The Satyr's Confession

The two of them were able to talk to each other quite freely. Yet the older man was sometimes restless before a planned conversation. His younger friend was like a mirror, a reflection of his pedagogical abilities. His name was Karel, and although he was already over forty, something still compelled him to change partners over and over again. Call it what you will. You might say he has a large sexual appetite, or some sort of perversion, that he is not a mature person. There are facts at play that you have no idea about. And there may be others that even his older and more experienced friend didn't know about. After all, who is granted access to the roots of love? The god Cupid? Even he, as you will see, can be helpless. Nevertheless, he felt obliged to do what he could. If he had made a mistake in his pedagogical influence on his son, it had to be corrected urgently. That's why these conversations came about, which we won't call talks on love—Plato has already written those for us. But they will definitely be about love.