h us, I should hear him
speak the language of love as lovers do, and I was delighted. Not a
word; he conversed as usual, and spent the day with me and then went
away. Afterward I challenged him to the palestra; and he wrestled and
closed with me several times alone; I fancied that I might succeed in
this way. Not a bit; there was no use in that. Lastly, as I had failed
hitherto, I thought that I must use stronger measures and attack him
boldly, as I had begun, and not give him up until I saw how the matter
stood. So I invited him to supper, just as if he were a fair youth,
and I a designing lover. He was not easily persuaded to come; he did,
however, after a while, accept the invitation, and when he came the
first time, he wanted to go away at once as soon as supper was over,
and I had not the face to detain him....

"And yet I could not help wondering at his natural temperance and
self-restraint and courage. I never could have thought that I should
have met with a man like him in wisdom and endurance. Neither could I
be angry with him or renounce his company any more than I could hope
to win him. For I well knew that if Ajax could not be wounded by
steel, much less he by money; and I had failed in my only chance of
captivating him. So I wandered about and was at my wit's end; no one
was ever more hopelessly enslaved by another. All this, as I should
explain, happened before he and I went on the expedition to Potidaea;
there we messed together, and I had the opportunity of observing his
extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue and going without food when
our supplies were intercepted at any place, as will happen with an
army. In the faculty of endurance he was superior not only to me but
to everybody else; there was no one to be compared to him. Yet at a
festival he was the only person who had any real powers of enjoyment,
and tho not willing to drink, he could if compelled beat us all at
that, and the most wonderful thing of all was that no human being had
ever seen Socrates drunk; and that, if I am not mistaken, will soon be
tested. His endurance of cold was also surprizing. There was a severe
frost, for the winter in that region is really tremendous, and
everybody else either remained indoors, or if they went out had on no
end of clothing, and were well shod, and had their feet swathed in
felt and fleeces; in the midst of this, Socrates, with his bare feet
on the ice, and in his ordinary dress, marched better than a