Kitap 5
11.27
Consequently, it is allimportant in this connexion to consider whether the simile is really applicable. So in answering those Socratic questions which I mentioned above, § 3. the greatest care must be taken to avoid giving an incautious answer, such as those given by the wife of Xenophon to Aspasia in the dialogue of Aeschines the Socratic: the passage is translated by Cicero de Inv. I. xxxi. 51. as follows:
11.28
Tell me, pray, wife of Xenophon, if your neighbour has finer gold ornaments than you, would you prefer hers or yours? Hers, she replied. Well, then, if her dress and the rest of her ornaments are more valuable than yours, which would you prefer, hers or yours? Hers, she replied. Come, then, said she, if her husband is better than yours, would you prefer yours or hers? At this the wife of Xenophon not unnaturally blushed; for she had answered ill in replying that she would prefer her neighbour's gold ornaments to her own, since it would be wrong to do so. If on the other hand she had replied that she would prefer her ornaments to be of the same quality as those of her neighbour, she might have answered without putting herself to the blush that she would prefer her husband to be like him who was his superior in virtue.
