Soc. Why, that you shall quite easily, if with your wagging tongue you
do not try to utter things unutterable.

Here was a pretty quarrel over wine soon kindled and soon burnt.



VII

But on the instant those who had not assisted in the fray gave tongue,
the one part urging the jester to proceed with his comparisons, and
the other part dissuading.

The voice of Socrates was heard above the tumult: Since we are all so
eager to be heard at once, what fitter time than now to sing a song,
in chorus.

And suiting the action to the words, he commenced a stave.

The song was barely finished, when a potter's wheel was brought in, on
which the dancing-girl was to perform more wonders.

At this point Socrates addressed the man of Syracuse: It seems I am
likely to deserve the title which you gave me of a thinker in good
earnest. Just now I am speculating by what means your boy and girl may
pass a happy time, and we spectators still derive the greatest
pleasure from beholding them; and this, I take it, is precisely what
you would yourself most wish. Now I maintain, that throwing
somersaults in and out of swords is a display of danger uncongenial to
a banquet. And as for writing and reading on a wheel that all the