Beautiful Beside Beautiful
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Apollodorus — ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὑμῖν ὡς ἐκεῖνος διηγεῖτο καὶ ἐγὼ πειράσομαι διηγήσασθαι.
Aristodemus — ἔφη γάρ οἱ Σωκράτη ἐντυχεῖν λελουμένον τε καὶ τὰς βλαύτας ὑποδεδεμένον, ἃ ἐκεῖνος ὀλιγάκις ἐποίει· καὶ ἐρέσθαι αὐτὸν ὅποι ἴοι οὕτω καλὸς γεγενημένος. καὶ τὸν εἰπεῖν ὅτι
Socrates — ἐπὶ δεῖπνον εἰς Ἀγάθωνος. χθὲς γὰρ αὐτὸν διέφυγον τοῖς ἐπινικίοις, φοβηθεὶς τὸν ὄχλον· ὡμολόγησα δʼ εἰς τήμερον παρέσεσθαι. ταῦτα δὴ ἐκαλλωπισάμην, ἵνα καλὸς παρὰ καλὸν ἴω. ἀλλὰ σύ, ἦ δʼ ὅς, πῶς
From the beginning as he told it, I too will try to tell it to you. He said Socrates had met him, fresh from the bath and with sandals laced on— which he rarely did— and asked him where he was headed, looking so handsome. And he said: To dinner at Agathon's. Yesterday I dodged him at his victory feast, afraid of the crowd— but I promised to be there today. So I dressed up, so that handsome, I might go to a handsome man. But you, he said, how…?
Apollodorus stops summarizing and begins relaying Aristodemus's account word for word, the way Aristodemus used to tell it. Aristodemus ran into Socrates freshly bathed and in sandals — both rare for him — on his way, he said, to dinner at the poet Agathon's. The unit breaks off mid-question, as Socrates turns to ask Aristodemus in return.
The joke depends on what Plato's readers already knew. Later in this same dialogue (215a–b), Alcibiades will compare Socrates' actual face to a satyr's, or to Silenus — famously, almost proverbially unlovely. So when Socrates announces that he has bathed, put on sandals, and beautified himself (ekallōpisamēn) in order to go kalos para kalon, “beautiful beside beautiful,” the line asks to be heard two ways at once: ordinary vanity dressing for a handsome friend, and Socratic irony aimed at his own reputation. Plato doesn't explain the joke. A reader who already knows the stories about Socrates' looks — or who will meet Alcibiades' speech later tonight — supplies the punchline unassisted.
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