[329c]
'How
about your service of Aphrodite, Sophocles—is your natural force
still unabated?' And he replied, 'Hush, man, most gladly have I escaped this
thing you talk of, as if I had run away from a raging and savage beast of a
master.'1 I thought it a
good answer then and now I think so still more. For in very truth there
comes to old age a great tranquillity in such matters and a blessed release.
When the fierce tensions2 of the passions and desires relax, then is the
word of Sophocles approved,
1 Allusions to the passage are frequent. Theon, Progymn. ii. 66 (Spengel), turns to the anecdote in an edifying χρεία. Ammianus Marcellinus xxv. 4. 2 tells us that the chastity of the emperor Julian drew its inspiration hence. Schopenhauer often dwelt on the thought, cf. Cicero Cato M. 14, Plutarch, De cupid. divit. 5, An seni p. 788, Athen. xii. p. 510, Philostr.Vit. Apoll. 1. 13.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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