9
IF SO FAR I have mentioned none of my suitors by name, you will understand why. Only their numbers had been pleasing to me in some degree, as a mark of success, as if so many trophies had been awarded me for my looks; and even so, the crowns I had won for running had pleased me more, being a thing in which my father had not excelled before me. Yet I was civil to them, even to the most foolish, out of regard for my good name; so that people said I was not spoiled by admiration, which was as I wished.
I only once broke this rule. Kritias, after I became the fashion, decided to approach me seriously, with an epigram offering to drown himself in my unfathomed eyes, and all the usual procedure. Him I turned my back on without speaking; and, as people were looking, he never came again.
Charmides had been courting me for some months. It was he indeed whose attentions had first launched me upon success. He was extremely handsome (except that he stood badly, for lack of exercise) and of the highest birth; influential, rich, and generally accomplished. I thought more than once that it would have been convenient if I could have taken to him; for if he had been my accepted suitor, the rest would immediately have retired. You may wonder why this had begun to seem so desirable to me; which brings me to Polymedes.
Polymedes was even richer than Charmides, but lacked both his breeding and his wit. Charmides, who had many love-affairs and could afford to wait, made himself always graceful and pleasant, thinking that after comparing him with the rest over some time, I would turn to him in the end. But Polymedes may, I suppose, have been in love with me as such people understand it. If you had wanted to typify the kind of lover my father had warned me to despise, you need have looked no further than Polymedes. I felt sure that if I had behaved in the most infamous manner, soliciting gifts from him in return for my favour, or if he had watched me insult in public some honourable old man, he would not only have gone on desiring me, but at my command would have lain down in the dust for me to walk on. At all events, his antics had got beyond a joke. I could scarcely pass a wall near my home without finding “Long life to the beautiful Alexias” flourished all over it. Our sleep was broken by his serenades; for in accordance with his nature, he hired twice as many musicians as anyone else. Whereas Charmides would bring a flute and lyre and sing quietly in a way which, I must admit, was pleasing, Polymedes made such a din that the neighbours started to shout, and I had to apologise to my mother in the morning. I did not care to discuss it with her; but I could not endure her to think I countenanced Polymedes. To my relief she took it lightly, only telling me not to let him come again because the noise woke the baby; and this message I gave him, hoping it would shame him into retreat. But he seemed delighted at my speaking to him, even for this. And as if my wishes were nothing at all to him, as if I were some image of gold or silver for which he was bidding against the rest, two days later he excelled even himself. For when I came back from exercise, quite early in the day, and was approaching the house, I saw him lying prone on the front steps, where he looked to have been already for some time.
I had heard of lovers pressing their suit in this fashion, but had really thought it only happened in comic plays. A number of little boys had stopped to look, and were wondering aloud where he had got drunk in the morning. Even as I paused, our neighbour Phalinos came up and, leaning over him officiously, asked if he had been taken ill. I saw Polymedes roll his eyes and guessed what kind of reply he must have made, for Phalinos went off muttering and shaking his head. I could picture the slaves inside chattering together and wondering what they had better do. Just then Polymedes heaved himself up on one arm like a wounded man, looking round, either for me or for someone to admire him. I drew back behind a porch and slipped away.
I ran round to the mews where the stables were, and took Phoenix out, not calling the groom in case he knew what was going on. It had come to something, I thought, when I could not face our own slaves. I mounted, barefoot as I was, and rode off, angry almost to tears. It was a matter where my uncle Strymon might have helped me, if he had been a different man; but I could not stomach the humiliation of asking him. It was bad enough that he might easily come to call, and see it for himself.
But as I came into the Street of the Herm-Makers, I saw in the middle of it the only man in the world whom, that morning, it could give me pleasure to meet He was disputing with someone, and, not wanting to interrupt him, I drew rein while still some distance off.
The other man was no one I knew. Sokrates had got into conversation with some ordinary citizen, as he often did; and I could see at once that the man was getting warm. It was all very well when Sokrates asked these people questions about their trade, for he listened very humbly to all they told him; and if he showed them in the end some wider application of their own knowledge, it was by letting them think it was they who had taught it to him. But sometimes they turned out the kind of man who dislikes being made to think, and then there was trouble.
This man looked like the inferior sort of statuary who sets up as a Herm-maker; a ham-handed fellow, covered with the white dust of his trade; and the conversation had got to a point when it sounded rather like the kind of row you can hear going on in a stonemason’s yard. It may be that Sokrates was reliving his youth a little. As I looked, the man gave a bawl of rage and set upon him. I saw that he had seized him by the hair, and was shaking him about. I kicked Phoenix hard and he charged forward, making everyone in the street scramble out of his way. While I was coming up I could not see that Sokrates did much to help himself; but he was still talking. Reaching them I called out to the man to let go; on which Phoenix, hearing me shout, reared up of his own accord and brandished his hoofs at the fellow’s head, as my father had taught him to do in battle. I was very much surprised, but managed to keep my seat, and to pull him aside from Sokrates. The man, whom I had had no time to think about, made off.
As soon as I had quieted Phoenix I jumped down. Sokrates moved out of the horse’s way and I thought he had staggered. I threw my arms quickly round him, asking if he was hurt. His body was as firm as rock, and I felt a fool. “My dear boy,” he said blinking at me, “what are you trying to do to my reputation? It is one thing to have my hair torn out in the cause of reason; it will be quite another tomorrow, when everyone is saying, ‘Look at that old rascal, who outmarched all his rivals by hiring a bully to attack him, and is now the only man in the City who can claim that the beautiful Alexias embraced him in the street.’”
“If that were true!” I said laughing. “Cruel Sokrates, to mock me with such happiness!” The odd nature of our meeting had taken all my shyness away. I asked him what had caused the man to fall upon him. “He was maintaining to a number of people that the Egyptians are barbarians because they worship beasts and birds as gods. I said we ought to enquire first whether they really did so. He had just led himself up to admitting that to worship a man-shaped image, really believing that the god resembles a man, is more impious than to worship divine wisdom in the shape of a hawk. At this point he became angry; you would have supposed he had something to gain by thinking every Egyptian more barbarous than himself.”