Sunday 4 December 2011

Socrates - Hero!

Taken from the diary of Plato: circa  During the Spartan uprising Socrates was called to fight for his country. Being a coward by nature he formed a strategy of cunning regarding his deployment ( he would hide when battle commenced ). After he went through the tooling up stage where they gave him a spade & strong sandals ( apparently he would help dig trenches? ), he strode forth into the breach, actually it was a beach ( the warship had arrived at The vicinity Lesbos north, a place Socrates pondered would be much nicer if he were with friends, debating wether air was an heavier element than fire? He mused. Yes, if air could be stuck down ( which it can't ), & fire was given an area to cover ( which it won't ) thence a comparison could be made ( which will never happen )? SOCRATES!, someone was shouting his name. He turned, the calling man's head, burst. When a flaming projectile hits a mans head, it , well, bursts! Fire balls flew through the air, everywhere men were running hither & thither. Socrates pondered. Suddenly he was running. Socrates had never ran, at least not since childhood. The clumsy sandals! They got stuck in the sand. He fell, arms flailing! Socrates pulled onto the rope of a mule that was pulling a cart of spears. The rope got tangled in the beasts ballsack. It gave a huge whinney & ran of into a ditch. The cart full of spears, now free, careered down a walkway & off a ridge. As it fell a fireball hit said cart of spears & sent a cascade of burning spears down on the climbing Spartans'! The usually heroic Spartan warriors, on seeing their comrades up ahead screaming in pain with burning spears piercing them each & everyway, panicked. Signals meant to start a wall of bombarding   Logs were sent to the archers ( who fired into the advancing Spartan front ). Believing that the Greeks had somehow sprang an attack from the middle of the Spartan horde, they started to hack at each other!  Chaos reigned & a fleeing man knocked over a table that Upset a buckets of goose fat that caught alight & spread to the Spartan generals tent. This resulted in a scurry of orders involving the Spartans full retreat! As the Spartans scrambled onto their ships, the news of Brave Socrates & his heroic deeds spread through the Athenian forces. "Socrates Defeats Spartans Single-Handed! ". By then of course, Socrates was well on his way home( scurrying from bush to bush , cave to cave ), vowing never to go to wAr ever again.             Subsequently,  Socrates dined frequently with young soldiers who would bring red wine & good meat for him & his woman ( he'd even get some old sandals & pretend they were the ones he wore & sell them to any young fool who had more money than sense ). His wife would cook away happily  in the cucina as he recounted his bravery, which at each telling swelled into even greater deeds! Plato recalled " Socrates never once admitted his slice of luck that day. Only on his deathbed he whispered to me thus the true story as he'd deduced he could not milk it further. He was a canny man.". 

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