Stopping His Ears Against the Sirens
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Alcibiades — οὕτω διετέθην ὥστε μοι δόξαι μὴ βιωτὸν εἶναι ἔχοντι ὡς ἔχω. καὶ ταῦτα, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὐκ ἐρεῖς ὡς οὐκ ἀληθῆ. καὶ ἔτι γε νῦν σύνοιδʼ ἐμαυτῷ ὅτι εἰ ἐθέλοιμι παρέχειν τὰ ὦτα, οὐκ ἂν καρτερήσαιμι ἀλλὰ ταὐτὰ ἂν πάσχοιμι. ἀναγκάζει γάρ με ὁμολογεῖν ὅτι πολλοῦ ἐνδεὴς ὢν αὐτὸς ἔτι ἐμαυτοῦ μὲν ἀμελῶ, τὰ δʼ Ἀθηναίων πράττω. βίᾳ οὖν ὥσπερ ἀπὸ τῶν Σειρήνων ἐπισχόμενος τὰ ὦτα οἴχομαι φεύγων, ἵνα μὴ αὐτοῦ καθήμενος παρὰ τούτῳ καταγηράσω. πέπονθα δὲ
I've been so affected that it seemed to me life isn't worth living, in the state I'm in. And you won't say, Socrates, that these things aren't true. And even now, I know within myself that if I were willing to lend him my ears, I could not hold out — but would suffer the very same thing. For he compels me to admit that, in need of much, myself, I still neglect myself and manage the Athenians' affairs instead. So by force, as though against the Sirens, I stop my ears and flee, so that I won't sit there beside him grow old. And I have felt—
Alcibiades has just described how Socrates' words, unlike Pericles' famous oratory, throw his soul into turmoil and shame — a reaction he likened to Corybantic frenzy and to the bite of the satyr Marsyas (215d–e). Now he draws the conclusion: life in that state does not seem worth living, and only by main force, stopping his ears as though against the Sirens, can he get away long enough to keep managing Athens' business instead of his own. The sentence breaks off mid-thought (πέπονθα δὲ…), completing in 216b.
Alcibiades is quoting the Odyssey and rewriting it. Odysseus had his men plug their ears with wax and kept his own open, lashed to the mast, so that he alone could hear the Sirens' song and still not swim to them. Alcibiades stops his own ears instead — βίᾳ, 'by force' — and does not trust himself even to listen bound. The verb for what Socrates does to him, ἀναγκάζει, 'he compels,' is the coercion Socrates works everywhere in Plato: not persuasion but a forced admission, ὁμολογεῖν, wrung from a man who would rather not know it. The Sirens promised sailors knowledge of everything happening on the wide earth; what Socrates offers, on Alcibiades' account, is the same promise turned inward, and he already knows the price — not a wrecked ship, but τὰ Ἀθηναίων, his standing among the Athenians, left unmanaged while he sits at Socrates' feet.
σύνοιδʼ ἐμαυτῷ, 'I know within myself,' is the language of a man testifying against himself with no other witness required. Alcibiades is not claiming Socrates is wrong about him; he claims only that he cannot stay near him and still get what he wants. The scene he describes is quietly comic: a man explaining, at length, in front of the whole party, exactly how he flees this conversation — while sitting in it, giving the speech. καταγηράσκω, 'grow old,' names the specific fate he says he is escaping, growing old at Socrates' side; it is the same picture the Phaedo will later complete without any joke in it, an old man's students gathered around him at the end. Alcibiades can see that ending from here and still won't take it.
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