[272e]
to expound the whole thing from the beginning. By some providence I chanced to be sitting in the place where you saw me, in the undressing-room,1 alone, and was just intending to get up and go; but the moment I did so, there came my wonted spiritual sign.2 So I sat down again,
1 This gymnasium (the Lyceum) was a public one, open to persons of all ages, and was a common resort of Socrates and the sophists.
2 Socrates believed that his conduct was occasionally guided by a spiritual voice or sign peculiar to himself. By Plato's account it was always negative, but the present instance shows how Xenophon might have some reason for saying that it was sometimes positive.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.
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