Book 6
2.52
One day seeing a runaway slave sitting on the brink of a well, he said, Take care, my lad, you don’t fall in. Seeing a boy taking clothes at the baths, he asked, Is it for a little unguent (ἀλειμμάτιον) or is it for a new cloak (ἄλλ’ ἱμάτιον)? Seeing some women hanged from an olive-tree, he said, Would that every tree bore similar fruit. On seeing a footpad he accosted him thus: What mak’st thou here, my gallant? Com’st thou perchance for plunder of the dead?Hom. Il. x. 343, 387. Being asked whether he had any maid or boy to wait on him, he said No. If you should die, then, who will carry you out to burial? Whoever wants the house, he replied.
2.53
Noticing a good-looking youth lying in an exposed position, he nudged him and cried, Up, man, up, lest some foe thrust a dart into thy back! To one who was feasting lavishly he said: Short-liv’d thou’lt be, my son, by what thou—buy’st.Cf. Hom. Il. v. 40, xviii. 95. As Plato was conversing about Ideas and using the nouns tablehood and cuphood, he said, Table and cup I see; but your tablehood and cuphood, Plato, I can nowise see. That’s readily accounted for, said Plato, for you have the eyes to see the visible table and cup; but not the understanding by which ideal tablehood and cuphood are discerned.
