CHARICLEA.
Delightful!

SPEUSIPPUS.
But there must be an interval of a year between the purification
and the initiation.

ALCIBIADES.
We will suppose all that.

SPEUSIPPUS.
And nine days of rigid mortification of the senses.

ALCIBIADES.
We will suppose that too. I am sure it was supposed, with as
little reason, when I was initiated.

SPEUSIPPUS.
But you are sworn to secrecy.

ALCIBIADES.
You a sophist, and talk of oaths! You a pupil of Euripides, and
forget his maxims!

"My lips have sworn it; but my mind is free." (See Euripides:
Hippolytus, 608. For the jesuitical morality of this line
Euripides is bitterly attacked by the comic poet.)

SPEUSIPPUS.
But Alcibiades--