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It almost seemed to Ctesippus as though the streets and market-places still echoed with the shrieking of that unjust sentence. And he remembered how it was here that the people clamoured for the execution of the generals who had led them to victory against the Argunisæ, and how Socrates alone had opposed the savage sentence of the judges and the blind rage of the mob.

A breath seemed to be stirring the balmy air, a voice to be sounding in wonderful harmony, an invisible tread to be heard the tread of the radiant Dawn! And on the illumined peak a man still stood, stretching out his arms in mute ecstasy, moved by a mighty impulse. A moment, and all disappeared, and the light of an ordinary day shone upon the awakened soul of Ctesippus.

Then they cast their spears, but Athene turned them aside, one to the pillar, and another to the door, and another to the wall. But Ulysses and Telemachus and the two herdsmen slew each his man; and yet again they did so, and again. But Telemachus struck down Amphimedon, and the herdsman of the kine slew Ctesippus, saying: "Take this, for the ox-foot which thou gavest to our guest."

The son of Cronos, the thunderer, was no longer enthroned upon it, and the other Olympians too were gone. Socrates stood alone in the light of the sun under the high heavens. Ctesippus was distinctly conscious of the pulse-beat of a mysterious life quivering throughout nature, stirring even the tiniest blade of grass.

He, then, was entirely overcome by these emotions; and I too was troubled, as well as the others. Ech. But who were present, Phaedo? Phæd. Of his fellow-countrymen, this Apollodorus was present, and Critobulus, and his father Crito, moreover Hermogenes, Epigenes, Æschines, and Antisthenes; Ctesippus the Pæanian, Menexenus, and some other of his countrymen were also there: Plato I think was sick.

Then the thunder died away, the wind folded its pinions, and torrents of rain streamed through the darkness, like incessant floods of tears which threatened to devour the earth and drown it in a deluge of unquenchable grief. It seemed to Ctesippus that the master was overcome, and that the fearless, restless, questioning voice had been silenced forever.

Ctesippus said: I like to see you blushing, Hippothales, and hesitating to tell Socrates the name; when, if he were with you but for a very short time, you would have plagued him to death by talking about nothing else.

Still, Amphimedon just took a piece of the top skin from off Telemachus's wrist, and Ctesippus managed to graze Eumaeus's shoulder above his shield; but the spear went on and fell to the ground. Then Ulysses and his men let drive into the crowd of suitors. Ulysses hit Eurydamas, Telemachus Amphimedon, and Eumaeus Polybus.

There will be no difficulty in bringing him, he replied; if you will only go with Ctesippus into the Palaestra, and sit down and talk, I believe that he will come of his own accord; for he is fond of listening, Socrates. And as this is the festival of the Hermaea, the young men and boys are all together, and there is no separation between them.

Ctesippus looked up to the peak, and his soul was frozen with horror. Huge sombre figures of the Olympian gods crowded on the mountain in a circle. A last ray shot through the region of clouds and mists, and died away like a faint memory. A storm was approaching now, and the powers of night were once more in the ascendant. Dark figures covered the heavens.