"Mary Renault - Greece 4 - The Last Of The Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Renault Mary)

I had not confided my own ambitions to him. He shared my father's view that philosophers should dress
and behave in a respectable way, suited to their calling. But Midas had found me out. He took his work
seriously; and my father had ordered him, besides repelling suitors, to keep me away from all Sophists
and rhetoricians. I was too young, my father said, to get anything solid from philosophy, which would
only teach me to quibble with my elders and be wise in my own conceit.

Just then the trainer bawled out that we were there to wrestle, not to gabble like girls at a wedding, and
that we should be sorry if he had to speak again. While we were all scrambling to find partners, I heard a
loud commotion at the end of the colonnade. In the midst was a voice I knew. Why I did not stay where
I was, I hardly know. A boy, like a dog, feels happier with the pack behind him. When his gods are
mocked, down go his ears and tail. Yet I had to run to that end of the palaestra, pretending to look for a
partner and avoiding anyone who was free.

Sokrates was arguing at the top of his voice with a big man who was trying to shout him down. As I got
there he was saying, Very well, so you respect the gods of the City. And the laws too? — How not?
shouted the man. Ask your friend Alkibiades that, not me. — The law of evidence, for instance? The
man shouted out, Don't you try to confuse the issue. At this the bystanders exclaimed, No, no, that's fair,
you ought to answer that. — Very well, any law you like, and there ought to be one against people like
you. — Good. Then if what you've been telling us seems to you to be evidence, why don't you take it to
the archons? If it's worth anything, they would even pay you. You trust the laws; do you trust the
evidence? Well, speak up.

The man did so, calling Sokrates a cunning snake who would argue black white and was in Corinthian
pay. I could not hear Sokrates' reply; but the man suddenly hit him a swinging blow on the side of the
head, rocking him over against Kriton, who was standing beside him. Everyone shouted. Kriton, who
was very much put out, said, You'll regret this, sir. Striking a free citizen; you'll pay damages for this.
Sokrates had by now recovered his balance. He nodded to the man and said, Thank you. Now we can
all see the force of your argument. The man swore and raised his fist and I thought, This time he will kill
him.

Hardly knowing what I did, I started to run forward. Then I saw that one of the young men who had
been walking behind Sokrates had stepped out, and caught the brawler by the wrist. I knew who it was,
not only from seeing him with Sokrates or about the City, but because there was a bronze statuette of
him in Mikkos's hallway, done when he was about sixteen. He was a former pupil, who had won a
crown for wrestling, while still at school, at the Panathenaic Games. He was said too to have been among
the notable beauties of his year, which one could still believe without trouble. I saw his name every day,
since it was written on the base of the statue: Lysis, son of Demokrates of OExone.

Sokrates' enemy was a great hulking man. Lysis was taller, but not so thick. I had seen him on the
wrestling-ground, however. He bent back the man's arm, looking rather grave and careful, as if he were
sacrificing. The man's fist opened and writhed; when he had leaned off balance, Lysis gave him a quick
jerk which tumbled him neatly down the steps into the dust of the palaestra. He got a mouthful of it and
all the boys laughed, a sweet sound to me. Lysis looked at Sokrates as if with apology for his intrusion,
and drew back among the young men again. He had not spoken all this time. Indeed, I had seldom heard
his voice, except at the mounted torch-race, when he was urging on his team. Then it carried over the
cheers, the noise of the horses, and everything else.
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