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  6. When the evening came, the women went first to bed, and we followed their example after a short interval. The others had taken their pleasure by the satisfying of their appetite, but all my feast was through my eyes: so that I retired to rest gorged with the vision of the maiden’s face and sated with undiluted gazing upon her. Indeed, I was drunk with love; but when I reached the chamber where I always lay I was unable to get to sleep. For Nature will have it that diseases and bodily wounds are worse at night: while we are at rest they obtain more power to attack us and aggravate the pain that they cause; for when the body is still, the wound has the more leisure to hurt. In like manner the wounds of the soul are far more painful when the body is at rest: for during the daytime the eyes and ears have plenty of occupation and so turn the edge of the disease, distracting the soul so that it has less leisure for its grief; but when the body is bound fast by bodily rest, the soul has the greater freedom to be tossed about by its woe: all the sensations which were lately at rest are then aroused; mourners feel their grief anew, the anxious their cares, those in danger their fears, and lovers their consuming flame. Hardly about daybreak did sleep of a kind take pity upon me and give me a little respite: but not even then could I banish the maiden from my mind; Leucippe was all my dreams — I spoke with her, I sported with her, I ate with her, I touched her; yes, I obtained a greater degree of happiness than in the daytime; for I kissed her, and it was a real kiss: the natural result was that when my servant came to wake me, I upbraided him bitterly for his untimely coming, so that I thus lost so sweet a dream. I arose therefore, and determined to walk up and down somewhere in the house, into my sweetheart’s presence. I took a book, and bent over it, and pretended to read; but every time that I came opposite the door, I peeped below the book at her. So making several journeys, and drawing in fresh draughts of love every time I saw her, I returned with my heart in ill case indeed. And those flames went on burning up in me for the next three days.

  7. Now I had a cousin called Clinias. Both his parents were dead, and he was young, two years older than myself; one of Love’s adepts. But the object of his affections was a youth; and so strong were his feelings towards him that once when he had bought a horse, and the boy saw it and admired it, he at once sent it to him as a present. So I used constantly to be laughing at him for neglecting all his proper pursuits and having leisure for nought but his affections, a slave to love and pleasure; but he always used to smile, wagging his head and saying: “Mark my words, some day you will be a slave too.” To him then I went, and greeted him, and said: “At last, Clinias, I have been paid out for all my scoffing: I too have become a slave.” He clapped his hands and burst out laughing; then he rose and kissed me — my face bore every sign of a lover’s sleeplessness — and, “Yes,” he said, “you are really in love: your tell-tale eyes shew it.”

  He was still speaking, when Charicles (that was the name of his dear youth) burst in, greatly disordered, crying: “It is all over with me, Clinias.” Clinias gave a deep groan, as though his life hung on his friend’s, and murmured with a trembling voice: “You will kill me if you do not tell me at once; what is your trouble? What have we to fight against?”

  “Marriage!” Charicles answered, “which my father is arranging for me, and a marriage with an ugly girl, to give me double agony. Any woman is bad enough, however fair; but if she has the bad luck to be ugly, the business is twice as bad. But she has a fortune; that is what my father looks at in arranging the match: so that I am unhappy enough to be bartered for her money: I am to be sold into marriage.”

  8. When Clinias heard this, he grew suddenly pale; and then he urged the youth to refuse the marriage absolutely, abusing the whole female sex. “Marriage!” he said, “is that what your father is arranging for you already? What have you done, to be so fettered? Do you not remember the words of Zeus:

  ‘The stolen fire must be avenged, and so Men must seem joyful and hug close their woe? (Hesiod, Works and Days, 57. The punishment sent to men for the fire stolen for them by Prometheus was the gift of woman.)

  Such is the pleasure of woman; she is like the Sirens, who kill men by the charm of their song. Why, the magnitude of the evil can be conjectured from the very preparations for a marriage, the whistling of the flutes, the banging of doors, the carrying of torches; anyone who sees all this disturbance would naturally say: ‘How wretched is a bridegroom — he looks to me like one being sent off to the wars.’ If you were one that were uninstructed in the examples of poetry, you might perhaps be unaware of women’s doings; but, as it is, you know enough even to teach others the kind of stories with which women have filled the stage — Eriphyle’s necklace, Philomela’s feast, Sthenoboea’s false accusation, (The Potiphar’s wife of Greek mythology: Proteus was Potiphar, Bellerophon Joseph.) Aerope’s wicked stratagem, (The wicked wife of Atreus, who sinned with her husband’s brother Thyestes.) Procne’s murder. When Agamemnon desires the beauty of Chryseis; he brings destruction upon the Greek army; when Achilles desires Briseis’ beauty, he makes sorrow for himself. If Candaules (Herodotus, i. 12. Candaules, king of Lydia, was so infatuated with the beauty of his wife, that he must needs shew her naked to his friend Gyges: in revenge for the insult, she plotted with Gyges to kill him and seize his throne.) has a fair wife, his wife murders Candaules. The fire of Helen’s marriage-torches lit another fire for Troy. But Penelope’s marriage, chaste creature, how many suitors did that destroy? Phaedra destroyed Hippolytus by loving him, Clytemnestra Agamemnon because she loved him not. O women, women, that stay at nothing! If they love, they kill: and if they do not love, they kill all the same. Agamemnon was fated to be murdered — Agamemnon whose beauty was described to be as of heaven.

  ‘In eyes and head like thunder-hurling Zeus,’ (Homer, Iliad, ii. 478.) and, O Zeus, a woman lopped off that very head. And all these are the accusations which can be brought against fair women, where the ill-fortune of having to do with them is moderated; for beauty is some consolation in distress; and a certain amount of good luck amid the bad; but if the woman is not even fair, as you tell me, the misfortune is double. No one could tolerate such a thing — least of all a youth as fair as you. I pray you, Charicles, by all that you hold holy, do not allow yourself to become a slave, do not throw away untimely the flower of your youth; in addition to all its other disadvantages marriage has this, that it does away with the bloom of vigour and beauty. Do not wither yet, Charicles, I implore you; do not hand over a lovely rose to be plucked by an ill-favoured rustic clown.”

  “This whole affair,” said Charicles, “must be left to providence and to me; I have, after all, a certain number of days before the day ordained. A great deal can happen even in a single night; and we must think over all this at our leisure. Now, at any rate, I am going riding. I have never made use of your present since you gave me that splendid horse; the exercise will lighten the grief on my mind.” So with this he went away, on what was to be his first and last ride.

  9. I related to Clinias my whole story — how it came about, my feelings, how I first saw her, the arrival, the dinner, the great beauty of the maiden. At last I felt that I was talking in a very unseemly way, and burst out: “I cannot bear the pain, Clinias; Love with all his forces has attacked me and drives sleep away from my eyes; I see Leucippe always. No one has ever been in such misery as I am; my grief lives always with me.”

  “What nonsense you talk,” cried Clinias, “you, who are a fortunate lover. You do not have constantly to be going to the doors of another’s house; you have no need of a messenger; fortune has given her to you, has brought her and established her at your very side. Some lovers have to be content with a mere look at their sweetheart, so well guarded is she, and to think themselves very lucky if they can obtain this pleasure of the eye; others are more fortunate, if they can but get a word with her: but you — you are constantly seeing her and hearing her; you eat with her and drink with her: and yet, with all this good fortune, you grumble; let me tell you that you are ung
rateful for this gift that Love has made you. You do not know what it is to be able to see the one you love; it is a greater pleasure than further favours. When the eyes meet one another they receive the impression of the body as in a mirror, and this emanation of beauty, which penetrates down into the soul through the eyes, effects a kind of union however the bodies are sundered; ’tis all but a bodily union — a new kind of bodily embrace. But I prophesy to you that you will soon obtain all you desire. There is no more ready road to overcoming the resistance of the beloved than constantly to be in her presence; the eye is the go-between of affection, and the habit of being regularly in one another’s society is a quick and successful way to full favour. Wild beasts can be tamed by habit, as they become used to their masters; how much more easily can a woman’s heart be softened by the same means! And then the fact that her lover is of the same age as herself is a powerful impulse to a maiden. Those feelings which are natural in the heyday of youth, and her knowledge that she is adored, will often inspire her to return your passion; for every maiden wishes to be fair, is pleased to be loved, and is grateful to the lover for the witness that he bears to her charms — if no one were in love with her, she could have so far no grounds of confidence that she was beautiful. One only piece of advice then I have to give you: let her be sure that she is loved, and she will soon return your affection.”

  “But how,” said I, “is this prophecy of yours to be accomplished? Indicate to me at any rate how to begin; you were initiated before me into the mysteries of the god and are better acquainted with the course required to become an adept. What am I to say? What am I to do? How am I to win the object of my passion? I have no idea of the way to proceed.”

  10. “On this subject,” said Clinias, “you have no need to enquire of another: Love is a self-instructed expert. He is like the new-born babe which needs no teaching from anybody where to look for its nourishment; for that is an accomplishment which it learns of itself, knowing that its table is spread in its mother’s breasts; in the same way a young man for the first time big with love needs no instruction as to how to bring it to birth. For when you begin to feel the pangs and it is clear that the destined day is at hand, you cannot go wrong, even though it be your first labour, but you will find the way to bring forth and the god himself will deliver you. However, you may as well listen to the ordinary maxims which are applicable at any time and need no fortunate occasion. In the first place, say nothing to the maiden of the actual fruition of love, but rather look for a means for your passion silently to be translated into action: boys and girls are alike shamefaced creatures; however much they may be inclined towards the pleasures that Aphrodite can afford, they do not care to hear their experiences mentioned aloud: they think that modesty is a matter of words, while grown women, on the other hand, take a pleasure in the words too. A girl will regard very calmly the first skirmishes that a lover uses to feel his way, and will suddenly express her complacency by a gesture; but if you go bluntly to her with a verbal invitation, you will only shock her ears by the words you employ. She will blush, affect to regard your proposal with horror, and think that an insult is being offered to her; even if she is desirous to afford you her favours, she is ashamed, for it seems to her that she is already yielding, when the pleasure she derives from your words seems to transform your tentative into reality. If, however, you act upon the other tack, gradually moulding her to your wishes and gaining easy access to her, be as silent as in church, but approach her gently and kiss her: if the beloved is compliant, the lover’s kiss is an invitation to her to accord him all her favours; if reluctant, it is a kind of supplication and prayer. Then, even when they have promised and are certain to yield, many of them, however willing, prefer to have at least the appearance of coercion applied, so that by a shew of force they can avoid the charge of compliance which would be a reproach to their modesty. Even if you find her persistently obdurate, do not relax your efforts, but rather watch closely for the means of converting her: here too tact is wanted. Do not in any case, if she remains obstinate, employ force; she is not yet sufficiently softened: but if you desire her to melt, you must be prepared to act a part, or else you will lose all the trouble of your plot.” (English. “You must stage-manage your own acting, or else you will not get your play accepted, and so will have wasted all the trouble you took in composing it.”)

  11. “By your advice, Clinias,” said I, “you have given me the most admirable provision for my journey, and I pray that I may arrive safely; but at the same time I cannot help fearing that my very success may be the beginning of worse troubles and expose me to the more violent flames of love; and at any rate if they do become more savage, what am I to do? I cannot marry her — I am pledged to another maiden; and my father is greatly set on this match. Nor is his object an unreasonable one: he does not ask me to marry a foreigner, or an ugly girl; he does not sell me for gold, as Charicles is to be sold; but he intends for me his own daughter, who was beautiful enough, God knows, before I saw Leucippe; but now I am blind to her beauty and have eyes for Leucippe alone. I am on the horns of a dilemma — Love and my father wait on opposite sides of me: my father stands behind me, holding me back by the respect which I owe to him; Love sits before me, brandishing his torch of fire. How am I to decide the contest, when affection is at war with the promptings of nature? I desire to give my verdict for you, father, but I have a stronger adversary — he puts the judge to the torture, he stands in court armed with his arrows, he pleads his cause with flame; if I do not decide against you, father, I must be utterly consumed by his fire.”

  12. We were engaged in this kind of philosophical discussion about Love, when one of Charicles’ servants rushed in, with evil tidings so clearly written upon his face that Clinias instantly cried out: “Something has happened to Charicles.” He had not yet finished speaking, when the servant exclaimed in the same breath: “Charicles is dead.” At this announcement Clinias was stricken utterly dumb and stood motionless, as though he had been struck by a whirlwind. The servant went on: “He mounted your horse, Clinias, and at first rode quietly enough upon him; after two or three turns, he pulled him up, and, dropping the reins on his back, began to rub down the sweating animal as he sat. While he was wiping by the saddle, there was a sudden noise behind; the horse was frightened, reared, and bolted wildly. He took the bit between his teeth, tossed up his head, shook his mane, and seemed to fly through the air spurred on by fear; his hinder feet seemed to be trying to catch up his galloping fore-quarters, increasing the speed of his flight and spurring on his pace; his body arched by reason of the contest between his feet, bounding up and down at each stride, the motion of his back was like a ship tossed in a storm. Poor Charicles, thrown up and down rather as if by a wave than on a horse, bounded from the saddle like a ball, at one time slipping back on to the horse’s quarters, at another hurled forward on to his neck, while the tempest-like motion ever more and more overcame his efforts. At last, no longer able to hold the reins, he let himself drive with the storm and was at the mercy of fortune; then the horse, still at top speed, turned aside from the high road, bounded into a wood, and straightway dashed the miserable Charicles against a tree. He left the saddle, shot like a stone from a sling; his face was cut to pieces by the tree’s branches and he was covered with as many wounds as there were sharp points oh the boughs. The reins twisted round his body, (The Greek rider had the reins carried round behind his waist.) which he was unable to extricate, and then dragged it along with them, making a very path of death. The horse, still more alarmed by the fall and finding his speed checked by the body dragging behind him, trampled upon the unhappy boy, kicking out at what he found to be a check upon his flight; so that now no one who saw him could possibly recognize him as the Charicles they once knew.”

  13. At this news Clinias was struck with utter silence for a considerable period; then, as if suddenly awaked from a swoon of grief, he cried out very pitifully and hurried to run to meet the corpse, while I followed him,
affording him such poor comfort as I was able. At that moment Charicles was brought in on a bier, a sight most pitiful and sad; he appeared to be all one wound, so that none of the standers-by were able to refrain from tears. His father led the chorus of lamentation, greatly disordered and crying out: “Look on this picture and on that — how you left me and how you come back to me; a curse on all riding of horses! A worse than common death is yours, which leaves you an unsightly corpse; when others die, at least the lineaments of their features are preserved, and even if the living bloom of beauty be gone, at least the face keeps a semblance of its former appearance and affords some comfort to the mourner by its mimicry of sleep; death may have snatched away the soul, but at least it leaves in the body the one we knew. But with you even this has been destroyed by fate — so you are doubly dead to me, soul and body too; even the very shadow of your likeness is gone — your soul is fled and I cannot find my Charicles in this corpse. When, my child, shall the day of your wedlock be? When shall I perform at your marriage the rites that religion demands, horseman and bridegroom — bridegroom that shall never wed, most unfortunate of horsemen? Your bridal chamber is the grave; your wedlock is with death; the dirge your bridal song; these wailings your marriage lays. A very different fire from this, my child, did I hope to kindle for you; but cruel fate has extinguished both it and you, and lit up in its place the torches of a funeral. A cruel illumination this! The tapers of your marriage rite have become the flambeaux of a requiem.”

  14. So wailed his father, and on the other side of the body Clinias was reproaching himself: it was a very rivalry of laments, the loving friend and the father. “It is I,” said he, “that have destroyed him that was the master of my heart. Why did I give him such a gift as that? Why not rather a cup of gold for libations when he drank, to use and pride himself on my present? As it is, wretched fool that I was, I gave this fair lad a wild beast, and I decked out the cursed brute with martingales and frontlets, silver trappings and gold-embroidered reins; yes, alas, Charicles, I furbished up your murderer with gold. Vile horse, the most savage of all beasts, wicked, thankless brute, senseless of beauty, he was wiping away your sweat and promising you a fuller manger and praising your paces; and you killed him as you were being flattered — you took no pleasure in the touch of that beautiful body, that fair horseman was no source of pride in you; you entertained no feelings of affection for him, but dashed his beauty to the ground. Woe is me: it was I that bought for you the cause of your death, your murderer!”