Or to converse alone, like Plato.
Anaxilas also laughs at him in his Botrylion, and Circe, and his Rich Women.
And Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise upon Ancient Luxury, says that he was much attached to a youth of the name of Aster, who used to study astronomy with him; and also to Dion, whom we have already mentioned. And some say that he was also attached to Phaedrus, and that the following epigrams which he wrote upon them are evidences of the love he felt for them:
My Aster, you’re gazing on the stars (ἀστέρες), Would that I were the heavens, that so I might Gaze in return with many eyes on thee.
Another of his epigrams is:
Aster, you while among the living shone, The morning star. But now that you are dead, You beam like Hesperus in the shades below.
And he wrote thus on Dion:
Once, at their birth, the fates did destine tears To be the lot of all the Trojan women. And Hecuba, their Queen—to you, O Dion, As the deserved reward for glorious deeds, They gave extensive and illustrious hopes. And now you lie beneath your native soil; Honored by all your countrymen, O Dion, And loved by me with ardent, lasting love.
And they say that this epigram is inscribed upon his tomb at Syracuse. They say also that he was in love with Alexis, and with Phaedrus, as I have already mentioned, and that he wrote an epigram on them both, which runs thus:
Now when Alexis is no longer aught, Say only how beloved, how fair he was, And everyone does turn his eyes at once. Why, my mind, do you show the dogs a bone? You’re but preparing trouble for yourself: Have we not also lost the lovely Phaedrus!
There is also a tradition that he had a mistress named Archianassa, on whom he wrote the following lines:
I have a mistress fair from Colophon, Archianassa, on whose very wrinkles Sits genial love: hard must have been the fate, Of him who met her earliest blaze of beauty, Surely he must have been completely scorched.
He also wrote this epigram on Agathon:
While kissing Agathon, my soul did rise, And hover’d o’er my lips; wishing perchance, O’er anxious that it was, to migrate to him.
Another of his epigrams is:
I throw this apple to you. And if you Love me who love you so, receive it gladly, And let me taste your lovely virgin charms. Or if that may not be, still take the fruit, And in your bosom cherish it, and learn How fleeting is all gracefulness and beauty.
And another:
I am an apple, and am thrown to you, By one who loves you: but consent, Xanthippe; For you and I shall both with time decay.
They also attribute to him the following epigram on the Eretrians who had been surprised in an ambuscade:
We were Eretrians, of Euboean race? And now we lie near Susa, here entomb’d, Far from my native land.
And this one also:
Thus Venus to the muses spoke: Damsels submit to Venus’ yoke, Or dread my Cupid’s arms. Those threats, the Virgins nine replied, May weigh with Mars, but we deride Love’s wrongs, or darts, or charms.
Another is:
A certain person found some gold, Carried it off, and in its stead Left a strong halter neatly roll’d. The owner found his treasure fled; And powerless to endure his fortune’s wreck, Fitted the halter to his hapless neck.
But Molon, who had a great dislike to Plato, says “There is not so much to wonder at in Dionysius being at Corinth, as in Plato’s being in Sicily.” Xenophon, too, does not appear to have been very friendlily disposed towards him: and accordingly they have, as if in rivalry of one another, both written books with the same title, the Banquet, the Defense of Socrates, Moral Reminiscences. Then, too, the one wrote the Cyropaedia and the other a book on Politics; and Plato in his Laws says that the Cyropaedia is a mere romance, for that Cyrus was not such a person as he is described in that book. And though they both speak so much of Socrates, neither of them ever mentions the other, except that Xenophon once speaks of Plato in the third book of his Reminiscences. It is said also, that Antisthenes, being about to recite something that he had written, invited him to be present; and that Plato having asked what he was going to recite, he said it was an essay on the impropriety of contradicting. “How then,” said Plato, “can you write on this subject?” and then he showed him that he was arguing in a circle. But Antisthenes was annoyed, and composed a dialogue against Plato, which he entitled Sathon, after which they were always enemies to one another; and they say that Socrates having heard Plato read the Lysis, said, “O Hercules! what a number of lies the young man has told about me.” For he had set down a great many things as sayings of Socrates which he never said.