Memorabilia

Well, suppose he eats the meat alone, without the bread, not because he’s in training, but to tickle his palate, does he seem a greedy fellow or not?If not, it’s hard to say who does, was the reply.Here another of the company queried, And he who eats a scrap of bread with a large helping of meat?He too seems to me to deserve the epithet, said Socrates. Aye, and when others pray for a good wheat harvest, he, presumably, would pray for a good meat supply.

The young man, guessing that these remarks of Socrates applied to him, did not stop eating his meat, but took some bread with it. When Socrates observed this, he cried: Watch the fellow, you who are near him, and see whether he treats the bread as his meat or the meat as his bread.

On another occasion he noticed one of the company at dinner tasting several dishes with each bite of bread. Can you imagine, he asked, a meal more extravagant and more ruinous to the victuals than his who eats many things together, and crams all sorts of sauces into his mouth at once? At any rate by mixing more ingredients than the cooks, he adds to the cost, and since he mixes ingredients that they regard as unsuitable in a mixture, if they are right, then he is wrong and is ruining their art.

Yet it is surely ridiculous for a master to obtain highly skilled cooks, and then, though he claims no knowledge of the art, to alter their confections? There’s another drawback, too, attaching to the habit of eating many things together. For if many dishes are not provided, one seems to go short because one misses the usual variety: whereas he who is accustomed to take one kind of meat along with one bit of bread can make the best of one dish when more are not forthcoming.

He used to say too that the term good feeding in Attic was a synonym for eating. The good in the compound implied the eating of food that could harm neither body nor soul and was not hard to come by. Thus he attributed even good feeding to sober livers.

Socrates was so useful in all circumstances and in all ways, that any observer gifted with ordinary perception can see that nothing was more useful than the companionship of Socrates, and time spent with him in any place and in any circumstances. The very recollection of him in absence brought no small good to his constant companions and followers; for even in his light moods they gained no less from his society than when he was serious.

Thus he would often say he was in love; but clearly his heart was set not on those who were fair to outward view, but on those whose souls excelled in goodness. These excellent beings he recognised by their quickness to learn whatever subject they studied, ability to remember what they learned, and desire for every kind of knowledge on which depend good management of a household and estate and tactful dealing with men and the affairs of men. For education would make such beings not only happy in themselves, and successful in the management of their households, but capable of conferring happiness on their fellow-men and on states alike. His method of approach varied.

To those who thought themselves possessed of natural endowments and despised learning, he explained that the greater the natural gifts, the greater is the need of education; pointing out that thoroughbreds by their spirit and mettle develop into serviceable and splendid creatures, if they are broken in as colts, but if unbroken, prove intractable and sorry jades; and high-bred puppies, keen workers and good tacklers of game, make first-rate hounds and useful dogs, if well trained, but, if untrained, turn out stupid, crazy, disobedient brutes. It is the same with human beings.