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The gods forbid that I should detain you from such choice society! SCENE A Hall in the house of ALCIBIADES. ALCIBIADES, SPEUSIPPUS, CALLICLES, HIPPOMACHUS, CHARICLEA, and others, seated round a table feasting. ALCIBIADES. Bring larger cups. This shall be our gayest revel. It is probably the last for some of us at least.
Not only does the whole character of the fragment and its scene of action favour this supposition, but there is also another factor which corroborates it. In the Gorgias Plato makes one of the characters, Callicles—a man of whom we otherwise know nothing—profess a doctrine which up to a certain point is almost identical with that of the fragment.
ALCIBIADES. Nay, surely you are not taken with a fit of piety. If all be true that is told of you, you have as little reason to think the gods vindictive as any man breathing. If you be not belied, a certain golden goblet which I have seen at your house was once in the temple of Juno at Corcyra. And men say that there was a priestess at Tarentum CALLICLES. A fig for the gods!
The preparations are rather disagreeable to a novice. But as soon as the fighting begins, by Jupiter, it is a noble time; men trampling, shields clashing, spears breaking, and the poean roaring louder than all. CHARICLEA. But what if you are killed? CALLICLES. What indeed? You must ask Speusippus that question. He is a philosopher.
To prevent injustice some art is needed to make the subject as like as possible to the ruler; the type of life a man leads is far more important than length of days. The demagogue who like Callicles has no credentials makes the people morally worse, especially as they are unable to distinguish quacks from wise men.
ALCIBIADES. No; when I cease to see you, other objects may compel my attention; but can I be near you without thinking how lovely you are, and how soon I must leave you? HIPPOMACHUS. Ay; travelling soon puts such thoughts out of men's heads. CALLICLES. A battle is the best remedy for them. CHARICLEA. A battle, I should think, might supply their place with others as unpleasant. CALLICLES. No.
You seem to think that you are already stalking like poor Achilles, "With stride Majestic through the plain of Asphodel." SPEUSIPPUS. How can you talk so, when you know that I believe all that foolery as little as you do? ALCIBIADES. Then march. You shall be the crier. Callicles, you shall carry the torch. Why do you stare? CALLICLES. I do not much like the frolic.
Even Matthew Arnold, whose song of Callicles tells of 'the triumph of the sweet persuasive lyre, and the 'famous final victory, in such a clear note of lyrical beauty, has not a little of it; in the troubled undertone of doubt and distress that haunts his verses, neither Goethe nor Wordsworth could help him, though he followed each in turn, and when he seeks to mourn for Thyrsis or to sing of the Scholar Gipsy, it is the reed that he has to take for the rendering of his strain.
Nor need philosophers trouble much about men's opinions, for a mob always blames the physician who wishes to save it. A delightful piece of irony follows, in which Socrates twits Callicles for accusing his pupils of acting with injustice, the very quality he instils into them.
Thinking of his early years, and of the education that nature gives the poet, we can imagine him, like Callicles in Mr. Arnold's poem, singing at the banquet of a merchant or a general 'With his head full of wine, and his hair crown'd, Touching his harp as the whim came on him, And praised and spoil'd by master and by guests, Almost as much as the new dancing girl.
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