138
Socrates
Soc. Alcibiades, are you on your way to offer a prayer to the god?
Alcibiades
Alc. I am, certainly, Socrates.
Socrates
Soc. You seem, let me say, to have a gloomy look, and to keep your eyes on the ground, as though you were pondering something.
Alcibiades
Alc. And what might one ponder, Socrates?
Socrates
Soc. The greatest of questions, Alcibiades, as I believe. For tell me, in Heaven’s name, do you not think that the gods sometimes grant in part, but in part refuse, what we ask of them in our private and public prayers, and gratify some people, but not others?
5
Alcibiades
Alc. I do, certainly.
Socrates
Soc. Then you would agree that one should take great precautions against falling unawares into the error of praying for great evils in the belief that they are good, while the gods happen to be disposed to grant freely what one is praying for? Just as Oedipus, they say, suddenly prayed that his sons might divide their patrimony with the sword: it was open to him to pray that his present evils might by some means be averted, but he invoked others in addition to those which he had already. Wherefore not only were those words of his accomplished, but many other dread results therefrom, which I think there is no need to recount in detail.
Alcibiades
Alc. But you have instanced a madman, Socrates: why, do you suppose that anyone could bring himself, while he was in a sound state, to utter such a prayer?
Socrates
Soc. Do you regard madness as the opposite of wisdom?
Alcibiades
Alc. Certainly I do.
10
Socrates
Soc. And there are some men whom you regard as unwise, and others as wise?
