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[288b]

Hippias
Do you think, then, that he will still attempt to refute you and to show that what you say is not beautiful, or, if he does attempt it, that he will not be ridiculous?

Socrates
That he will attempt it, my admirable friend, I am sure but whether the attempt will make him ridiculous, the event will show. However, I should like to tell you what he will ask.

Hippias
Do so.

Socrates
“How charming you are, Socrates!” he will say. “But is not a beautiful mare beautiful, which even the god praised in his oracle?”1


1 Heindorf and other commentators connect this reference with an oracle quoted by a scholiast on Theocritus, Idyl xiv. 48. The Megarians, being filled with pride, asked the god who were better then they. The first lines of the reply they received are:“Γαίης μέν πάσης τὸ Πελασγικὸν Ἄργος ἄμεινον,
ἵπποι Θρηΐκιαι, Λακεδαιμόνιαι δὲ γυναῖκες
“Better than all other land is the land of Pelasgian Argos,
Thracian mares are the best, and the Lacedaemonian women.”
”To be sure, nothing is said about the beauty of the mares, and the reference to Elis contained in παρ᾽ ἡμῖν just below is hard to reconcile with the Thracian mares of the oracle.

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