Adventures in the Moon, and Other Worlds

by Earl John Russell Russell

ALCIBIADES.

Fly! Praxinoe, fly! I hear the voice of Socrates, and it frightens me as much as the voice of Cerberus. Pick up your girdle and run. Leander, here! remove the wine and fruit. Now my apartment looks more austere than before. Here he comes. I wish he were at the pillars of Hercules. Ah! Socrates, welcome.

SOCRATES.

Alcibiades, we expected you at the house of Agatho. You had promised to be present at our conversation, and perhaps you might have benefited by it as much as by lying on that couch.

ALCIBIADES.

I should have come, Socrates; but I was seized by a sudden sickness, which made me quite unfit for philosophy.

SOCRATES.

I am grieved to hear it; but the colour in your cheeks makes me hope for a speedy recovery.

ALCIBIADES.

I begin to think, indeed, that the disorder has left me.