many fleas'[1] feet distant he was?" which some of the others were for resenting as an insult. But Socrates good-humouredly passed the matter over with some light badinage. He turned the subject by himself favouring the company with a song; after which the dancing girl performed some feats on a potter's wheel. On which Socrates made a remark something like Dr Johnson's—"Very wonderful—would it were impossible!" And he added, that after all, "almost everything was wonderful, if people did but consider it. For instance, why did the wick of the lamp give light, and not the brass? Why did oil increase flame, and water put it out? In order, however, not again to disturb hilarity by too much grave conversation, he would suggest that the dancers, instead of contorting their bodies, should perform something graceful and beautiful, like the pictures of the Graces, the Hours, and the Nymphs."
The exhibitor, pleased with this suggestion, went out to prepare; and Socrates, having the coast clear for a while, gave a discourse on love, distinguishing the heavenly from the earthly Venus, the latter inspiring mankind with love for the body, the former with the love of the soul and of noble actions. This distinction
- ↑ One of the absurdities attributed to Socrates in the 'Clouds' of Aristophanes (v. 145-199) is, that he undertook to demonstrate how many of its own feet a flea had leapt, in jumping from the eyebrow of a disciple on to his own head. He is represented as having solved the problem by catching the flea and plunging one of its feet into melted wax, by which means he got a measure of the feet, and then was able to divide the total distance by the size obtained!
