“Aspasia is my friend, and the mother of our child; Aspasia is a wise woman, for she possesses modesty and conscientiousness, self-knowledge and foresight; Aspasia is prudent, for she is silent when wise men speak. But Aspasia can also cause wise men to speak wisely by listening to them; for she helps them to produce thoughts, not like Socrates’ midwife, who only brings corporeal births to pass, but she incarnates their souls.” Protagoras continued: “Aspasia is like the Mother Cybele of us all; she bears us in her bosom.” “Aspasia is the scale of the zither, without whom our strings would not sound.” “Aspasia is the mother of us all,” recommenced Socrates, “but she is also the midwife who washes our new-born thoughts and wraps them in beautiful swaddling-clothes. Aspasia receives our children dirty, and gives them back to us purified. She gives nothing of herself, but by receiving gives the giver the opportunity to give.” Euripides resumed the topic which they had dropped: “I was accused, and am acquitted--am I not, Aspasia?” “If you can acquit yourself of the accusation, you are acquitted, Euripides.” “Accuse me, dear Accuser; I will answer.” “I will bring the accusation in your own words. Hippolytus says in one passage in your tragedy of that name: ‘O Zeus, why, in the name of heaven, didst thou place in the light of the sun that specious evil to men--women? For if thou didst will to propagate the race of mortals, there was no necessity for this to be done by women, but men might, having placed an equivalent in thy temples, either in brass or iron, or weighty gold, buy a race of children each according to the value paid, and thus might dwell in unmolested houses, without females.’” “But now first of all, when we prepare to bring this evil to our homes, we squander away the wealth of our houses.” “How evil woman is, is evident from this also, that the father who begat her and brought her up, having given her a dowry, sends her away in order to be rid of her.” “Now defend yourself, Euripides.” “If I were a Sophist like Protagoras, I should answer, ‘It was Hippolytus who said that; not I.’ But I am a poet, and speak through my characters. Very well; I said it, I meant it when I wrote it, and I mean it still. And yet I almost always love any given woman, though I hate her sex. I cannot explain it, for I was never perverse like Alcibiades. Can you explain it, Socrates?” “Yes, a man can hate and love a woman simultaneously. Everything is produced by its opposite--love by hate, and hate by love. In my wife I love the good motherly element, but I hate the original sin in her; therefore I can hate and love her at the same time. Is it not so, Protagoras?” “Now it is Socrates who is the Sophist. Black cannot be white.”