ANNE-MARIE BOWERYconcerned, Crito, when I had fallen into this diffi culty, I began to ex-
claim at the top of my lungs and to call upon the two strangers as though
they were the Heavenly Twins” (293a). Also, consider the Charmides: “I
caught a sight of the inside of his garment, and took fl ame. Then I could
no longer contain myself. I thought how well Cydias understood the
nature of love, when in speaking of a fair youth, he warns someone ‘not
to bring the fawn in the sight of the lion to be devoured by him,’ for I
felt that I had been overcome by a sort of wild-beast appetite” (155c).
And consider another example previously mentioned from the Protago-
ras: Socrates is overwhelmed when “Protagoras got a noisy round of ap-
plause for this speech. At fi rst I felt as if I had been hit by a good boxer.
Everything went black and I was reeling from Protagoras’ oratory and
the others’ clamor” (339e). Similarly, in the Republic, “I was astounded
when I heard him, and looking at him, I was frightened. I think that
if I had not seen him before he saw me, I would have been speechless”
(336d). An example from the Lysis differs somewhat in that Socrates
has an initially positive emotional response to their philosophical argu-
ment, followed by a sudden reassessment. Socrates comments, “[I had]
the satisfi ed feeling of a successful hunter and was basking in it, when a
very strange suspicion, from where I don’t know, came over me” (218c).
In these instances, Socrates the narrator describes his extreme
emotional response and how quickly it overcame him. But Socrates does
not simply report his emotions: his fear, astonishment, satisfaction, de-
sire. After each instance, he reports how he responds to these emotions.
Immediately after gazing beneath Charmides’ cloak, Socrates reports,
“When he asked me if I knew the cure for the headache, I answered,
though with an effort, that I did know” (Charmides 155c) and explains
how “his approving answers reassured me, and I began by degrees to re-
gain confi dence and my natural heat returned to me” (156d). Similarly,
though astounded by Dionysodorus’ sophistic display, Socrates tells
Crito, “The result was that even I myself, Crito, was fi nally compelled, out
of sheer disbelief, to ask whether Dionysodorus even knew how to dance,
to which he replied that he certainly did” (Euthydemus 294 d). T hough a s -
tonished by Protagoras’ account, Socrates manages to respond, “Then,
to tell you the truth, to stall for time to consider what the poet meant, I
turned to Prodicus” (Protagoras 339e). Though frightened by Thrasyma-
chus, Socrates can respond calmly: “I had looked at him fi rst, so that I
was able to answer him; and with just a trace of a tremor, I said, ‘Thrasy-
machus don’t be too hard on us.’ ” Yet Socrates does not stop there. He
appeals to his “friend” Thrasymachus not to give up the pursuit of their
argument (Republic 336d). Though stunned by the strange suspicion
that overcomes him in the Lysis, Socrates can still think clearly: “Maybe
what we had all agreed to wasn’t true after all.” This calm refl ection