dramatic verisimilitude.


ALCIBIADES I

by

Plato (see Appendix I above)

Translated by Benjamin Jowett


PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Alcibiades, Socrates.


SOCRATES: I dare say that you may be surprised to find, O son of Cleinias,
that I, who am your first lover, not having spoken to you for many years,
when the rest of the world were wearying you with their attentions, am the
last of your lovers who still speaks to you. The cause of my silence has
been that I was hindered by a power more than human, of which I will some
day explain to you the nature; this impediment has now been removed; I
therefore here present myself before you, and I greatly hope that no
similar hindrance will again occur. Meanwhile, I have observed that your
pride has been too much for the pride of your admirers; they were numerous
and high-spirited, but they have all run away, overpowered by your superior
force of character; not one of them remains. And I want you to understand
the reason why you have been too much for them. You think that you have no
need of them or of any other man, for you have great possessions and lack
nothing, beginning with the body, and ending with the soul. In the first
place, you say to yourself that you are the fairest and tallest of the