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Soc. Did you not fay that I had been a little beforehand with you when I accofted you*; for that you had it in your mind to addrefs me firft; as you wanted to afk me, why of all your admirers I was the only one who forfook you not?. Alc. I did fay fo : and that was the very cafe. Soc. This then was the reafon : 'twas becaufe I was the only perfon-who admired you; the others admired that which is yours. That which is yours has already dropt its flower;, and the fpring-feafon of it is part: whereas you yourfelf arebut beginning to flourifli. If therefore the Athenian populace corrupt you not, and make you lefs fair, I never fhall forfake you. But this is what I chiefly fear, that you may come to admire and court the populace, and be corrupted by them, and we fhould lofe you : iince many of the Athenians, men of virtuous merit too, have been thus •In the Greek, >^nyovToi too s-o^fiarof, where the word av9ovs fcems neceflary to be fupplied. The fame metaphor is ufed a few lines further on.—S^ corrupted
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