Kitap 19
11
He gives some amatory verses of Plato, with which the philosopher amused himself when he was a very young man and was contending for the tragic prize.
11
HERE are two Greek verses that are famous and deemed worthy of remembrance by many learned men because of their charm and graceful terseness. There are in fact not a few ancient writers who declare that they are the work of the philosopher Plato, with which he amused himself in his youth, while at the same time he was beginning his literary career by writing tragedies. The writing of tragedies as youthful literary exercises was not uncommon; see Suet. Jul. lvi. 7, and Plin. Epist. vii. 4. 2. The lemma is wrong; cf. note 2, p. 360. My soul, when I kissed Agathon, did pass My lips; as though, poor soul, 'would leap across. This distich a friend of mine, a young man no stranger to the Muses, has paraphrased somewhat boldly and freely in a number of lines. And since they seemed to me not undeserving of remembrance, I have added them here: p. 375, Bährens.
12
A discourse of Herodes Atticus on the power and nature of pain, and a confirmation of his view by the example of an ignorant countryman who cut down fruit-trees along with thorns.
