The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: Athenians; therefore I hold my ears and tear myself away from him. And he
is the only person who ever made me ashamed, which you might think not to
be in my nature, and there is no one else who does the same. For I know
that I cannot answer him or say that I ought not to do as he bids, but when
I leave his presence the love of popularity gets the better of me. And
therefore I run away and fly from him, and when I see him I am ashamed of
what I have confessed to him. Many a time have I wished that he were dead,
and yet I know that I should be much more sorry than glad, if he were to
die: so that I am at my wit's end.
And this is what I and many others have suffered from the flute-playing of
this satyr. Yet hear me once more while I show you how exact the image is,
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