At a signal from Plato, slaves filled the goblets with wine, and he rose
to propose the usual libation to the gods. Every Grecian guest joined in
the ceremony, singing in a recitative tone:

Dionysus, this to thee,
God of warm festivity!
Giver of the fruitful vine,
To thee we pour the rosy wine!

Music, from the adjoining room, struck in with the chorus, and continued
for some moments after it had ceased.

For a short time, the conversation was confined to the courtesies of the
table, as the guests partook of the delicious viands before them. Plato
ate olives and bread only; and the water he drank was scarcely tinged
with Lesbian wine. Alcibiades rallied him upon this abstemiousness; and
Pericles reminded him that even his great pattern, Socrates, gave
Dionysus his dues, while he worshipped the heaven-born Pallas.

The philosopher quietly replied, "I can worship the fiery God of Vintage
only when married with Nymphs of the Fountain."

"But tell me, O Anaxagoras and Plato," exclaimed Tithonus, "if, as
Hermippus hath said, the Grecian philosophers discard the theology of
the poets? Do ye not believe in the Gods?"

Plato would have smiled, had he not reverenced the simplicity that
expected a frank and honest answer to a question so dangerous.
Anaxagoras briefly replied, that the mind which did not believe in
divine beings, must be cold and dark indeed.