throw in my teeth, as
though they were the work of an infamous rake and had lover's garlands
and serenades for their theme. You must have noticed also that in this
connexion they further attack me for calling these boys Charinus and
Critias, which are not their true names. On this principle they may as
well accuse Caius Catullus for calling Clodia Lesbia, Ticidas for
substituting the name Perilla for that of Metella, Propertius for
concealing the name Hostia beneath the pseudonym of Cynthia, and
Tibullus for singing of Delia in his verse, when it was Plania who
ruled his heart. For my part I should rather blame Caius Lucilius,
even allowing him all the license of a satiric poet, for prostituting
to the public gaze the boys Gentius and Macedo, whose real names he
mentions in his verse without any attempt at concealment. How much
more reserved is Mantua's poet, who, when like myself he praised the
slave-boy of his friend Pollio in one of his light pastoral poems,
shrinks from mentioning real names and calls himself Corydon and the
boy Alexis. But Aemilianus, whose rusticity far surpasses that of the
shepherds and cowherds of Vergil, who is, in fact, and always has been
a boor and a barbarian, though he thinks himself far more austere than
Serranus, Curius, or Fabricius, those heroes of the days of old,
denies that such verses are worthy of a philosopher who is a follower
of Plato. Will you persist in this attitude, Aemilianus, if I can show
that my verses were modelled upon Plato? For the only verses of Plato
now extant are love-elegies, the reason, I imagine, being that he
burned all his other poems because they were inferior in charm and
finish. Listen then to the verses written by Plato in honour of the
boy Aster, though I doubt if at your age it is possible for you to
learn to appreciate literature:

_Thou wert the morning star among the living
Ere thy fair light had fled;--
Now having died, thou art as Hesperus giving
New light unto the dead._[7]

[Footnote 7: Shelley's translation.]

There is another poem by Plato dealing conjointly with the boys Alexis
and Phaedrus:

_I did but breathe the words 'Alexis fair',
And all men gazed on him with wondering eyes,
My soul, why point to questing beasts their prize?
'Twas thus we lost our Phaedrus; ah! beware!_

Without citing any further examples I will conclude by quoting a line
addressed by Plato to Dion of Syracuse: