If I were to be your dove, Alcibiades, and you would treat me as Anacreon treated his, and let me nestle in your breast and drink from your cup, I would submit even to carry your love-letters to other ladies.
CALLICLES.
What, in the name of Jupiter, is the use of all these speculations about death? Socrates once (1) lectured me upon it the best part of a day. I have hated the sight of him ever since. Such things may suit an old sophist when he is fasting; but in the midst of wine and music—
HIPPOMACHUS.
I differ from you. The enlightened Egyptians bring skeletons into their banquets, in order to remind their guests to make the most of their life while they have it.
CALLICLES.
I want neither skeleton nor sophist to teach me that lesson. More wine, I pray you, and less wisdom. If you must believe something which you never can know why not be contented with the long stories about the other world which are told us when we are initiated at the (2 ) Eleusinian mysteries.
CHARICLEA.
And what are those stories?
(1)See the close of Plato’s Gorgias.
(2) The scene which follows is founded upon history.
Thucydides tells us, in his sixth book, that about this time
Alcibiades was suspected of having assisted at a mock
celebration of these famous mysteries. It was the opinion of
the vulgar among the Athenians that extraordinary privileges
were granted in the other world to all who had been
initiated.