Alcibiades Asks Leave to Attack Socrates
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Alcibiades — πῶς λέγεις?
Aristodemus — εἰπεῖν τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην,
Alcibiades — δοκεῖ χρῆναι, ὦ Ἐρυξίμαχε? ἐπιθῶμαι τῷ ἀνδρὶ καὶ τιμωρήσωμαι ὑμῶν ἐναντίον?
Socrates — οὗτος,
Aristodemus — φάναι τὸν Σωκράτη,
Socrates — τί ἐν νῷ ἔχεις? ἐπὶ τὰ γελοιότερά με ἐπαινέσαι? ἢ τί ποιήσεις?
Alcibiades — τἀληθῆ ἐρῶ. ἀλλʼ ὅρα εἰ παρίης.
Socrates — ἀλλὰ μέντοι,
Aristodemus — φάναι,
Socrates — τά γε ἀληθῆ παρίημι καὶ κελεύω λέγειν.
Alcibiades — οὐκ ἂν φθάνοιμι,
Aristodemus — εἰπεῖν τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην.
Alcibiades — καὶ μέντοι οὑτωσὶ ποίησον. ἐάν τι μὴ ἀληθὲς λέγω, μεταξὺ ἐπιλαβοῦ, ἂν βούλῃ, καὶ εἰπὲ ὅτι τοῦτο ψεύδομαι; ἑκὼν γὰρ εἶναι οὐδὲν
What do you mean? said Alcibiades — does it seem right, Eryximachus, shall I attack the man and take revenge on him, in front of you all? Hey, you! said Socrates — what do you have in mind? To praise me toward the more ridiculous? Or what will you do? I'll tell the truth. But see whether you allow it. Well, indeed, he said — I do permit the truth, and I bid you speak it. I won't delay, said Alcibiades. And do it this way, indeed: if I say anything untrue, interrupt me in the middle, if you like, and say that I'm lying about it — for willingly, at least, I'd say nothing…
Eryximachus has just told Alcibiades to go ahead and praise Socrates (214d). Alcibiades treats the assignment as an assault he needs leave to carry out; Socrates, hailed with a blunt “you there!”, asks whether the plan is to mock him, then grants leave for the truth once Alcibiades has sworn to tell it — a promise Alcibiades immediately qualifies. The sentence breaks off mid-thought into 215a, where Alcibiades explains he will praise Socrates through images (εἰκόνες).
Alcibiades asks permission to attack, not to speak. ἐπιθῶμαι and τιμωρήσωμαι are the vocabulary of assault and revenge — ‘shall I set upon the man and take my revenge on him in front of you all’ — for what turns out to be a speech of praise. Socrates answers in kind: he stops him with the bare, almost curt οὗτος, ‘you there!’, the word for hailing a stranger in the street, and asks whether the plan is ἐπὶ τὰ γελοιότερα, ‘toward the more ridiculous’ — to make him a figure of fun. Alcibiades answers a question about comedy with a claim about accuracy: τἀληθῆ ἐρῶ, ‘I will tell the truth,’ as if telling the truth about Socrates were itself the sharper weapon.
What follows reads like a small trial. Socrates grants leave with παρίημι, the verb for admitting testimony, and orders him to speak with κελεύω, a command. Alcibiades accepts the terms at once but hedges his own oath: he will not lie ἑκὼν εἶναι, ‘as far as he can help it,’ an escape clause built into the promise before he has said a single word of praise. Plato wrote the Symposium after the trial that ended Socrates’ life, and he gives the dialogue’s most famous encomium the shape of a cross-examination — permission granted, testimony ordered, a witness who reserves the right to be unreliable. The image Alcibiades is about to produce, a hollow statue of Silenus with a god hidden inside, arrives already qualified this way: funny first, true only if you catch him at it.
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