w the joy of drinking, (41) so he who has never tasted Passion is
ignorant of Aphrodite's sweetest sweets.

(41) Reading with Holden (after H. Steph.) {osper oun an tis...} or
with Hartm. (op. cit. p. 259) {osper ouk an tis...}

So Hiero ended.

Simonides answered laughingly: How say you, Hiero? What is that? Love's
strong passion for his soul's beloved incapable of springing up in any
monarch's heart? What of your own passion for Dailochus, surnamed of men
"most beautiful"?

Hiero. That is easily explained, Simonides. What I most desire of him is
no ready spoil, as men might reckon it, but rather what it is least of
all the privilege of a tyrant to obtain. (42) I say it truly, I--the
love I bear Dailochus is of this high sort. All that the constitution of
our souls and bodies possibly compels a man to ask for at the hands of
beauty, that my fantasy desires of him; but what my fantasy demands, I
do most earnestly desire to obtain from willing hands and under seal of
true affection. To clutch it forcibly were as far from my desire as to
do myself some mortal mischief.

(42) Lit. "of tyrant to achieve," a met. from the chase. Cf.
"Hunting," xii. 22.

Were he my enemy, to wrest some spoil from his unwilling hands would
be an exquisite pleasure, to my thinking. But of all sweet favours the
sweetest to my notion is the free-will offering of a man's beloved. For
instance, how sweet the responsive glance of love for love; how sweet
the questions and the answers; (43) and, most sweet of all, most
love-enkindling, the battles and the strifes of faithful lovers. (44)
But to enjoy (45) one's love perforce (he added) resembles more an act
of robbery, in my judgment, than love's pastime. And, indeed, the robber
derives some satisfaction from the spoils he wins and from the pain he
causes to the man he hates. But to seek pleasure in the pain of one
we love devoutly, to kiss and to be hated, to touch (46) and to be
loathed--can one conceive a state of things more odious or more pitiful?
For, it is a certainty, the ordinary person may accept at once each
service rendered by the object of his love as a sign and token of
kindliness inspired by affection, since he knows such ministry is free
from all compulsion. Whilst to the tyrant, the confidence that he is
loved is quite foreclosed. On the contrary, (47) we know for certain
that service rendered through terror will stimulate as far as possible
the ministrations of affe