ALCIBIADES I
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my help; so great is the power which I believe myself to have over you and
your concerns; and this I conceive to be the reason why the God has
hitherto forbidden me to converse with you, and I have been long expecting
his permission. For, as you hope to prove your own great value to the
state, and having proved it, to attain at once to absolute power, so do I
indulge a hope that I shall be the supreme power over you, if I am able to
prove my own great value to you, and to show you that neither guardian, nor
kinsman, nor any one is able to deliver into your hands the power which you
desire, but I only, God being my helper. When you were young (compare
Symp.) and your hopes were not yet matured, I should have wasted my time,
and therefore, as I conceive, the God forbade me to converse with you; but
now, having his permission, I will speak, for now you will listen to me.

ALCIBIADES: Your silence, Socrates, was always a surprise to me. I never
could understand why you followed me about, and now that you have begun to
speak again, I am still more amazed. Whether I think all this or not, is a
matter about which you seem to have already made up your mind, and
therefore my denial will have no effect upon you. But granting, if I must,
that you have perfectly divined my purposes, why is your assistance
necessary to the attainment of them? Can you tell me why?

SOCRATES: You want to know whether I can make a long speech, such as you
are in the habit of hearing; but that is not my way. I think, however,
that I can prove to you the truth of what I am saying, if you will grant me
one little favour.

ALCIBIADES: Yes, if the favour which you mean be not a troublesome one.

SOCRATES: Will you be troubled at having questions to answer?

ALCIBIADES: Not at all.

SOCRATES: Then please to answer.

ALCIBIADES: Ask me.

SOCRATES: Have you not the intention which I attribute to you?

ALCIBIADES: I will grant anything you like, in the hope of hearing what
more you have to say.

SOCRATES: You do, then, mean, as I was saying, to come forward in a little
while in the character of an adviser of the Athenians? And suppose that