A. "But I have been telling him, drunk and sober, that it is my
opinion also as to what truth is. Only I, with Protagoras,
distinguish between objective fact and subjective opinion."

S. "Doing rightly, too, fair youth. But how comes it then that you
and Phaethon cannot agree?"

"That," said I, "you know better than either of us."

"You seem both of you," said Socrates, "to be, as usual, in the
family way. Shall I exercise my profession on you?"

"No, by Zeus!" answered Alcibiades, laughing; "I fear thee, thou
juggler, lest I suffer once again the same fate with the woman in
the myth, and after I have conceived a fair man-child, and, as I
fancy, brought it forth; thou hold up to the people some dead puppy,
or log, or what not, and cry: 'Look what Alcibiades has produced!'"

S. "But, beautiful youth, before I can do that, you will have
spoken your oration on the bema, and all the people will be ready
and able to say 'Absurd! Nothing but what is fair can come from so
fair a body.' Come, let us consider the question together."

I assented willingly; and Alcibiades, mincing and pouting, after his
fashion, still was loath to refuse.

S. "Let us see, then. Alcibiades distinguishes, he says, between
objective fact and subjective opinion?"

A. "Of course I do."