cup into an emptier one;
if that were so, how greatly should I value the privilege of reclining
at your side! For you would have filled me full with a stream of wisdom
plenteous and fair; whereas my own is of a very mean and questionable
sort, no better than a dream. But yours is bright and full of promise,
and was manifested forth in all the splendour of youth the day before
yesterday, in the presence of more than thirty thousand Hellenes.

You are mocking, Socrates, said Agathon, and ere long you and I will
have to determine who bears off the palm of wisdom--of this Dionysus
shall be the judge; but at present you are better occupied with supper.

Socrates took his place on the couch, and supped with the rest; and then
libations were offered, and after a hymn had been sung to the god,
and there had been the usual ceremonies, they were about to commence
drinking, when Pausanias said, And now, my friends, how can we drink
with least injury to ourselves? I can assure you that I feel severely
the effect of yesterday's potations, and must have time to recover; and
I suspect that most of you are in the same predicament, for you were
of the party yesterday. Consider then: How can the drinking be made
easiest?

I entirely agree, said Aristophanes, that we should, by all means, avoid
hard drinking, for I was myself one of those who were yesterday drowned
in drink.

I think that you are right, said Eryximachus, the son of Acumenus; but
I should still like to hear one other person speak: Is Agathon able to
drink hard?

I am not equal to it, said Agathon.

Then, said Eryximachus, the weak heads like myself, Aristodemus,
Phaedrus, and others who never can drink, are fortunate in finding
that the stronger ones are not in a drinking mood. (I do not include
Socrates, who is able either to drink or to abstain, and will not mind,
whichever we do.) Well, as of none of the company seem disposed to drink
much, I may be forgiven for saying, as a physician, that drinking deep
is a bad practice, which I never follow, if I can help, and certainly
do not recommend to another, least of all to any one who still feels the
effects of yesterday's carouse.

I always do what you advise, and especially what you prescribe as a
physician, rejoined Phaedrus the Myrrhinusian, and the rest of the
company, if they are wise, will do the same.

It was agreed that drinking was not to be the order of the day, but that
they were all to drink only so muc