Sophokles at Supper

The poet Sophokles I met at Chios when, as General, he was bound for Lesbos: a playful man, when in wine, and clever. Hermesileos, his own friend and the Athenian consul, was hosting him, when there beside the fire, ready to pour out his wine, was a boy ... of course, and he said, ‘Do you want me to like my wine?' and the boy said yes. ‘Then hand me the cup slowly, and take it from me slowly.' The boy was now blushing more and more, and Sophokles said to his neighbour, ‘Phrynichos put it so beautifully! Shines on his crimson cheeks the light of love.'
Whereupon the other, he was an Eretrian schoolmaster or else an Erythraian, replied, ‘Yes, you are learned in poetry, Sophokles, but all the same Phrynichos was wrong to call a beautiful boy's cheeks crimson. If the painter smeared this boy's cheeks with crimson, he would no longer seem beautiful. It's quite wrong to compare beauty with what is not beautiful.' Sophokles laughed at this Eretrian: ‘Don't you like that line of Simonides, either, sir? From crimson lips the virgin's voice was raised – yet the Greeks all think it's quite right! or the poet who spoke of golden-haired Apollo, although if a painter painted Apollo's hair gold and not black, so much the worse for the painting; or the poet of rosy-fingered, because if you dip your fingers into rose-coloured paint you have the hands of a crimson-dyer, not those of a beautiful woman.'
They laughed, and the Eretrian was put out of countenance by this retort. Sophokles took up his conversation with the boy again. He was trying to get a bit of straw out of the wine-cup with his little finger. ‘Do you see the bit of straw?' asked Sophokles, and the boy said he saw it. ‘Don't dip your finger in, then,' he said; ‘just blow it away instead.' Then, as the boy's face approached the cup, Sophokles brought the cup nearer to his own lips, so that their two heads would be closer; and when they were very close, he put his arm around him and kissed him. There was applause, with laughter and shouts, at how well he had managed the boy, and Sophokles said, ‘I am practising strategy, gentlemen. Perikles said that I knew how to make poetry but not how to be a strategist. This stratagem fell out just right for me, didn't it?' His conversation over wine, and his behaviour in daily life, were full of such clever turns; in political life, though, he was no more wise and no more effective than any other respectable Athenian.
Ion of Chios, Encounters (a lost work) quoted by Athenaios, The Learned Banqueters 603e-604d. Translation published in Thomas K. Hubbard, ed., Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: a sourcebook of basic documents (University of California Press, 2003) pp. 80-81
Σοφοκλεῖ τῷ ποιητῇ ἐν Χίῳ συνήντησα, ὅτε ἔπλει εἰς Λέσβον στρατηγός, ἀνδρὶ παιδιώδει παρ'οἶνον καὶ δεξιῷ. ῾Ερμησίλεω δὲ ξένου οἱ ἐόντος καὶ προξένου ᾿Αθηναίων ἐστιῶντος αὐτόν, ἐπεὶ παρὰ τὸ πῦρ ἑστεὼς ὁ τὸν οἶνον ἐγχέων παῖς - - - ἐὼν δῆλος ἦν εἶπέ τε· «Βούλει με ἡδέως πίνειν;» φάντος δ' αὐτοῦ «Βραδέως τοίνυν καὶ ἀπόγερε τὴν κύλικα.» ῎Ετι πολὺ μᾶλλον ἐρυθριάσαντος τοῦ παιδὸς εἶπε πρὸς τὸν συγκατακείμενον· «Ὡς καλῶς Φρύνιχος ἐποίησεν εἴπας· λάμπει δ' ἐπί πορφυρέαις παρῇσι φῶς ἔρωτος.»
Καὶ πρὸς τόδε ἠμείφθη ὁ ᾿Ερετριεὺς ἢ ᾿Ερυθραῖος γραμμάτων ἐὼν διδάσκαλος· «Σοφὸς μὲν δὴ σύ γε εἶ, ὦ Σοφόκλεις, ἐν ποιήσει· ὅμως μέντοι γε οὐκ εὖ εἴρηκε Φρύνιχος πορφυρέας εἰπὼν τὰς γνάθους τοῦ καλοῦ. Εἰ γὰρ ὁ ζωγράφος χρώματι πορφυρέῳ ἐναλείψειε τουδὶ τοῦ παιδὸς τὰς γνάθους, οὐκ ἂν ἔτι καλὸς φαίνοιτο. Oὐ κάρτα δεῖ τὸ καλὸν τῶ μὴ καλῷ φαινομένῳ εἰκάζειν ἄν.» Γελάσας ἐπὶ τῷ ᾿Ερετριεῖ Σοφοκλῆς; «Οὐδὲ τόδε σοι ἀρέσκει ἄρα, ῷ ξένε, τὸ Σιμωνίδειον, κάρτα δοκέον τοῖς ῞Ελλησιν εὖ εἰρῆσθαι· πορφυρέου ἀπὸ στόματος ἰεῖσα φωνὰν παρθένος, οὐδ' ὁ ποιητής, ἔφη .»
Γελασάντων δὲ ὁ μὲν ᾿Ερετριεὺς ἐνωπήθη τῇ ἐπιραπὶζει, ὃ δὲ πάλιν τοῦ παιδὸς τῷ λόγῳ εἴχετο. Εἴρετο γάρ μιν ἀπὸ τῆς κύλικος κάρφος τῷ μικρῷ δακτύλῳ ἀφαιρετέοντα, εἰ καθορᾷ τὸ κάρφος. Φάντος δὲ καθορᾶν « Ἄπο τοίνυν φύσησον αὐτὸ, ἵνα μὴ πλύνοιντο ὁ δάκτυλός σευ.» Προσαγαγόντος δ' αὐτοῦ τὸ πρόσωπον πρὸς τὴν κύλικα ἐγγυτέρω τὴν κύλικα τοῦ ἑαυτοῦ στόματος ἤγεν, ἵνα δὴ ἡ κεφαλὴ τῇ κεφαλῇ ἀσσοτέρα γένηται. ῾Ως δ' ἦν οἱ κάρτα πλησίον, περιλαβὼν τῇ χειρὶ ἐφίλησεν. ᾿Επικροτησάντων δὲ πάντων σύν γέλωτι καὶ βοῇ ὡς εὖ ὑπηγάγετο τὸν παῖδα, «Μελετῶ, εἶπεν, στρατηγεῖν, ὦ ἄνδρες· ἐπειδήπερ Περικλῆς ποιεῖν μέν ἔφη, στρατηγεῖν δ' οὐκ ἐπιστασθαι. ᾿Αρ' οῦν οὐ κατ' ὀρθόν μοι πέπτωκεν τὸ στρατήγημα;» Τοιαῦτα πολλὰ δεξιῶς ἔλεγέν τε καὶ ἔπρησσεν ὅτε πίνοι. Τὰ μέντοι πολιτικὰ οὔτε σοφὸς οὔτε ῥεκτήριος ἦν, ἀλλ' ὡς ἄν τις εἷς τῶν χρηστῶν ᾿Αθηναίων.