you are more in the habit of entrusting matters of importance than to your wife?
[12] Cf. "Horsemanship," vi. 5, of a horse "to show vice."
[13] Or, "things beautiful and of good report."
[14] Al. "has treated her as a dunce, devoid of this high knowledge."
Crit. There is no one.
Soc. And is there any one with whom you are less in the habit of conversing than with your wife?
Crit. Not many, I am forced to admit.
Soc. And when you married her she was quite young, a mere girl--at an age when, as far as seeing and hearing go, she had the smallest acquaintance with the outer world?
Crit. Certainly.
Soc. Then would it not be more astonishing that she should have real knowledge how to speak and act than that she should go altogether astray?
Crit. But let me ask you a question, Socrates: have those happy husbands, you tell us of, who are blessed with good wives educated them themselves?
Soc. There is nothing like investigation. I will introduce you to Aspasia,[15] who will explain these matters to you