Bitten by Philosophy
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Alcibiades — τε καὶ συγγνωσομένοις εἰ πᾶν ἐτόλμα δρᾶν τε καὶ λέγειν ὑπὸ τῆς ὀδύνης. ἐγὼ οὖν δεδηγμένος τε ὑπὸ ἀλγεινοτέρου καὶ τὸ ἀλγεινότατον ὧν ἄν τις δηχθείη— τὴν καρδίαν γὰρ ἢ ψυχὴν ἢ ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸ ὀνομάσαι πληγείς τε καὶ δηχθεὶς ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ λόγων, οἳ ἔχονται ἐχίδνης ἀγριώτερον, νέου ψυχῆς μὴ ἀφυοῦς ὅταν λάβωνται, καὶ ποιοῦσι δρᾶν τε καὶ λέγειν ὁτιοῦν— καὶ ὁρῶν αὖ Φαίδρους, Ἀγάθωνας,
and would forgive him if he dared to do and say everything in his pain. I, then, bitten by one thing more painful, and, in the most painful place a person could be bitten, the heart, or the soul, or whatever one must call it — struck and bitten by the words of philosophy, which cling more fiercely than a viper once they seize a young, not untalented soul, and make him do and say anything at all — and seeing, again, Phaedruses, Agathons…
Continuing 217e's viper simile: Alcibiades has just said that a person bitten by a snake will tell his story only to fellow sufferers, the only ones who will understand and forgive whatever he dared do or say in his agony. He now turns the image on himself — struck and bitten in the heart or soul by the words of philosophy, which cling more savagely than any viper once they seize a young, gifted soul — and looks around the room at Phaedrus, Agathon, and the others as men who share the wound.
The bite lands, Alcibiades insists, in the heart or the soul — τὴν καρδίαν... ἢ ψυχὴν ἢ ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸ ὀνομάσαι, ‘whatever one must call it,’ a hedge that admits Greek has no settled word for the organ philosophy wounds. This is not the language of seduction he used earlier for his failed campaign against Socrates; it describes a conversion he did not choose. The condition he sets — a soul νέου... μὴ ἀφυοῦς, ‘young and not without natural gifts,’ — echoes what elsewhere marks who philosophy can take hold of: not every soul the words strike will feel it, only one built to receive it. The shock he describes matches an effect Socrates has on people elsewhere in Plato — the torpedo fish that numbs whoever touches it in the Meno, the gadfly that will not let Athens sleep in the Apology. Looking away from his own wound, Alcibiades notices Phaedrus and Agathon still in the room, and the sentence runs on to name the rest of the company, as if any of them might carry the same mark.
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