keeping you the whole day in servitude to some one, and never your own master? so that you derive no benefit either from the great wealth of the family, which is managed by every one else rather than by you--or from your own body, noble as it is. Even _that_ is consigned to the watch and direction of another: while you, Lysis, are master of nothing, nor can do any one thing of what you desire. _Lysis._--The reason is, Sokrates, that I am not yet old enough. _Sokr._--That can hardly be the reason; for to a certain extent your father and mother do trust you, without waiting for you to grow older. If they want any thing to be written or read for them, they employ you for that purpose in preference to any one in the house: and you are then allowed to write or read first, whichever of the letters you think proper. Again, when you take up the lyre, neither father nor mother hinder you from tightening or relaxing the strings, or striking them either with your finger or with the plectrum. _Lysis._--They do not. _Sokr._--Why is it, then, that they do not hinder you in this last case, as they did in the cases before mentioned? _Lysis._--I suppose it is because I know this last, but did not know the others. _Sokr._--Well, my good friend, you see that it is not your increase of years that your father waits for; but on the very day that he becomes convinced that you know better than he, he will entrust both himself and his property to your management. _Lysis._--I suppose that he will. _Sokr._--Ay--and your neighbour too will judge in the same way as your father. As soon as he is satisfied that you understand house-management better than he does, which do you think he will rather do--confide his house to you, or continue to manage it himself? _Lysis._--I think he will confide it to me. _Sokr._--The Athenians too: do not you think that they also will put their affairs into your management, as soon as they perceive that you have intelligence adequate to the task? _Lysis._--Yes: I do. _Sokr._--What do you say about the Great King also, by Zeus! When his meat is being boiled, would he permit his eldest son who is to succeed to the rule of Asia, to throw in any thing that he pleases into the sauce, rather than us, if we come and prove to him that we know better than his son the way of preparing sauce? _Lysis._--Clearly, he will rather permit us. _Sokr._--The Great King will not let his son throw in even a pinch of salt: while we, if we chose to take up an entire handful, should be allowed to throw it in. _Lysis._--No doubt. _Sokr._--What if his son has a complaint in his eyes; would the Great King, knowing him to be ignorant of medicine, allow him even to touch his own eyes or would he forbid him? _Lysis._--He would forbid him. _Sokr._--As to us, on the contrary, if he accounted us good physicians, and if we desired even to open the eyes and drop a powder into them, he would not hinder us, in the conviction that we understood what we were doing.