SOCRATES: Villain! I am conquered; the poor lover of discourse has no more to say.
PHAEDRUS: Then why are you still at your tricks?
SOCRATES: I am not going to play tricks now that you have taken the oath, for I cannot allow myself to be starved.
PHAEDRUS: Proceed.
SOCRATES: Shall I tell you what I will do?
PHAEDRUS: What?
SOCRATES: I will veil my face and gallop through the discourse as fast as I can, for if I see you I shall feel ashamed and not know what to say.
PHAEDRUS: Only go on and you may do anything else which you please.
SOCRATES: Come, O ye Muses, melodious, as ye are called, whether you have received this name from the character of your strains, or because the Melians are a musical race, help, O help me in the tale which my good friend here desires me to rehearse, in order that his friend whom he always deemed wise may seem to him to be wiser than ever.
Once upon a time there was a fair boy, or, more properly speaking, a youth; he was very fair and had a great many lovers; and there was one special cunning one, who had persuaded the youth that he did not love him, but he really loved him all the same; and one day when he was paying his addresses to him, he used this very argument—that he ought to accept the non-lover rather than the lover; his words were as follows:—