Plato, Timaeus 17a · 17a
Three are here, but where is the fourth?
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Socrates — εἷς, δύο, τρεῖς· ὁ δὲ δὴ τέταρτος ἡμῖν, ὦ φίλε Τίμαιε, ποῦ τῶν χθὲς μὲν δαιτυμόνων, τὰ νῦν δὲ ἑστιατόρων;
Timaeus — ἀσθένειά τις αὐτῷ συνέπεσεν, ὦ Σώκρατες· οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἑκὼν τῆσδε ἀπελείπετο τῆς συνουσίας.
Socrates — οὐκοῦν σὸν τῶνδέ τε ἔργον καὶ τὸ ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἀπόντος ἀναπληροῦν μέρος;
Socrates: One, two, three; but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth of our company, who were yesterday the guests and today are the hosts? Timaeus: Some illness has befallen him, Socrates. He would not have stayed away from this gathering willingly. Socrates: Then is it your task, yours and these others', to fill up the share of the absent man as well?
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The setting
It is the day after Socrates described his ideal city. He counts the company and finds one of yesterday's four missing.
A note on this passage
Socrates opens by counting heads, heis, dyo, treis, and asks for the fourth man of yesterday's company. The joke is in the last two words of his question. A daitymōn is one who shares a meal, a guest at the feast, and a hestiatōr is the one who gives it, the host. Yesterday Socrates fed these men with his account of the ideal city, and today the roles are reversed: they owe him a feast of speech.
Timaeus explains the absence with astheneia, literally "lack of strength," and adds that the man would not have stayed away hekōn, of his own will, from this synousia, a word for being together, a meeting. Socrates draws the consequence with oukoun, which here means "well then" and does not negate anything, and he speaks of the absent man's meros, his share, as something the others can anaplēroun, fill up.
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