But Polymedes called out louder than ever, “A blind man could have seen what you were at! Oh, yes, I had my eye on you when you thought me far away. I have seen you looking, standing apart with that insufferable pride of yours, which the gods will take down, if there are any gods. You would not have deceived a child, let alone a lover. So this is what you were after, is it? Waiting like a horse-thief by the paddock while a better man breaks in the colt, then slipping through in the dark to steal him when the trainer sleeps.” Lysis made no answer to all this. I could not tell if he was angry. As for me, I was so overcome with shame at hearing such language used to him, that I should have liked to hide myself. He did not move, but stood gravely watching Polymedes; who, now that he was up, looked uncertainly about him. I thought, “I suppose he is wondering whether it will look well to be down immediately on the steps again. But if he stands, he must pick up his lyre.”
Turning my head, I saw the corner of Lysis’ mouth move; and suddenly laughter clutched at my belly. Yet I hardened my body to smother it, though an hour ago I should have been glad to laugh. I suppose I knew already, though still not daring to presume on what I knew, that the gods had a precious gift for me, and that it would be base to insult a poorer man. Lysis too had quenched his laughter. But we could not keep from catching each other’s eye. Polymedes looked from one to the other of us, hitching his mantle at the shoulder as if it were his dignity he was trying to gather up; then suddenly turned his back and went off down the street, leaving his lyre where it was upon the steps.
Lysis and I looked after him with serious faces. The lyre seemed to both of us like the sword a dead man leaves on the field. Perhaps we should have known that open laughter would be less cruel to him than our pity. But we were young.
10
NEXT DAY WE HAD great trouble in meeting; for Lysis had not asked me to fix any time or place, not wishing, as he told me later, to seem like a man who does a small service and asks at once for a return. So he and I spent half the morning wandering about in different places; and no one knew enough yet to say, “Lysis was here just now, looking for you, and went that way.” But at last, when I had given up hope of him, and had gone to exercise, as I turned the post of the running-track I saw him watching at the other end. It was as if a great wind blew at my back and my heels grew wings. I scarcely knew that I touched the ground, and I finished so far ahead of the rest that everyone cheered me. I heard Lysis’ voice; and being breathless already, from running and from suddenly seeing him, now I felt as if my heart would burst my breast, and saw black in the sky. But it passed and I was able to speak when he greeted me.
When I was dressed we walked into the streets together. He asked if it was true my grandfather had been a runner, and we talked about that, and about our parents, and such things. Presently I recognised across the street his brother-in-law Menexenos; who, when he saw us, lifted his brows, smiled broadly, and made to cross over. I saw Lysis shake his head at him; at which he raised his hand in greeting and passed on. Though Lysis quickly took up the conversation, I saw he had gone a little red. It had not come into my mind till then that he could possibly feel shyness too. We went walking from one street to another, pausing sometimes to watch, or seem to watch, a potter or a goldsmith working. At last he stopped and said, “But where were you going, Alexias?”—“I don’t know, Lysis,” I said. “I thought you were going somewhere.” At this we both laughed. He said, “Shall we walk to the Academy, then?” So we went there, talking all the way, for we were not yet easy enough to be silent together.
On a grassy slope by the Kephissos, we sat down under a willow tree. The water smelled as it does in autumn, of black leaves. We had come to the end of our words, and waited for an omen, or I know not what. Just then I saw coming through the yellow poplars Charmides with a couple of friends. His salute we both returned; my heart sank when I saw him still approaching, for though he had always behaved like a gentleman, one cannot count on people at such times. Here I flattered myself absurdly; it must have been seldom he had less than two love-affairs on hand, to say nothing of women. At all events he came up smiling, and said in the pleasantest way, “This is too bad of you, Lysis; you are like the horse they bring in from the country after the bets are laid. Have you held off so long just for the pleasure of seeing all the rest of us make fools of ourselves? I don’t know how long it is now since I was doing my homage along with the other victims, and getting as usual only, ‘Thank you, Charmides, for your verses; I am sure they are excellent, if I were any judge of such things,’ when you passed along the colonnade without, it seemed, even looking over your shoulder. I don’t think Alexias stood watching you for more than a moment; but I, being one not quite blind to the signals of Eros, said to myself at once, ‘There goes the winner, if he would only enter the race.’”
This was worse than Polymedes; I went hot and cold; but Lysis answered smiling with hardly a pause, “I see it’s I, Charmides, who you want to watch making a fool of myself. Thanks for the invitation, but the tumbler begs to be excused. Tell me, while we are talking of horses, is your black going to win next week or not?”
Although Charmides had behaved better than I had thought was in him, he had left me dreading his departure more than I had his approach. He left with his friends almost immediately after. I picked up a handful of little stones, and began skimming them at the water. I can still remember their colours and shapes. “They won’t go far,” Lysis said, “this bank is too high.”—“I usually get them further.”—“I expect,” he said, “Menexenos is talking by this time, too.” I threw another stone, which went straight to the bottom. “Well,” he said, “we know now what they are saying. If it were displeasing to either of us, I think we should not be here together as we are. Or am I only speaking for myself?” I shook my head; then, taking courage from him, turned to him and said, “No.” He was silent for a moment; then he said, “As the gods hear me, Alexias, your good shall be mine, and your honour shall be like my own to me; and I will stand to it with my life.” I felt more than myself, and answered, “Don’t be afraid, Lysis, that while you are my friend I shall ever come to dishonour; for rather than be a shame to you I will die.” He put his right hand on mine and his left about my shoulders and said, “May it never be less than this with us.” With these words we kissed. The sun was sinking, and the shadows of the poplars were longer than the trees. After talking a little longer, we walked back to the City.
As we went, I asked him what I had done in the past that had so much offended him. He asked what could ever have made me suppose such a thing, “for,” he said, “I have only loved you too much for my peace.”—“You were always avoiding me, yet I gave you no cause.”—“Is it really true,” he said, “that you noticed that for yourself; or did someone tell you to make mischief?”—“What makes you think, Lysis, my sight is so thick?”—“But when I spoke to you last spring, during the Dionysia, you ran from me in the street.”—“I was in trouble at home; I ran all the way to the mountain. I never supposed you would think of it again.”
“The tale is still older than that,” he said. Then he told me that nearly two years before, on first seeing me in the palaestra, he had found himself possessed by the thought of me, and had planned to address me seriously as soon as he found a chance. But Sokrates had drawn it all out of him; and, instead of the sympathy he had hoped for, told him sharply that the love of young boys ought to be forbidden by law; the man, he said, was wasting his pains upon uncertainty, and ensuring they would be disappointed; for while the boy’s nature was still malleable, he was being moulded to vanity and folly, called upon to play a part he was not ready to understand. “If an athlete were to enter for a contest below his class, would he not be discredited in victory, and laughed at in defeat?” Relating it to me, Lysis added, “To this I could find nothing to say.” Indeed, Sokrates had known well where to touch him.