Part 23 (1/2)

By Hera! a pretty invention this, Pistias, by which you contrive that the corselet should cover the parts of the person which need protection, and at the same time leave free play to the arms and hands.... but tell me, Pistias (he added), why do you ask a higher price for these corselets of yours if they are not stouter or made of costlier material than the others?

Because, Socrates (he answered), mine are of much finer proportion.

Soc. Proportion! Then how do you make this quality apparent to the customer so as to justify the higher price--by measure or weight? For I presume you cannot make them all exactly equal and of one pattern--if you make them fit, as of course you do?

Fit indeed! that I most distinctly do (he answered), take my word for it: no use in a corselet without that.

But then are not the wearer's bodies themselves (asked Socrates) some well proportioned and others ill?

Decidedly so (he answered).

Soc. Then how do you manage to make the corselet well proportioned if it is to fit an ill-proportioned body? (12)

(12) Or, ”how do you make a well-proportioned corselet fit an ill- proportioned body? how well proportioned?”

Pist. To the same degree exactly as I make it fit. What fits is well proportioned.

Soc. It seems you use the term ”well-proportioned” not in an absolute sense, but in reference to the wearer, just as you might describe a s.h.i.+eld as well proportioned to the individual it suits; and so of a military cloak, and so of the rest of things, in your terminology? But maybe there is another considerable advantage in this ”fitting”?

Pist. Pray instruct me, Socrates, if you have got an idea.

Soc. A corselet which fits is less galling by its weight than one which does not fit, for the latter must either drag from the shoulders with a dead weight or press upon some other part of the body, and so it becomes troublesome and uncomfortable; but that which fits, having its weight distributed partly along the collar-bone and shoulder-blade, partly over the shoulders and chest, and partly the back and belly, feels like another natural integument rather than an extra load to carry. (13)

(13) Schneider ad loc. cf Eur. ”Electr.” 192, {prosthemata aglaias}, and for the weight cf. Aristoph. ”Peace,” 1224.

Pist. You have named the very quality which gives my work its exceptional value, as I consider; still there are customers, I am bound to say, who look for something else in a corselet--they must have them ornamental or inlaid with gold.

For all that (replied Socrates), if they end by purchasing an ill-fitting article, they only become the proprietors of a curiously-wrought and gilded nuisance, as it seems to me. But (he added), as the body is never in one fixed position, but is at one time curved, at another raised erect how can an exactly-modelled corselet fit?

Pist. It cannot fit at all.

You mean (Socrates continued) that it is not the exactly-modelled corselet which fits, but that which does not gall the wearer in the using?

Pist. There, Socrates, you have hit the very point. I see you understand the matter most precisely. (14)

(14) Or, ”There, Socrates, you have hit the very phrase. I could not state the matter more explicitly myself.”

XI

There was once in the city a fair woman named Theodote. (1) She was not only fair, but ready to consort with any suitor who might win her favour. Now it chanced that some one of the company mentioned her, saying that her beauty beggared description. ”So fair is she,” he added, ”that painters flock to draw her portrait, to whom, within the limits of decorum, she displays the marvels of her beauty.” ”Then there is nothing for it but to go and see her,” answered Socrates, ”since to comprehend by hearsay what is beyond description is clearly impossible.” Then he who had introduced the matter replied: ”Be quick then to follow me”; and on this wise they set off to seek Theodote. They found her ”posing” to a certain painter; and they took their stand as spectators. Presently the painter had ceased his work; whereupon Socrates:

(1) For Theodote see Athen. v. 200 F, xiii. 574 F; Liban. i. 582. Some say that it was Theodote who stood by Alcibiades to the last, though there are apparently other better claimants to the honour.

Plut. ”Alc.” (Clough, ii. p. 50).

”Do you think, sirs, that we ought to thank Theodote for displaying her beauty to us, or she us for coming to gaze at her?... It would seem, would it not, that if the exhibition of her charms is the more profitable to her, the debt is on her side; but if the spectacle of her beauty confers the greater benefit on us, then we are her debtors.”

Some one answered that ”was an equitable statement of the case.”

Well then (he continued), as far as she is concerned, the praise we bestow on her is an immediate gain; and presently, when we have spread her fame abroad, she will be further benefited; but for ourselves the immediate effect on us is a strong desire to touch what we have seen; by and by, too, we shall go away with a sting inside us, and when we are fairly gone we shall be consumed with longing. Consequently it seems that we should do her service and she accept our court.