A Fearless Fear
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Aristodemus — εἰπόντος δὲ τοῦ Ἀγάθωνος πάντας ἔφη ὁ Ἀριστόδημος ἀναθορυβῆσαι τοὺς παρόντας, ὡς πρεπόντως τοῦ νεανίσκου εἰρηκότος καὶ αὑτῷ καὶ τῷ θεῷ. τὸν οὖν Σωκράτη εἰπεῖν βλέψαντα εἰς τὸν Ἐρυξίμαχον,
Socrates — ἆρά σοι δοκῶ, φάναι, ὦ παῖ Ἀκουμενοῦ, ἀδεὲς πάλαι δέος δεδιέναι, ἀλλʼ οὐ μαντικῶς ἃ νυνδὴ ἔλεγον εἰπεῖν, ὅτι Ἀγάθων θαυμαστῶς ἐροῖ, ἐγὼ δʼ ἀπορήσοιμι;
Eryximachus — τὸ μὲν ἕτερον, φάναι τὸν Ἐρυξίμαχον, μαντικῶς μοι δοκεῖς εἰρηκέναι, ὅτι Ἀγάθων εὖ ἐρεῖ· τὸ δὲ σὲ ἀπορήσειν, οὐκ οἶμαι.
When Agathon had spoken Aristodemus said that all present burst into applause, at how fittingly the young man had spoken worthily of himself and of the god. So Socrates, glancing at Eryximachus, said: Do I really seem to you, he said, son of Acumenus, to have feared all this while a fearless fear, and not to have spoken prophetically the things I said just now, that Agathon would speak wonderfully, and that I would be at a loss? The one part, said Eryximachus, you do seem to me to have foretold truly, that Agathon will speak well; but that you will be at a loss, that I do not think.
Agathon has just finished his dazzling, ornate speech, and the room bursts into applause. Socrates, who must speak next, turns to the doctor Eryximachus and confesses—half joking—that he had good reason to be afraid: he foresaw Agathon would speak beautifully and leave him with nothing to say. Aristodemus is reporting the whole evening.
The banter is doing quiet philosophical work. Eryximachus is a physician and a reader of signs, and the whole exchange plays on mantikē, the prophetic art Socrates half-claims and half-mocks. In the Apology and the Phaedrus Socrates keeps just this ironic distance from real knowledge, professing only to know that he does not know. Here the same irony sets up what follows: the speech that will quietly dismantle Agathon's lovely praise of Eros begins by pretending to have nothing at all to say.
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