baths?
And yet, who was more valiant than he?
Just. These are the very things which make the bath full
of youths always chattering all day long, but the
palaestras empty.
Unj. You next find fault with their living in the
market-place; but I commend it. For if it had been bad,
Homer would never have been for representing Nestor as
an orator; nor all the other wise men. I will return,
then, from thence to the tongue, which this fellow says
our youths ought not to exercise, while I maintain they
should. And again, he says they ought to be modest: two
very great evils. For tell me to whom you have ever seen
any good accrue through modesty and confute me by your
words.
Just. To many. Peleus, at any rate, received his sword
on account of it.
Unj. A sword? Marry, he got a pretty piece of luck, the
poor wretch! While Hyperbolus, he of the lamps, got more
than many talents by his villainy, but by Jupiter, no
sword!
Just. And Peleus married Thetis, too, through his
modesty.
Unj. And then she went off and left him; for he was not
lustful, nor an agreeable bedfellow to spend the night
with. Now a woman delights in being wantonly treated.
But you are an old dotard. For (to Phidippides)
consider, O youth, all that attaches to modesty, and of
how many pleasures you are about to be deprived--of
women, of games at cottabus, of dainties, of
drinking-bouts, of giggling. And yet, what is life worth
to you if you be deprived of these enjoyments? Well, I
will pass from thence to the necessities of our nature.
You have gone astray, you have fallen in love, you have
been guilty of some adultery, and then have been caught.
You are undone, for you are unable to speak. But if you
associate with me, indulge your inclination, dance,
laugh, and think nothing disgraceful. For if you should
happen to be detected as an adulterer, you will make
this reply to him, "that you have done him no injury":
and then refer him to Jupiter, how even he is overcome
by love and women. And yet, how could you, who are a
mortal, have greater power than a god?
Just. But what if he should suffer the radish through
obeying you, and be depillated with hot ashes? What
argument will he be able to state, to prove that he is
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