Translated by Brad Inwood

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Chaerephon.

Chaerephon: Socrates, what was that voice that reached us from way down along the beach, under the headland?  It was so sweet to my ears!  What creature can it be that makes that sound?  Surely creatures that live in the sea are silent.

Socrates: It's a sort of sea bird, Chaerephon, called the halcyon, much given to lamenting and weeping.  There is an ancient account about this bird, which was handed down as a myth by men of old.  They say that it was once a woman, the daughter of Aeolus the son of Hellen, who ached with love and lamented the death of her wedded husband, Ceyx of Trachis, the son of Eosphorus the Dawn Star - a handsome son of a handsome father.  And then, through some act of divine will, she grew wings like a bird and now flies about the sea searching for him, since she could not find him when she wandered all over the face of the earth.

Chaerephon: Is it Halcyon that you're referring to?  I had never heard the voice before, it rally did strike me as something exotic.  Anyway, the creature certainly does produce a mournful sound.  About how big is it, Socrates?

Socrates: Not very large.  Yet great is the honour she has been given by the gods because of her love for her husband.  For it's when the halcyons are nesting that the cosmos brings us what are called the 'halcyon days' in mid-winter, days distinguished for their fair weather - today is an especially good example.  Don't you see how bright they sky above is and how the whole sea is calm and tranquil, like a mirror, so to speak?

Chaerephon: You're right; today does seem to be a halcyon day, and yesterday was much like it.  But by the gods, Socrates!  How can we actually believe these ancient tales, that once upon a time birds turned into women or women into birds? All that sort of thing seems utterly impossible.

Socrates: Ah, my dear Chaerephon, we seem to be utterly short-sighted judges of what is possible or impossible - we make our assessment according to the best of our human ability, which is unknowing, unreliable and blind.  Many things which are feasible seem, to us, not feasible, and many things which are feasible seem unattainable - often because of our inexperience, and often because of the childish folly in our minds.  For in fact all human beings, even very old men, really do seem to me as foolish as children, since the span of our lives is small indeed, no longer than childhood when compared with all eternity.  My good friend, how could people who know nothing about the powers of the gods and the divinities, or of nature as a whole, possibly tell whether something like this is possible or impossible?

Did you notice, Chaerephon, how big a storm we had the day before yesterday? Someone pondering those lightning flashes and thunderbolts and the tremendous force of the winds might well be struck by fear; one might have thought the whole inhabited world was actually going to collapse.  But a little later there was an astonishing restoration of fair weather which lasted right up to the present moment.  Do you think then, that it is a greater and more laborious task to conjure up the kind of fair weather out of such an overwhelming storm and disturbance and to bring the entire cosmos into a state of calm, than it is to reshape a woman's form and turn it into a bird's? Even our little children who know how to model such things out of clay or wax can easily work them into all kinds of shapes, all out of the same material.  Since the divinity possesses great power, incomparably greater than ours, perhaps all such things are actually very easy for it.  After all, how much greater than yourself would you say the whole of heaven is?

Chaerephon: Socrates, who among men could imagine or find words for anything of the sort? Even to say it is beyond human attainment.

Socrates: When we compare people with each other, do we not see that there are vast differences in their abilities and inabilities?  Adult men, when compared to mere infants who are five or ten days old, have an amazing superiority in their ability at virtually all practical affairs in life, those carried out by means of our sophisticated skills as well as those carried out by means of the body and soul; these things cannot, as I said, even cross the minds of young children.  And how immeasurably superior is the physical strength of one man grown to full size, compared to them, for one man could easily vanquish thousands of such children; and it is surely natural that in the initial stages of life men should be utterly helpless and incapable of anything.  When one person, as it seems, is so far superior to another, how are we to suppose that the powers of the whole heaven would appear, compared with our powers, to those who are capable of grasping such matters?  Perhaps indeed many people will think it is plausible that, just as the size of the cosmos surpasses the form of Socrates or Chaerephon, so its power and wisdom and intelligence will to the same degree surpass our condition.

For you and me and many others like us, many things are impossible which are quite easy for others to do.  For as long as they lack the knowledge, it is more impossible that people who cannot play the flute should do so or that the illiterate should read or write, than it is to make women out of birds or birds out of women.  Nature virtually tosses into a honeycomb an animal which is footless and wingless; then she gives it feet and wings, adorns it with all kinds of variegated and beautiful colours and so produces a bee, wise producer of heavenly honey; and from mute and lifeless eggs she shapes may species of winged, walking and water-dwelling animals, using (as some say) the sacred arts of the vast aether.  We are mortal and utterly trivial, unable to see clearly either great or small matters and in the dark about most of the things which happen to us; so we could not possibly make any reliable claim about the mighty powers of the immortals, whether as regards halcyons or as regards nightingales1.

O bird of musical lamentations.  I shall pass on to any children the far-famed myth about your songs, just as I received it from my ancestors, and I shall sing frequently to my wives, Xanthippe and Myrto, of your piety and loving devotion to your husband, with special emphasis on the honour you received from the gods.  Will you too do something like this, Chaerephon?

Chaerephon: That would certainly be appropriate, Socrates, and what you say is a double exhortation to the bond between husbands and wives.

Socrates: Well, now it's time to bid farewell to Halcyon, and go on to the city from Cape Phaleron.

Chaerephon: Certainly; let's do so.

1 Legend tells that Procne and Philomela were also turned into birds, one into a nightingale, the other into a swallow.