Platonic Imitator (see Appendix II above)

Translated by Benjamin Jowett


PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates and Alcibiades.


SOCRATES: Are you going, Alcibiades, to offer prayer to Zeus?

ALCIBIADES: Yes, Socrates, I am.

SOCRATES: you seem to be troubled and to cast your eyes on the ground, as
though you were thinking about something.

ALCIBIADES: Of what do you suppose that I am thinking?

SOCRATES: Of the greatest of all things, as I believe. Tell me, do you
not suppose that the Gods sometimes partly grant and partly reject the
requests which we make in public and private, and favour some persons and
not others?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Do you not imagine, then, that a man ought to be very careful,
lest perchance without knowing it he implore great evils for himself,
deeming that he is asking for good, especially if the Gods are in the mood
to grant whatever he may request? There is the story of Oedipus, for
instance, who prayed that his children might divide their inheritance