The Last of the Wine

truth could not be served as a slave serves a master, who gives no reason for his commands; we should seek her rather, he said, as a true lover seeks knowledge of the beloved, to learn entirely what he is and what he needs, not like base lovers seeking only to know what they can turn to gain.

So, then, it now appears, does it not, that the price of an honourable lover is to be honourable ourselves, and that we shall neither get him nor keep him, if we offer anything less?

what price one ought to pay for a true and honourable lover?” I wondered what he could take me for, and answered at once that one ought not to pay anything.
He looked at me searchingly, and nodded his head. “An answer worthy, Alexias, of your father’s son. Yet many things have their price which are not upon the market. Let us see if this is one of them. If we come into the company of such a lover, it seems to me that one of three things will happen. Either he will succeed in making us his equal in honour; or, if he fails both to do this and to free himself from love, seeking to please us he will become less good than he was; or, if he is of stronger mind, remembering what is due to the gods and to his own soul, he will be master of himself, and go away. Or can you see some other conclusion than these?”