[19]
“How now?” exclaimed Socrates. “You boast as though you actually thought yourself a handsomer man than me.”“Of course,” was Critobulus's reply; “otherwise I should be the ugliest of all the Satyrs ever on the stage.”Now Socrates, as fortune would have it, really resembled these creatures.1
1 This is regarded by some as a comment interpolated in the text, though doubtless true enough. Plato (Symp. 215 A, B, E; 216 C, D; 221 D, E; cf. 222 D) represents Alcibiades as likening Socrates to the Sileni and particularly to the Satyr Marsyas. Vase paintings and statues give an idea of the Greek conception of their coarse features. They regularly formed the chorus in the Satyr-plays that were given in connection with tragedies.
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