Who, if not you, should be the
reporter of the words of your friend? And first tell me, he said, were you
present at this meeting?
Your informant, Glaucon, I said, must have been very indistinct indeed, if
you imagine that the occasion was recent; or that I could have been of the
party.
Why, yes, he replied, I thought so.
Impossible: I said. Are you ignorant that for many years Agathon has not
resided at Athens; and not three have elapsed since I became acquainted
with Socrates, and have made it my daily business to know all that he says
and does. There was a time when I was running about the world, fancying
myself to be well employed, but I was really a most wretched being, no
better than you are now. I thought that I ought to do anything rather than
be a philosopher.
Well, he said, jesting apart, tell me when the meeting occurred.
In our boyhood, I replied, when Agathon won the prize with his first
tragedy, on the day after that on which he and his chorus offered the
sacrifice of victory.
Then it must have been a long while ago, he said; and who told you--did
Socrates?
No indeed, I replied, but the same person who told Phoenix;--he was a
little fellow, who never wore any shoes, Aristodemus, of the deme of
Cydathenaeum.
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