ome noble deed you are greatly
to rejoice with him; and to one who passionately cares for you, you are
to make surrender of yourself with heart and soul. The secret of true
love I am sure you know: not to love softly merely, but devotedly. (14)
And of this too I am sure: you can convince your lovers of your fondness
for them not by lip phrases, but by acts of love.

(11) Or, "right well woven."

(12) Lit. "by which you understand."

(13) Or, "with what smiles to lie in wait for (cf. 'Cyrop.' II. iv.
20; Herod. vi. 104) the devoted admirer, and how to banish from
your presence the voluptary."

(14) Or, "that it should be simply soft, but full of tender goodwill."

Theod. No, upon my word, I have none of these devices.

Soc. And yet it makes all the difference whether you approach a human
being in the natural and true way, since it is not by force certainly
that you can either catch or keep a friend. Kindness and pleasure
are the only means to capture this fearful wild-fowl man and keep him
constant.

Theod. You are right.

Soc. In the first place you must make such demands only of your
well-wisher as he can grant without repentance; and in the next place
you must make requital, dispensing your favours with a like economy.
Thus you will best make friends whose love shall last the longest and
their generosity know no stint. (15) And for your favours you will best
win your friends if you suit your largess to their penury; for, mark
you, the sweetest viands presented to a man before he wants them are apt
to prove insipid, or, to one already sated, even nauseous; but create
hunger, and even coarser stuff seems honey-sweet.

(15) Or, "This is the right road to friendship--permanent and open-
handed friendship."

Theod. How then shall I create this hunger in the heart of my friends?

Soc. In the first place you must not offer or make suggestion of your
dainties to jaded appetites until satiety has ceased and starvation
cries for alms. Even then shall you make but a faint suggestion to their
want, with modest converse--like one who would fain bestow a kindness...
and lo! the vision fades and she is gone--until the very pinch of
hunger; for the same gifts have then a value unknown before the moment
of supreme desire.

Then Theodote: Oh why, Socrates, why are you not by my side (like the
huntsman's assistant) to help me catch my friends and lovers?

Soc. That will I be in good sooth if only you can