‘There is no reason why thou shouldst not, child.’
‘Thank you, Perikles! Thou art so busy all day long I can scarcely ever speak of these things to thee. And then there is that funny-looking man who always stares at me with his great eyes whenever I come near him; and sometimes nearly all day long he follows me about, but never speaks to me, and if I look at him Zopyros hurries me away. May I not talk to him? Other boys do, and they say, though he looks so ugly, with his small snub nose and big mouth, and his red face, if you hear him talk you forget how ugly he is; and he tells them everything they want to know, and they love to hear him talk.’
‘Dost thou mean Sokrates, the wisest man in Greece?—at least, so the Oracle at Delphi said he was.’
‘Yes, it is Sokrates I mean. When I was wrestling yesterday with Antiochos he sat and watched us all the time, but when I went to sit upon the bench by him, he got up and went away. Zopyros calls him a corrupter of the Grecian youths, and an evil-minded sophist, and I know not what besides. Something tells me I should love to talk to him.’
‘Oh son of Kleinias! that Sokrates can tell thee more than I have ever dreamt of, and when Perikles shall be no more, and all his care for Athens, and all the battles he has fought and won, forgotten, that strange philosopher will still be known, through all the ages that shall come—not here in Greece alone, but far away in other lands which he, and you, and I, know nothing of.’
CHAPTER II
‘Chè in la mente m’è fitta, ...
La cara e buona imagine paterna
Di voi, quando nel mondo ad ora ad ora