Piscator

PLATO You are right in one point: the door is not conspicuous and not known to all. However, there will be no need to go to her house. We shall wait for her here in the Potters’ Quarter. She will come here presently, no doubt, on her way back from the Academy, to stroll in the Painted Porch also, for it is her custom to do so every day. In fact, here she comes now. Do you see her, the mannerly one, the one in the mantle, soft of eye, walking slowly, rapt in thought?

FRANKNESS I see many who are alike in mantle, walk, and fashion. Yet surely only one, even among then, is the true Philosophy.

PLATO Right, but she will show you who she is, just by speaking.

PHILOSOPHY Ah! What are you all doing in the upper world, Plato and Chrysippus and Aristotle and the rest of

PLATO “Yes, indeed, Philosophy, the most impious of all profaners, for he made bold to speak ill of you, than whom nothing is more holy, and of us, one and all, who learned something from you and have left it to those who came after us.

PHILOSOPHY Then it made you angry to be vituperated ? And yet you knew that in spite of the hard names which Comedy calls me during the festival of Dionysus, I have held her my friend, and neither sued her at law nor berated her in private, but permit her to make the fun that is in keeping and customary at the festival. I am aware, you see, that no harm can be done by a joke; that, on the contrary, whatever is beautiful shines brighter and becomes more conspicuous, like gold cleansed by its minting. But you, for some reason or other, have grown hot-tempered and violent. Tell me, why do you throttle him?

PLATO "Obtaining leave of absence for this one day, we came to get him, so that he may pay the penalty for what he has done; for rumours repeatedly told us what sort of language he used in public against us.

PHILOSOPHY Then you intend to put him to death before trial, without even a chance to defend himself? It is certainly clear that he wants to make.a statement.

PHILOSOPHY You, there, what do you say?

FRANKNESS Precisely what they do, my Lady Philosophy ; for. you, even without aid, could discover the truth. In fact, it was only with difficulty, after a deal of entreaty, that I secured the reservation of the case for you.

PLATO Now, you scoundrel, you call her “My Lady,” do you? Just the other day you made her out to be . utterly contemptible by offering every form of her doctrines for sale at two obols apiece before so large an audience!

PHILOSOPHY Careful! Perhaps fis abuse was not directed against Philosophy, but against impostors who do much that is vile in oyr name.

FRANKNESS You shall see at once, if you will only hear my defence.

PHILOSOPHY Let us go to the Areopagus, or-rather, to the Acropolis itself, so that at the same time we may get a bird’s eye view of everything in the city.

You, my dears, may walk about in the Painted Porch meanwhile: I shall join you after concluding the trial.

FRANKNESS Who are they, Philosophy? They too seem very mannerly.

FRANKNESS I do not see which one you really mean.

PHILOSOPHY Do you not see the unadorned one over there, naked, always shrinking into the background and slipping away? :

FRANKNESS I can just see her now. But why not bring them also, in order that the meeting may be full and perfect? As to Truth, indeed, I wish to introduce her into the trial as an advocate.

PHILOSOPHY To be sure. (To the others) Come with us also. It is not a hard matter to try a single case, particularly one that will involve our own interests.