entreat you to defend me.”--“Indeed,” said Alcibiades, “I will not be reconciled to you; I shall find another opportunity to punish you for this. But now,” said he, addressing Agathon, “lend me some of those fillets, that I may crown the wonderful head of this fellow, lest I incur the blame, that having crowned you, I neglected to crown him who conquers all men with his discourses, not yesterday alone as you did, but ever.” Saying this he took the fillets, and having bound the head of Socrates, and again having reclined, said: “Come, my friends, you seem to be sober enough. You must not flinch, but drink, for that was your agreement with me before I came in. I choose as president, until you have drunk enough--myself. Come, Agathon, if you have got a great goblet, fetch it out. But no matter, that wine-cooler will do; bring it, boy!” And observing that it held more than eight cups, he first drank it off, and then ordered it to be filled for Socrates, and said:--“Observe, my friends, I cannot invent any scheme against Socrates, for he will drink as much as any one desires him, and not be in the least drunk.” Socrates, after the boy had filled up, drank it off; and Eryximachus said:--“Shall we then have no conversation or singing over our cups, but drink down stupidly, just as if we were thirsty?” And Alcibiades said: “Ah, Eryximachus, I did not see you before; hail, you excellent son of a wise and excellent father!”--“Hail to you also,” replied Eryximachus, “but what shall we do?”--“Whatever you command, for we ought to submit to your directions; a physician is worth a hundred common men. Command us as you please.”--“Listen then,” said Eryximachus, “before you came in, each of us had agreed to deliver as eloquent a discourse as he could in praise of Love, beginning at the right hand; all the rest of us have fulfilled our engagement; you have not spoken, and yet have drunk with us: you ought to bear your part in the discussion; and having done so, command what you please to Socrates, who shall have the privilege of doing so to his right-hand neighbour, and so on to the others.”--“Indeed, there appears some justice in your proposal, Eryximachus, though it is rather unfair to induce a drunken man to set his discourse in competition with that of those who are sober. And, besides, did Socrates really persuade you that what he just said about me was true, or do you not know that matters are in fact exactly the reverse of his representation? For I seriously believe that, should I praise in his presence, be he god or man, any other beside himself, he would not keep his hands off me. But I assure you, Socrates, I will praise no one beside yourself in your presence.”