Memorabilia

Then how can we test these qualities, Socrates, before intimacy begins?What test do we apply to a sculptor? We don’t judge by what he says, but we look at his statues, and if we see that the works he has already produced are beautiful, we feel confident that his future works will be as good.

You mean that anyone whose good works wrought upon his old friends are manifest will clearly prove a benefactor to new friends also?Yes; for when I find that an owner of horses has been in the habit of treating his beasts well I think that he will treat others equally well.

Granted! but when we have found a man who seems worthy of our friendship, how are we to set about making him our friend?First we should seek guidance from the gods, whether they counsel us to make a friend of him.And next? Supposing that we have chosen and the gods approve him, can you say how is he to be hunted?

Surely not like a hare by swift pursuit, nor like birds by cunning, nor like enemies[*](Or κάπροι, boars.) by force. It is no light task to capture a friend against his will, and hard to keep him a prisoner like a slave. Hatred, rather than friendship, comes of that treatment.

But how does friendship come?There are spells, they say, wherewith those who know charm whom they will and make friends of them, and drugs which those who know give to whom they choose and win their love.