It is also significant that Socrates displayed a certain degree of
masochism; our historians tell us that Socrates would deny himself bodily
comforts and insist on enduring hardship. Xenophon in Memorabilia says:
"But they knew that Socrates lived with the utmost contentment on very small
means, that he was most abstinent from every kind of pleasure, and that he
swayed those with whom he conversed just as he pleased by his
arguments."[12.] Again, "Is it not the duty of every man to consider that
temperance is the foundation of every virtue, and to establish the
observance of it in his mind before all things? For who, without it, can
either learn anything good or sufficiently practice it? Who, that is a
slave to pleasure is not in an ill condition both as to his body and his
mind? It appears to me, by Juno, that a free man ought to pray that he may
never meet with a slave of such a character, and that he who is a slave to
pleasure should pray to the gods that he may find well-disposed masters; for
by such means only can a man of that sort be saved."[13.] And, "He appeared
also to me, by such discourses as the following, to exhort his hearers to
practice temperance in their desires for food, drink, sensual gratification,
and sleep, and endurance of cold, heat and labor."[14.]
Although he condemned poederastia, yet he was always fond of the male sex,
particularly of the young. This, however, may be explained on the ground
that his object was to appeal to the young. Nevertheless, dynamic psychology
demands a deeper meaning for such a motive. In this connection it would be
interesting to quote Xenophon: "As to love, his counsel was to abstain
rigidly from familiarity with beautiful persons; for he observed that it was
not easy to be in communication with such persons, and observe continence.
Hearing, on one occasion, that Critobulus, the son of Criton, had kissed the
son of Alcibiades, a handsome youth, he asked Xenophon, in the presence of
Critobulus, saying, "Tell me, Xenophon, did you not think that Critobulus
was one of the modest rather than the forward, one of the thoughtful rather
than of the thoughtless and inconsiderate?" Certainly," replied Xenophon.
"You must now, then, think him extremely headstrong and daring; one who
would even spring upon drawn swords, and leap into the fire." "And what,"
said Xenophon, "have you seen him doing, that you form this opinion of him?"
"Why, has he not dared," rejoined Socrates, "to kiss the son of Alcibiades,
a youth extremely handsome, and in the flower of his age?" "If such a deed,"
returned Xenophon, "is one of daring and peril, I think that even I could
undergo such peril." "Unhappy man!" exclaimed Socrates, "and what do you
think that you incur by kissing a handsome person? Do you not expect to
become at once a slave instead of a freeman? To spend much money upon
hurtful pleasures? To have too much occupation to attend to anything
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