s with a
dead weight or press upon some other part of the body, and so it becomes
troublesome and uncomfortable; but that which fits, having its weight
distributed partly along the collar-bone and shoulder-blade, partly
over the shoulders and chest, and partly the back and belly, feels like
another natural integument rather than an extra load to carry. (13)

(13) Schneider ad loc. cf Eur. "Electr." 192, {prosthemata aglaias},
and for the weight cf. Aristoph. "Peace," 1224.

Pist. You have named the very quality which gives my work its
exceptional value, as I consider; still there are customers, I am bound
to say, who look for something else in a corselet--they must have them
ornamental or inlaid with gold.

For all that (replied Socrates), if they end by purchasing
an ill-fitting article, they only become the proprietors of a
curiously-wrought and gilded nuisance, as it seems to me. But (he
added), as the body is never in one fixed position, but is at one time
curved, at another raised erect how can an exactly-modelled corselet
fit?

Pist. It cannot fit at all.

You mean (Socrates continued) that it is not the exactly-modelled
corselet which fits, but that which does not gall the wearer in the
using?

Pist. There, Socrates, you have hit the very point. I see you understand
the matter most precisely. (14)

(14) Or, "There, Socrates, you have hit the very phrase. I could not
state the matter more explicitly myself."

XI

There was once in the city a fair woman named Theodote. (1) She was
not only fair, but ready to consort with any suitor who might win her
favour. Now it chanced that some one of the company mentioned her,
saying that her beauty beggared description. "So fair is she," he added,
"that painters flock to draw her portrait, to whom, within the limits of
decorum, she displays the marvels of her beauty." "Then there is nothing
for it but to go and see her," answered Socrates, "since to comprehend
by hearsay what is beyond description is clearly impossible." Then he
who had introduced the matter replied: "Be quick then to follow me"; and
on this wise they set off to seek Theodote. They found her "posing" to a
certain painter; and they took their stand as spectators. Presently the
painter had ceased his work; whereupon Socrates:

(1) For Theodote see Athen. v. 200 F, xiii. 574 F; Liban. i. 582. Some
say that it was Theodote who stood by Alcibiades to the last,
though there are ap