ility."

(10) Or, "give the work completeness." Cf. Plat. "Charm." 173 A;
"Gorg." 454 A.

He answered: My father, (11) in his pains to make me a good man,
compelled me to learn the whole of Homer's poems, and it so happens that
even now I can repeat the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" by heart. (12)

(11) Nicias.

(12) Of, "off-hand." See "Mem." III. vi. 9; Plat. "Theaet." 142 D.

You have not forgotten (interposed Antisthenes), perhaps, that besides
yourself there is not a rhapsodist who does not know these epics?

Forgotten! is it likely (he replied), considering I had to listen to
them almost daily?

Ant. And did you ever come across a sillier tribe of people than these
same rhapsodists? (13)

(13) Cf. "Mem." IV. ii. 10.

Nic. Not I, indeed. Don't ask me to defend their wits.

It is plain (suggested Socrates), they do not know the underlying
meaning. (14) But you, Niceratus, have paid large sums of money to
Anaximander, and Stesimbrotus, and many others, (15) so that no single
point in all that costly lore is lost upon you. (16) But what (he added,
turning to Critobulus) do you most pride yourself upon?

(14) i.e. "they haven't the key (of knowledge) to the allegorical or
spiritual meaning of the sacred text." Cf. Plat. "Crat." 407;
"Ion," 534; "Rep." 378, 387; "Theaet." 180; "Prot." 316. See
Grote, "H. G." i. 564.

(15) See Aristot. "Rhet." iii. 11, 13. "Or we may describe Niceratus
(not improbably our friend) as a 'Philoctetes stung by Pratys,'
using the simile of Thrasymachus when he saw Niceratus after his
defeat by Pratys in the rhapsody with his hair still dishevelled
and his face unwashed."--Welldon. As to Stesimbrotus, see Plat.
"Ion," 530: "Ion. Very true, Socrates; interpretation has
certainly been the most laborious part of my art; and I believe
myself able to speak about Homer better than any man; and that
neither Metrodorus of Lampsacus, nor Stesimbrotus of Thasos, nor
Glaucon, nor any one else who ever was, had as good ideas about
Homer, or as many of them, as I have."--Jowett. Anaximander,
probably of Lampsacus, the author of a {'Erologia}; see Cobet,
"Pros. Xen." p. 8.

(16) Or, "you will not have forgotten one point of all that precious
teaching." Like Sir John Falstaff's page (2 "Henry IV." ii. 2.
100), Niceratus, no doubt, has got many "a crown's worth of good
interpretations."

On beauty (answered Crit