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97 THE SHREWISH WIFE OF SOCRATES In lively recent contribution ("The Wicked Wife ot Ischomachos," EMC n.s. 3.1 [1984) 68-70), F. D. Harvey suggests an effort "to clear the name and reassert the virtue of a woman [Chrysilla) he [Xenophon] had known and respected". In the same spirit, I hereby propose the exoneration of Xanthippe, Socrates' much-mal igned spouse. In my interpretation, however, Xenophon is no defender of Chrysilla's virtue, so I must first provide a counter-conclusion to the one drawn in Harvey's account. Harvey quotes two passages in which Chrysilla is described. In Xenophon's, she is the very model of a perfect wife; in that of Andocides, a shameless slut. To account for the discrepancy, two solutions are proffered: perhaps the repressed woman broke loose upon the death of her husband, earning (if understandably) the reputation Andocides reports; or perhaps (and this is the explanation Harvey prefers) Xenophon's Oikonomikos, appearing later than Andocides' On the Mysteries, is in part a defence of the woman's character against that earl ier attack. From another article in the same issue (Leslie Schear, "Semon ides Fr.7: Wives and Their Husbands," EMC n.s. 3.1 [1984] 39-49) one receives hints of another line of reasoning, albeit for an entirely different context. One aspect of the interpretation Schear offers of Semon ides' fragment on types of women is that each of the men in the all-male audience would assume that his own wife was the virtuous bee-woman, while believing the wives of his .collow symposiasts to fit the descriptions of despicable wives: "Full of vice the women may be, but their men are not intelligent enough to understand them." If Harvey is correct in supposing that Xenophon had in mind Andocides' attack, it follows equally well from his premises that Xenophon was making ironic use of the slander in that 98 DEBRA NAILS atmosphere of shared misogyny, reminding his listeners that any woman, no matter how well trained, will go wild if the harness is removed: poor deluded Ischomachus, having just boasted to his companion (Oikonomikos 7.17. 32-34) that his young wife is so like a queen-bee, remaining in the hive to direct the drones, to attend to the proper weaving of the honeycomb, and to rear the young correctly. If this more cynical attitude about Xenophon's intentions is nearer the truth, the irony would be deepened by his pairing Socrates and Ischomachus in a discussion of how to transform new brides into housewives. Is there now a ray of light ricocheting toward Xanthippe? Of those whose works are extant who mention Xanthippe, only Xenophon and Plato were her contemporaries; of the two, it is only the former who writes ambiguously of her. In Xenophon's Symposium 2.10, Antisthenes asks Socrates why he would live with a woman most difficult to get along with, to which Socrates replies with a play on her name: I see that men who would become skilled in riding possess not the most tractable but the most spirited horses. They suspect that, if they are able to handle these, any others will be easy. Similarly, I want to associate with mankind and know well that, getting along with her, my associations with all the rest of humanity will be easy. A back-handed compliment, to be sure. In Memorabilia 2, Socratesl and Xanthippe's eldest son, Lamprocles, is depicted as angry at his mother, referring to her as vile-tempered. Socrates talks with the boy at length in defense of Xanthippe. But it is reasonable to suppose that ancient readers of the Memorabilia may have taken the passage as a warning: Socrates married a shrew and was duly duped, just like Ischomachus. I began by saying that I propose an exoneration of Xanthippe. Just as Harvey sees Xenophon as rescuing the reputation of Chrysilla, I see Plato as defending Xanthippe against Xenophon's inappropriate remarks. The only words she ever utters in the Platonic corpus occur at Phaedo 60, when she is seated with Socrates THE SHREWISH WIFE OF SOCRATES 99 in prison, apparently having been with him for some...

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