After the girl had played to them upon the flute, and then the boy in turn upon the harp, and both performers, as it would appear, had set the hearts of every one rejoicing, Socrates turned to Callias:
A feast, upon my word, O princeliest entertainer! (2) Was it not enough to set before your guests a faultless dinner, but you must feast our eyes and ears on sights and sounds the most delicious?
(2) Lit. "in consummate style."
To which the host: And that reminds me, a supply of unguents might not be amiss; (3) what say you? Shall we feast on perfumes also? (4)
(3) Lit. "suppose I tell the servant to bring in some perfumes, so
that we may further feast on fragrance..." Cf. Theophr. "Char."
vii. 6 (Jebb ad loc.)
(4) See Athen. xv. 686.
No, I protest (the other answered). Scents resemble clothes. One dress is beautiful on man and one on woman; and so with fragrance: what becomes the woman, ill becomes the man. Did ever man anoint himself with oil of myrrh to please his fellow? Women, and especially young women (like our two friends' brides, Niceratus' and Critobulus'), need no perfume, being but compounds themselves of fragrance. (5) No, sweeter than any perfume else to women is good olive-oil, suggestive of the training-school: (6) sweet if present, and when absent longed for. And why? Distinctions vanish with the use of perfumes. The freeman and the slave have forthwith both alike one odour. But the scents derived from toils—those toils which every free man loves (7)—need customary habit first, and time's distillery, if they are to be sweet with freedom's breath, at last. (8)
(5) Cf. Solomon's Song, iv. 10: "How fair is thy love, my sister, my
spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of
thine ointments than all spices!"
(6) Lit. "the gymnasium."
(7) Cf. Aristoph. "Clouds," 1002 foll. See J. A. Symonds, "The Greek
Poets," 1st s., p. 281.
(8) See "Mem." III. x. 5; "Cyrop." VIII. i. 43.
Here Lycon interposed: That may be well enough for youths, but what shall we do whose gymnastic days are over? What fragrance is left for us?
Soc. Why, that of true nobility, of course.
Lyc. And whence shall a man obtain this chrism?