Gorgias

CalliclesThey say that’s the way to take part in a war or a battle, Socrates.note

SocratesWhat? Have we come, as the saying goes, when the feast is over? Are we too late?

CalliclesAnd a very elegant feast it was. Gorgias gave us a fine display of many things just a little while ago.note

SocratesWell, Callicles, the one to blame for that is Chaerephon here: he made us waste our time in the marketplace.note

ChaerephonNo harm done, Socrates. I’ll make up for it too. Gorgias is a friend of mine, so he’ll give us a display—now, if you like, or some other time, if you’d rather.

CalliclesWhat’s that, Chaerephon? Does Socrates want to hear Gorgias?

ChaerephonThat’s exactly what we’re here for.

CalliclesThen come to my house whenever you like. Gorgias is staying with me, and he’ll give you a display.

SocratesThat’s kind of you, Callicles. But would he be willing 447c to have a discussion with us? I want to find out from him what the power of the man’s craft is, and what it is that he professes and teaches. As for the rest of the display, let him give it some other time, as you suggest.

CalliclesThere’s nothing like asking him yourself, Socrates. In fact this was one part of his display: just now he was inviting anyone in the house to ask whatever he liked, and said he would answer every question.

SocratesThat’s splendid. Chaerephon, ask him.

ChaerephonAsk him what?

SocratesWho he is.

ChaerephonWhat do you mean?

SocratesWell, if he happened to be a maker of shoes, he would presumably answer you that he was a shoemaker. Or don’t you see what I mean?

ChaerephonI see, and I’ll ask him. Tell me, Gorgias, is Callicles here telling the truth when he says you profess to answer any question anyone asks you?

GorgiasIt’s true, Chaerephon. Just now I was making that very claim, and I can tell you that no one has asked me anything new for many years.

ChaerephonThen I suppose you’ll answer easily, Gorgias.

GorgiasYou’re welcome to put that to the test, Chaerephon.

PolusYes, by Zeus—and if you like, Chaerephon, test me. I think Gorgias must be quite worn out; he’s just been through a great deal.note

ChaerephonWhat, Polus? Do you think you’d answer better than Gorgias?

PolusWhat does that matter, as long as I answer well enough for you?

ChaerephonIt doesn’t. Since you want to, then, answer.

PolusAsk.

ChaerephonAll right, I’m asking. If Gorgias happened to be expert in the same craft as his brother Herodicus, what would we rightly call him? Wouldn’t it be the same as we call his brother?note

PolusCertainly.

ChaerephonSo we’d be right to say he was a doctor.

PolusYes.

ChaerephonAnd if he were skilled in the same craft as Aristophon son of Aglaophon, or Aristophon’s brother, what would be the right name for him?note

PolusA painter, obviously.

ChaerephonAs it is, then, since he’s an expert in some craft, what would be the right thing to call him?

PolusChaerephon, there are many crafts among human beings, discovered by experience out of experiences. For experience makes our life proceed by craft, and inexperience by chance. Of each of these, different people partake of different ones in different ways, and the best people partake of the best. Gorgias here is one of these, and he shares in the finest of the crafts.

SocratesWell, Gorgias, Polus certainly seems splendidly equipped for speechmaking. But he isn’t doing what he promised Chaerephon.note

GorgiasHow so, Socrates?

SocratesHe doesn’t seem to me to be answering the question at all.

GorgiasWell, you ask him, if you like.

SocratesNo—not if you yourself are willing to answer. I’d much rather ask you. It’s clear to me from what Polus has said that he has practiced what’s called rhetoric more than conversation.

PolusWhy is that, Socrates?

SocratesBecause, Polus, when Chaerephon asked what craft Gorgias is expert in, you praised his craft as though someone were criticizing it, but you didn’t answer what it is.

PolusBut didn’t I answer that it was the finest?

SocratesYou certainly did. But nobody is asking what Gorgias’ craft is like; we’re asking what it is, and what we ought to call Gorgias. Chaerephon laid out the earlier examples for you, and you answered him well 449a and briefly. Now tell us in the same way what the craft is and what we should call Gorgias. Or rather, Gorgias, you tell us yourself: what should we call you, as an expert in what craft?

GorgiasRhetoric, Socrates.

SocratesSo we should call you a rhetorician?

GorgiasA good one, Socrates, if you want to call me what I “boast myself to be,” as Homer put it.

SocratesYes, I do want to.

GorgiasThen call me that.

SocratesAnd shall we say you’re able to make others rhetoricians too?

GorgiasThat’s just what I profess—not only here but elsewhere too.

SocratesThen would you be willing, Gorgias, to carry on as we’re talking now, one of us asking and the other answering, and to put off for another time lengthy speeches like the one Polus started on? Don’t go back on your promise: be willing to answer the questions briefly.

GorgiasSome answers, Socrates, can only be given at length. Even so, 449c I’ll try to make them as short as possible. In fact this is another of my claims: that no one could say the same things in fewer words than I can.

SocratesThat’s just what we need, Gorgias. Give me a display of exactly that—brevity—and save the long speeches for another time.

GorgiasI will, and you’ll say you’ve never heard anyone speak more concisely.

SocratesCome on, then. You say you’re an expert in the craft of rhetoric 449d and that you could make someone else a rhetorician too. What among the things that exist is rhetoric concerned with? Weaving, for instance, is concerned with making clothes, isn’t it?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesAnd music with composing melodies?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesBy Hera, Gorgias, I do admire your answers: you’re answering as briefly as it’s possible to be.

GorgiasYes, Socrates, I think I do it quite adequately.

SocratesGood. Now answer me in the same way about rhetoric: what among the things that exist is it knowledge about?

GorgiasSpeeches.

SocratesWhat sort of speeches, Gorgias? The ones that show the sick what regimen will make them well?

GorgiasNo.

SocratesSo rhetoric isn’t about all speeches.

GorgiasCertainly not.

SocratesAnd yet it does make people able to speak.

GorgiasYes.

SocratesAnd to understand the things they speak about?

GorgiasOf course.

SocratesNow, 450a the craft we mentioned just now, medicine—does it make people able to understand and speak about the sick?

GorgiasIt must.

SocratesThen medicine too, it seems, is about speeches.

GorgiasYes.

SocratesThe ones about diseases?

GorgiasExactly.

SocratesAnd physical training is about speeches too—the ones about the good and bad condition of bodies?

GorgiasCertainly.

SocratesAnd the other crafts, Gorgias, are the same way. 450b Each of them is about the speeches that concern the particular thing that it’s the craft of.

GorgiasApparently.

SocratesThen why on earth don’t you call the other crafts rhetoric, since they’re about speeches, if you call this one rhetoric because it’s about speeches?

GorgiasBecause, Socrates, the knowledge involved in the other crafts is, practically speaking, all about manual work and activities of that sort, whereas rhetoric has no such handiwork: all its activity and all its effect comes about through speech. 450c That’s why I maintain that the craft of rhetoric is about speeches—and rightly, I claim.

SocratesNow, do I understand what sort of craft you mean to call it? Perhaps I’ll soon know more clearly. But answer me: there are crafts, aren’t there?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesAmong all the crafts, I think, some consist mostly of work and need little speech, and some need none at all: their business could be carried out even in silence—painting, for example, and sculpture, and many others. It’s crafts like these 450d that you seem to me to mean when you say rhetoric isn’t concerned with them. Or not?

GorgiasYou’ve understood me perfectly, Socrates.

SocratesBut there are other crafts that accomplish everything through speech, and need practically no action besides, or very little—arithmetic, say, and calculation and geometry, and draughts too, and many other crafts. Some of these involve about as much speech as action, but most involve more, and for them all their activity and all their 450e effect is achieved through speech. It seems to me you mean that rhetoric is one of these.

GorgiasThat’s true.

SocratesAnd yet I don’t think you mean to call any of these rhetoric—even though, going by your words, you did say that the craft whose effect comes through speech is rhetoric, and someone who wanted to make trouble in the discussion might take you up: “So you’re saying arithmetic is rhetoric, Gorgias?” But I don’t think you’re calling either arithmetic or geometry rhetoric.

GorgiasYou’re right to think so, Socrates, and you take me fairly.

SocratesCome on, then, and finish the answer I asked for. Since rhetoric is one of the crafts that make heavy use of speech, and there are others like it too, try to say what rhetoric’s effect through speech is concerned with. Suppose someone asked me about any of the crafts I just mentioned: “Socrates, what 451b is the craft of arithmetic?” I’d tell him, as you did just now, that it’s one of those whose effect comes through speech. And if he went on to ask, “One of those concerned with what?” I’d say it’s knowledge of the even and the odd, however many of each there may be.

GorgiasAnd you’d be right, Socrates.

SocratesNow you do the same, Gorgias. Rhetoric is one of the crafts that accomplish and achieve everything by speech, isn’t it?

GorgiasThat’s so.

SocratesThen tell me: concerned with what? What is this thing among the things that exist that these speeches used by rhetoric are about?

GorgiasThe greatest of human affairs, Socrates, and the best.

SocratesBut Gorgias, that’s disputable too, what you’re saying, 451e and still not at all clear. I expect you’ve heard people at drinking parties singing that song where they count off that the best thing is to be healthy, the second is to be good-looking, and the third, as the songwriter puts it, is to be rich without fraud.note

GorgiasYes, I’ve heard it. But what’s your point?

SocratesThat the producers of the things the songwriter praised might suddenly stand before you—a doctor, a trainer and a businessman—and first the doctor might say, “Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you. It isn’t his craft that deals with the greatest good for human beings; it’s mine.” Then if I asked him, “And who are you, to say this?” he’d presumably say he was a doctor. “What do you mean, then? Is the product of your craft the greatest good?” “Of course, Socrates,” he might well say, “it’s health.

GorgiasThe thing, Socrates, that truly is the greatest good, and the source both of freedom for people themselves and, for each person, of rule over others in his own city.

SocratesAnd what do you say that is?

GorgiasBeing able to persuade by speech—jurors in a court, councillors in the Council, assemblymen in the Assembly, and people in any other gathering that is a gathering of citizens. And with this power you’ll have the doctor as your slave, and the trainer as your slave, and this businessman of yours will turn out to be making money for someone else, not for himself—for you, who are able to speak and persuade the masses.note

SocratesNow, Gorgias, I think you’ve come very close to showing 453a what craft you take rhetoric to be. If I understand you, you’re saying that rhetoric is a producer of persuasion, and its whole business and the sum of it comes down to this. Or can you say that rhetoric is able to do anything more than produce persuasion in the souls of its hearers?

GorgiasNot at all, Socrates. I think you’ve defined it adequately. That is the sum of it.

SocratesThen listen, Gorgias. You can be sure that, as 453b I’m convinced myself, if anyone ever has a discussion with someone else because he wants to know what the discussion is actually about, I’m one of those people. And I count you one too.

GorgiasWhat of it, Socrates?

SocratesI’ll tell you now. Rest assured that I don’t clearly know what this persuasion from rhetoric is that you speak of, or what matters it is persuasion about. Still, I do have a suspicion about which persuasion I think you mean, and about what. Nonetheless I’ll ask you what persuasion you mean that comes from 453c rhetoric, and what it’s about. Why, then, since I have a suspicion myself, will I ask you rather than say it myself? Not for your sake but for the argument’s, so that it moves forward in the way that makes its subject clearest to us.

GorgiasCertainly.

SocratesBecause there are other painters as well, who paint many other living things?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesBut if no one except Zeuxis painted, your answer would have been a good one?

GorgiasOf course.

SocratesCome on, then, and tell me about rhetoric. Do you think rhetoric is the only craft that produces persuasion, or do other crafts too? Here’s what I mean. When someone teaches anything at all, does he persuade people of what he teaches, or not?

GorgiasCertainly he does, Socrates. He persuades more than anyone.

SocratesThen let’s go back to the same crafts we were talking about just now. Doesn’t arithmetic teach us the facts about number—and so does the arithmetician?

GorgiasCertainly.

SocratesAnd so it persuades too?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesSo arithmetic is a producer of persuasion too?

GorgiasApparently.

SocratesThen if someone asks us what sort of persuasion, and about what, we’ll presumably answer him: the teaching kind, about the even 454a and the odd, and how many there are. And we’ll be able to show that all the other crafts we mentioned just now are producers of persuasion, and of what sort, and about what. Or not?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesSo rhetoric isn’t the only producer of persuasion.

GorgiasThat’s true.

SocratesWell then, since it isn’t the only one to accomplish this result, and others do too, we’d be right to go on and ask the speaker, as we did about the painter: “Of what sort of persuasion, and persuasion about what, is rhetoric the craft?” Or don’t you think 454b it’s fair to ask that further question?

GorgiasI do.

SocratesThen answer, Gorgias, since you agree.

GorgiasWell, Socrates, I mean the persuasion that takes place in the courts and in other crowds, as I said a moment ago, and it’s about what is just and unjust.

SocratesI did suspect you meant this persuasion, Gorgias, and about these things. But don’t be surprised if a little later I ask you something like this—something that seems obvious, 454c but I ask about it anyway. As I say, I’m asking so that the argument may be carried through in order—not for your sake, but so that we don’t get into the habit of guessing and snatching each other’s words away in advance. I want you to carry through your own views, on your own premises, however you like.

GorgiasAnd I think you’re quite right to do so, Socrates.

SocratesCome on, then, let’s look at this too. Is there something you call “having learned”?

GorgiasThere is.

SocratesWell, and “having come to believe”?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesDo you think having learned and having come to believe—learning and belief—are the same thing, or different?

GorgiasI think they’re different, Socrates.

SocratesAnd you’re right. You can tell from this: if someone asked you, “Gorgias, is there such a thing as false belief and true belief?” you’d say there is, I think.

GorgiasYes.

SocratesWell, is there false knowledge and true knowledge?

GorgiasNot at all.

SocratesThen it’s clear they aren’t the same.

GorgiasThat’s true.

SocratesAnd yet both those who have learned and those who have come to believe have been persuaded.

GorgiasThat’s so.

SocratesShall we propose, then, two kinds of persuasion: one that provides belief without knowing, and one that provides knowledge?

GorgiasCertainly.

SocratesThen which persuasion does rhetoric produce in the courts and other crowds about what’s just and unjust? The one that results in believing without knowing, or the one that results in knowing?

GorgiasObviously, Socrates, the one that results in believing.

SocratesSo rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion 455a that brings belief but doesn’t teach, about what’s just and unjust.

GorgiasYes.

SocratesThen the rhetorician doesn’t teach courts and other crowds about what’s just and unjust; he only makes them believe. After all, he could hardly teach so large a crowd such important matters in a short time.

GorgiasCertainly not.

SocratesCome on, then, let’s see what we’re actually saying about 455b rhetoric. For my part, I can’t yet make out what I’m saying myself. When the city holds a meeting to choose doctors, or shipbuilders, or any other body of craftsmen, surely the rhetorician won’t be the one to give advice then? Clearly in each choice it’s the most skilled person who ought to be chosen. Nor will he advise when it’s a matter of building walls or equipping harbors or dockyards: the master builders will. Nor again when there’s a decision about choosing generals, or drawing up troops against the enemy, or 455c seizing positions: then the military experts will give advice, and the rhetoricians won’t. Or what do you say about such cases, Gorgias? Since you claim both to be a rhetorician yourself and to make others rhetoricians, it’s right to learn about your craft from you.

GorgiasWell, Socrates, I’ll try to reveal the whole power of rhetoric to you clearly—since you yourself have led the way so well. You know, of course, that these dockyards 455e and the walls of Athens and the equipping of the harbors came about on the advice of Themistocles, and some of it on the advice of Pericles—not on the advice of the craftsmen.note

SocratesSo they say about Themistocles, Gorgias. As for Pericles, I heard him myself when he was advising us about the middle wall.note

GorgiasAnd whenever there’s a choice of the kind you were just talking about, Socrates, you see that it’s the rhetoricians who give the advice and whose proposals carry the day.

SocratesIt’s because I’m amazed at that, Gorgias, that I’ve been asking all this while what on earth the power of rhetoric is. When I look at it this way, it seems to me something supernatural in its magnitude.

GorgiasIf only you knew the whole of it, Socrates! It gathers up practically all powers and holds them under its sway. 456b I’ll give you strong evidence. Many times I’ve gone with my brother and other doctors to visit one of their patients who wouldn’t take his medicine or let the doctor cut or cauterize him, and when the doctor couldn’t persuade him, I persuaded him—by no other craft than rhetoric. And I say that if a rhetorician and a doctor went into any city you like and had to compete in speeches before the Assembly or some other gathering over which of them should be chosen as doctor, the doctor 456c would be nowhere; the man able to speak would be chosen, if he wanted.

SocratesGorgias, I think you too have had experience of many discussions and have noticed something like this in them: people can’t easily define for one another whatever they set out to discuss, learn from and teach each other, 457d and so bring their conversation to an end. Instead, if they disagree about something and one says the other isn’t speaking correctly or clearly, they get angry and think the other is speaking out of spite, because he wants to win and isn’t looking into the question under discussion. Some of them end up parting in the most shameful way, heaping abuse on each other and saying and hearing such things that even the bystanders are annoyed on their own account for having thought such people worth 457e listening to. Why do I say this?

GorgiasWell, Socrates, I say I’m the sort of person you describe too. But perhaps we should also think about the people here. Quite a while ago, before you all came, I gave them a long display, and now we might drag things out a long way 458c if we have a discussion. So we should consider them too, in case we’re keeping some of them who want to do something else.

ChaerephonYou can hear the noise these gentlemen are making yourselves, Gorgias and Socrates: they want to hear anything you have to say. As for me, I hope I’m never so busy that I’d drop discussions like this, conducted like this, because something else was more important to do.

CalliclesBy the gods, Chaerephon, I’ve been present at many discussions myself, and I don’t know that I’ve ever enjoyed one as much as this. So as far as I’m concerned, even if you want to talk the whole day, you’ll be doing me a favor.

SocratesWell, Callicles, nothing’s stopping me, if Gorgias is willing.

GorgiasIt would be shameful of me after this, Socrates, not to be willing, when I myself invited anyone to ask whatever he liked. 458e So if these people agree, carry on the discussion and ask what you like.

SocratesThen listen, Gorgias, to what surprises me in what you’ve said. Perhaps you’re right and I’m not understanding you rightly. You say you can make someone a rhetorician if he wants to learn from you?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesSo that he’s persuasive about everything before a crowd—not by teaching but 459a by persuading?

GorgiasCertainly.

SocratesYou said just now, you know, that even about health the rhetorician will be more persuasive than the doctor.

GorgiasI did—before a crowd, at any rate.

SocratesAnd “before a crowd” means among those who don’t know? Surely he won’t be more persuasive than the doctor among those who do know.

GorgiasThat’s true.

SocratesSo if he’s going to be more persuasive than the doctor, he becomes more persuasive than the one who knows?

GorgiasCertainly 459b he does.

SocratesThough he isn’t a doctor, is he?

GorgiasNo.

SocratesAnd someone who isn’t a doctor presumably lacks knowledge of what the doctor knows.

GorgiasObviously.

SocratesSo the one who doesn’t know will be more persuasive among those who don’t know than the one who does know, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the doctor. Is that what follows, or something else?

GorgiasThat’s what follows in this case, yes.

SocratesAnd isn’t the rhetorician, and rhetoric, in the same position with regard to all the other crafts too? It doesn’t need to know how things actually are; it just needs to have found some 459c device of persuasion so as to appear, to those who don’t know, to know more than those who do.

GorgiasBut isn’t that a great convenience, Socrates—to learn not the other crafts but just this one, and yet come off no worse than the craftsmen?

SocratesWhether the rhetorician comes off worse than the others or not because of this, we’ll look into shortly, if it’s relevant to our argument. But first let’s consider this. Is 459d the rhetorician in the same position about what is just and unjust, shameful and fine, good and bad, as he is about health and the subjects of the other crafts? Does he not know these things themselves—what is good or bad, fine or shameful, just or unjust—but has devised persuasion about them, so that, not knowing, he seems to those who don’t know 459e to know more than the one who does? Or must he know, and must the person who is going to learn rhetoric from you come to you already knowing these things?

GorgiasWell, Socrates, I suppose if he happens not to know them, he’ll learn these things from me too.

SocratesHold it there—that’s well said. If you make someone a rhetorician, he must know what is just and unjust, having learned it either beforehand or later from you.

GorgiasCertainly.

SocratesWell then: someone who has learned carpentry is a carpenter, isn’t he?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesAnd someone who has learned music is a musician?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesAnd someone who has learned medicine is a doctor? And so on with the rest by the same reasoning: someone who has learned each thing is such as the knowledge of it makes him?

GorgiasCertainly.

SocratesThen by this reasoning, someone who has learned what is just is just?

GorgiasAbsolutely, of course.

SocratesAnd the just man, I take it, does just things.

GorgiasYes.

SocratesThen the rhetorician must be just, and the just man must want to do just things?

GorgiasSo it appears.

SocratesSo the just man will never want to do wrong.

GorgiasNecessarily.

SocratesAnd according to the argument, the rhetorician must be just.

GorgiasYes.

SocratesSo the rhetorician will never want to do wrong.

GorgiasApparently not.

SocratesNow, do you remember saying a little earlier that we shouldn’t blame 460d the trainers or banish them from our cities if a boxer uses his boxing, and uses it unjustly and does wrong—and in the same way, if the rhetorician uses rhetoric unjustly, we shouldn’t blame his teacher or drive him out of the city, but the one who does wrong and doesn’t use rhetoric rightly? Was that said or not?

GorgiasIt was.

SocratesBut now 460e this same man, the rhetorician, turns out to be someone who would never do wrong. Or not?

GorgiasSo it appears.

SocratesAnd at the start of our discussion, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric was about speeches—not those about the even and the odd, but those about the just and the unjust. Wasn’t it?

GorgiasYes.

SocratesWell, when you said that then, I took it that rhetoric could never be an unjust thing, since it always makes its speeches about justice. But when a little later you said that the rhetorician 461a might even use rhetoric unjustly, I was surprised, and thinking that what was being said didn’t hang together, I said what I did then: that if you thought being refuted was a gain, as I do, it would be worth having the discussion, but if not, we should let it go. And now that we’ve looked into it, you can see for yourself that it’s agreed, on the contrary, that the rhetorician can’t use rhetoric unjustly or be willing to do wrong. So how these matters really stand—by the 461b dog, Gorgias!—will take more than a short conversation to examine properly.note

PolusWhat’s this, Socrates? Do you really believe what you’re now saying about rhetoric? Or do you think—just because Gorgias was ashamed not to agree with you that the rhetorician also knows what’s just and fine and good, and that if someone came to him without knowing these things he would teach them himself, and then, from this agreement perhaps, some contradiction turned up in the 461c argument—the very thing you love, since you yourself led him into such questions (for who do you think would deny that he himself knows what’s just and would teach it to others?)—well, dragging the argument into that sort of thing is thoroughly boorish.

SocratesPolus, my fine fellow, that’s exactly why we deliberately acquire friends and sons: so that when we get older and stumble, you younger people will be there to set our lives straight, in deeds and in words. And now, if Gorgias and I 461d are stumbling in the argument, you’re here—set us straight. It’s only right that you should. And if you think anything we’ve agreed to was wrongly agreed, I’m willing to take back whatever you like, provided you observe just one thing for me.

PolusWhat’s that?

SocratesThat you keep a lid on the long speeches, Polus, which you tried to use at the start.

PolusWhat? Won’t I be allowed to say as much as I like?

SocratesThat would be hard on you, my good friend, if you came to Athens, where there’s more freedom of speech than anywhere in Greece, and then you alone were denied it here. But look at it the other way: if you talk at length and won’t answer the question, wouldn’t it be hard on me in turn if I’m not allowed 462a to go away and not listen to you? No—if you care at all about the argument we’ve had and want to set it straight, take back whatever you like, as I said just now, and take your turn asking and being asked, as Gorgias and I did, refuting and being refuted. You claim, I take it, that you know the same things Gorgias does, don’t you?

PolusI do.

SocratesAnd you too invite people to ask you whatever they like, each time, since you know how to answer?

PolusCertainly.

SocratesThen now do whichever of these you like: ask or answer.

PolusAll right, I will. Answer me, Socrates. Since you think Gorgias is at a loss about rhetoric, what do you say it is?

SocratesAre you asking what craft I say it is?

PolusI am.

SocratesNone at all, in my view, Polus—to tell you the truth.

PolusWell, what do you think rhetoric is?

SocratesThe thing that you say, in the treatise 462c I read recently, produced craft.

PolusWhat do you mean?

SocratesA sort of knack.note

PolusSo you think rhetoric is a knack?

SocratesI do, unless you say something else.

PolusA knack for what?

SocratesFor producing a certain gratification and pleasure.

PolusThen don’t you think rhetoric is a fine thing, being able to gratify people?

SocratesWhat, Polus? Have you already found out from me what I say 462d it is, so that you ask next whether I think it’s fine?

PolusHaven’t I found out that you say it’s a sort of knack?

SocratesSince you prize gratification, then, would you like to gratify me in a small way?

PolusSure.

SocratesAsk me now what craft I think cookery is.

PolusAll right, I’m asking: what craft is cookery?

SocratesNone, Polus.

PolusThen what? Tell me.

SocratesI’ll tell you: a sort of knack.

PolusFor what? Tell me.

SocratesI’ll tell you: for producing gratification and 462e pleasure, Polus.

PolusSo cookery and rhetoric are the same thing?

SocratesNot at all. But they’re parts of the same practice.

PolusWhat practice do you mean?

SocratesI’m afraid it may be rather rude to tell the truth. I hesitate to say it because of Gorgias, in case he thinks I’m making fun of his own practice. For my part, I don’t know whether this is the rhetoric Gorgias 463a practices—in fact nothing became clear to us just now from the discussion about what he thinks it is. But what I call rhetoric is a part of something that’s not at all fine.

GorgiasOf what, Socrates? Tell us—don’t hold back on my account.

SocratesWell, Gorgias, it seems to me there’s a practice that isn’t a craft, but belongs to a soul that’s good at guessing, bold, and naturally clever at dealing with people. The sum of it 463b I call flattery. This practice seems to me to have many other parts, and one of them is cookery, which seems to be a craft but, as I argue, isn’t a craft but a knack and a routine. Rhetoric too I call a part of it, and cosmetics as well, and sophistry—these four parts, for four kinds of thing. So if Polus wants to find out, let him find out. He hasn’t 463c yet found out what sort of part of flattery I say rhetoric is; he hasn’t noticed that I haven’t answered that yet, and he goes on to ask whether I don’t think it’s fine.

PolusAll right, I’m asking: answer what sort of part it is.

SocratesWould you understand if I answered? Rhetoric, on my account, is a phantom of a part of statesmanship.

PolusWell? Do you call it fine or shameful?

SocratesShameful—since I call bad things shameful—seeing that I have to answer you as though you already knew what I mean.

GorgiasBy Zeus, Socrates, even I don’t understand what you mean.

SocratesNaturally, Gorgias, since I’m not saying anything clear yet. But Polus here is young and quick.note

GorgiasWell, never mind him. Tell me what you mean by saying rhetoric is a phantom of a part of statesmanship.

SocratesAll right, I’ll try to explain what rhetoric appears to me to be. If it turns out not to be this, Polus here 464a will refute me. I take it there’s something you call body, and something you call soul?

GorgiasOf course.

SocratesAnd do you think each of these has a good condition?

GorgiasI do.

SocratesWell, and a condition that seems good but isn’t? Here’s the sort of thing I mean. Many people seem to be in good bodily condition, and no one could easily tell that they aren’t, except a doctor or a trainer.

GorgiasThat’s true.

GorgiasThat’s so.

SocratesCome on, then, and I’ll show you more clearly what I mean, if I can. There being two things, I say there are two crafts. The one concerned with the soul I call statesmanship. The one concerned with the body I can’t give you a single name for offhand, but while the care of the body is one thing, I say it has two parts, gymnastics and medicine. In statesmanship, legislation corresponds to gymnastics, and justice is the counterpart of medicine. 464c Each pair has something in common, since they deal with the same thing—medicine with gymnastics, and justice with legislation—but even so they differ somewhat from each other.

So, as I say, cookery is flattery lurking under medicine. In the same way cosmetics lurks under gymnastics—a mischievous, deceptive, low and servile thing, deceiving with shapes and colors, smoothness and clothes, so that people take on a borrowed beauty and neglect their own, which comes through gymnastics. So, not to make a long speech, I’m willing to put it to you the way geometers do—by now 465c you may be able to follow: as cosmetics is to gymnastics, so sophistry is to legislation; and as cookery is to medicine, so rhetoric is to justice. And yet, as I say, while they are distinct by nature in this way, because they are so close, sophists and rhetoricians get jumbled together in the same field and about the same things, and neither do they themselves know what to make of themselves, nor do other people know what to make of them.

PolusWhat do you say, then? You think rhetoric is flattery?

SocratesNo—I said a part of flattery. Can’t you remember, Polus, at your age? What’ll you do when you’re older?

PolusThen do you think good rhetoricians are held in low regard in their cities, as flatterers?

SocratesIs that a question you’re asking, or the start of some speech?

PolusI’m asking.

SocratesI don’t think they’re regarded at all.

PolusWhat do you mean, not regarded? Don’t they have the greatest power in their cities?

SocratesNo—not if you mean that having power is something good for the one who has it.

PolusThat’s certainly what I mean.

SocratesThen I think rhetoricians have the least power of anyone in the city.

PolusWhat? Don’t they, like tyrants, put to death 466c anyone they like, and confiscate property, and banish from their cities anyone they please?

SocratesBy the dog, Polus, I really can’t tell, with each thing you say, whether you’re saying it yourself and declaring your own opinion, or asking me.

PolusI’m asking you.

SocratesVery well, my friend. Then are you asking me two things at once?

PolusHow two?

SocratesDidn’t you say just now something like, “Don’t rhetoricians put to death 466d anyone they like, like tyrants, and confiscate property and drive out of their cities anyone they please?”

PolusI did.

SocratesThen I tell you that these are two questions, and I’ll answer you on both. I say, Polus, that both rhetoricians and tyrants have the least power in their cities, as I said just now. For they do practically nothing 466e they want to do—though they do whatever seems best to them.

PolusWell, isn’t that having great power?

SocratesNot according to Polus.

PolusNot according to me? I certainly say it is!

SocratesBy the—no, you don’t, since you said that having great power is good for the one who has it.

PolusYes, I do say that.

SocratesThen do you think it’s good if someone who has no sense does what seems best to him? And do you call that having great power?

PolusNo, I don’t.

SocratesThen will you prove that rhetoricians have sense, and that 467a rhetoric is a craft and not flattery, by refuting me? If you leave me unrefuted, the rhetoricians who do what seems good to them in their cities, and the tyrants, will have gained nothing good by it. Power, you say, is a good; but doing what seems good to one without sense is—as you yourself agree—bad. Or not?

PolusI agree.

SocratesSo how could rhetoricians or tyrants have great power in their cities, unless Polus refutes Socrates and shows that they do what they want?

PolusWhy, this fellow—

SocratesI say they don’t do what they want. Go on, refute me.

PolusDidn’t you agree a moment ago—before this—that they do what seems best to them?

SocratesAnd I agree now too.

PolusThen don’t they do what they want?

SocratesI say not.

PolusEven though they do what seems good to them?

SocratesI say so.

PolusThat’s outrageous, Socrates—monstrous!

SocratesDon’t abuse me, my peerless Polus—to address you 467c in your own style. If you’re able to question me, show that I’m wrong; if not, answer yourself.note

PolusAll right, I’m willing to answer, so that I can find out what you mean.

SocratesWell then, do you think people want the thing they’re doing at any given time, or the thing for the sake of which they do what they do? For example, those who take medicine from their doctors—do you think they want what they’re doing, drinking the medicine and suffering, or that other thing, being healthy, for the sake of which they drink it?

PolusObviously 467d being healthy.

SocratesAnd similarly with those who go to sea and do other kinds of business: what they want isn’t what they’re doing at any given time—who wants to sail and run risks and have trouble?—but, I think, that for the sake of which they sail: being rich. It’s for the sake of wealth that they sail.

PolusCertainly.

SocratesThen isn’t it the same with everything? If someone does something for the sake of something else, what he wants isn’t the thing he’s doing but the thing 467e for whose sake he’s doing it?

PolusYes.

SocratesNow is there anything that exists that isn’t either good or bad or in between—neither good nor bad?

PolusNo—everything must be one of those, Socrates.

SocratesAnd you say that wisdom and health and wealth and other things like that are good, and their opposites bad?

PolusI do.

SocratesAnd by things that are neither good nor bad, do you mean things like this: things that sometimes share in the good, 468a sometimes in the bad, and sometimes in neither—sitting, for instance, and walking and running and sailing, or again stones and sticks and other things like that? Isn’t that what you mean? Or is there something else you call neither good nor bad?

PolusNo, those are the ones.

SocratesNow when people do these in-between things, do they do them for the sake of the good things, or the good things for the sake of the in-between ones?

PolusThe 468b in-between things for the sake of the good ones, surely.

SocratesSo it’s in pursuit of the good that we walk, when we walk, thinking it better; and when we stand still, the opposite, we stand still for the same reason—for the sake of the good. Isn’t that so?

PolusYes.

SocratesAnd don’t we also put someone to death, if we do, or banish him or confiscate his property, because we think it better for us to do these things than not?

PolusCertainly.

SocratesSo it’s for the sake of the good that those who do all these things do them.

PolusI agree.

SocratesAnd didn’t we agree that when we do things for the sake of something, we don’t want those things, 468c but the thing for whose sake we do them?

PolusVery much so.

SocratesThen we don’t want to slaughter people, or banish them from cities, or confiscate their property, just like that. If these things are beneficial, we want to do them; if they’re harmful, we don’t. For we want the good things, as you say; what’s neither good nor bad we don’t want, and what’s bad we don’t want either. Isn’t that right? Do you think I’m telling the truth, Polus, or not? Why don’t you answer?

PolusIt’s true.

SocratesThen if we agree on that, when someone—whether he’s a tyrant or an orator—puts someone to death or banishes him from the city or confiscates his property, thinking it better for himself when in fact it turns out to be worse, this man is surely doing what seems best to him. Isn’t he?

PolusYes.

SocratesBut is he also doing what he wants, if in fact these things turn out to be bad? Why don’t you answer?

PolusNo, I don’t think he’s doing what he wants.

SocratesIs there any way, then, that such a man 468e has great power in that city, if having great power is something good, as you agreed?

PolusThere isn’t.

SocratesSo I was telling the truth when I said that it’s possible for a man who does what seems best to him in a city not to have great power, and not to do what he wants.

PolusAs if you, Socrates, wouldn’t welcome the freedom to do whatever seemed best to you in the city, rather than not! As if you don’t envy it when you see someone putting to death whoever he thinks fit, or confiscating his property, or throwing him in chains!

SocratesJustly, you mean, or unjustly?

PolusWhichever way he does it, isn’t it enviable either way?

SocratesHush, Polus!

PolusWhy?

SocratesBecause you shouldn’t envy the unenviable, or the wretched. You should pity them.

PolusWhat? Is that how you think it is with the people I’m talking about?

SocratesHow could it not be?

PolusSo a man who puts to death whoever he thinks fit, and does it justly, seems to you wretched and pitiable?

SocratesNo, not to me; but not enviable either.

PolusDidn’t you just say he was wretched?

SocratesThe one who kills unjustly, my friend—and pitiable besides. The one who kills justly is unenviable.

PolusSurely it’s the one who is put to death unjustly who’s pitiable and wretched.

SocratesLess so than the one who kills him, Polus, and less so than the one who is put to death justly.

PolusHow on earth can that be, Socrates?

SocratesLike this: doing injustice happens to be the greatest of evils.

PolusWhat, that’s the greatest? Isn’t suffering injustice worse?

SocratesNot in the least.

PolusSo you’d rather suffer injustice than do it?

PolusSo you wouldn’t welcome being a tyrant?

SocratesNo—not if by being a tyrant you mean what I mean.

PolusWell, I mean what I said just now: having the freedom in the city to do whatever seems best to you—killing, banishing, and doing everything just as you see fit.

SocratesMy dear fellow, let me say my piece, and then take hold of the argument. 469d Suppose I tucked a dagger under my arm in a crowded marketplace and said to you: “Polus, I’ve just come into a marvelous sort of power, a tyranny. If I decide that any of these people you see here ought to die this very minute, the one I decide on will be dead. If I decide one of them ought to have his head broken, it’ll be broken this very minute; if his cloak ought to be torn to shreds, it’ll be torn. That’s how 469e great my power is in this city.” Now if you didn’t believe me and I showed you the dagger, you’d probably see it and say, “Socrates, on those terms everyone would have great power. By this method you could burn down any house you liked—yes, and the Athenian dockyards and warships and all the ships, public and private.” So this isn’t what having great power is after all—doing what seems best to you. Or do you think it is?

PolusNot like that, no.

SocratesCan you tell me, then, why you find fault with that kind of power?

PolusI can.

SocratesWhy, then? Tell me.

PolusBecause the man who acts that way is bound to be punished.

SocratesAnd isn’t being punished bad?

PolusCertainly.

SocratesWell then, my remarkable friend, once again it appears to you that having great power is good if acting as one sees fit is accompanied by acting beneficially—and that, it seems, is what having great power is; if not, it’s bad and amounts to having little power. 470b But let’s look at this too. Don’t we agree that sometimes it’s better to do the things we were just talking about—putting people to death, banishing them, confiscating their property—and sometimes not?

PolusCertainly.

SocratesThen this, it seems, is agreed by both of us.

PolusYes.

SocratesWhen, then, do you say it’s better to do these things? Tell me where you draw the line.

PolusNo, Socrates, you answer that question yourself.

SocratesAll right, Polus, if you’d rather hear it from me: I say that when someone does these things justly it’s better, and when he does them unjustly it’s worse.

PolusHow hard you are to refute, Socrates! Why, couldn’t even a child show that what you say isn’t true?

SocratesThen I’ll be very grateful to the child—and just as grateful to you, if you refute me and rid me of my nonsense. Don’t grow tired of doing a friend a kindness; go on, refute me.

PolusWell, Socrates, there’s no need to refute you with ancient 470d history. The events of just the other day are enough to refute you and prove that many people who act unjustly are happy.

SocratesWhat events are those?

PolusYou see Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, ruling Macedonia, I take it?note

SocratesIf I don’t see it, I certainly hear of it.

PolusWell, do you think he’s happy or wretched?

SocratesI don’t know, Polus. I’ve never met the man.

PolusWhat? You’d know if you’d met him, but otherwise you can’t tell straight off that he’s happy?

SocratesNo, by Zeus, I can’t.

PolusThen obviously, Socrates, you’ll say you don’t know whether even the Great King is happy.note

SocratesAnd I’ll be telling the truth. I don’t know how he stands in education and justice.

PolusWhat? Does happiness lie entirely in that?

SocratesYes, as I say, Polus. I say that a fine and good man or woman is happy, and one who is unjust and wicked is wretched.

PolusSo by your account this Archelaus is wretched?

SocratesYes, my friend, if he’s unjust.

PolusWell, how could he not be unjust? He had no claim at all to the throne he now holds, since his mother was a slave belonging to Alcetas, Perdiccas’ brother. By rights he was Alcetas’ slave, and if he’d wanted to do what was just he’d have remained Alcetas’ slave and been happy, by your account. As it is, he’s become amazingly wretched, since he’s committed the greatest injustices. 471b First he invited this very man, his master and uncle, on the pretext of restoring to him the throne Perdiccas had taken from him. He entertained him and got him drunk, together with his son Alexander—Archelaus’ own cousin and about his age—and then he threw them both into a wagon, carried them off by night, cut their throats, and made away with them.

SocratesEven at the start of our discussion, Polus, I complimented you because I thought you were well trained in rhetoric but had neglected conversation. And now is this the argument that even a child could refute me with? Have I now been refuted by you, as you think, with this argument, when I claim that the man who does injustice isn’t happy? How so, my good man? Why, I don’t agree with a single thing you say.

PolusThat’s because you don’t want to—you really think as I do.

SocratesMy dear fellow, you’re trying to refute me the orators’ way, like people in the law courts who think they’re refuting someone. There, too, one side thinks it’s refuting the other when it produces many reputable witnesses for its claims, while the man arguing the opposite produces just one, or none. But this kind of refutation is worth nothing when it comes to the 472a truth. A man can sometimes even be convicted by the false testimony of many people who seem to be somebody.

PolusCertainly.

SocratesAnd I say that’s impossible. That’s one point of dispute. Very well. But will a man who does injustice be happy if he meets with justice and punishment?

PolusNot in the least. In that case he’d be most wretched.

SocratesBut if the one who does injustice doesn’t meet with justice, then by your account he’ll be happy?

PolusThat’s what I say.

SocratesBut in my opinion, Polus, the man who does injustice, the unjust man, is wretched in any case—but more wretched if he doesn’t pay the penalty and isn’t punished for his wrongdoing, and less wretched if he does pay the penalty and meets with justice from gods and men.

PolusWhat absurd things you try to say, Socrates!

SocratesI’ll try to get you to say the same things as me, my friend, since I count you a friend. For now, these are the points on which we differ—you look at them too. I said earlier, I think, that doing injustice is worse than suffering it.

PolusCertainly.

SocratesAnd you said suffering it was worse.

PolusYes.

SocratesAnd I said that those who do injustice are wretched, and you refuted me.

PolusYes, by Zeus!

SocratesSo you think, Polus.

PolusAnd I think truly.

SocratesPerhaps. And you, for your part, said that those who do injustice are happy, if they don’t pay the penalty.

PolusAbsolutely.

SocratesAnd I say they’re the most wretched, and those who do pay the penalty less so. Do you want to refute that too?

PolusWhy, that’s even harder to refute than the other, Socrates!

SocratesNot harder, Polus—impossible. The truth is never refuted.

PolusWhat do you mean? If a man is caught acting unjustly, plotting to make himself 473c tyrant, and once caught he’s put on the rack, castrated, and has his eyes burned out; if he suffers many other great outrages of every kind himself, and sees his wife and children suffer them, and finally he’s crucified or burned alive in pitch—this man will be happier than if he escaped, set himself up as tyrant, and lived out his life ruling the city and doing whatever he liked, envied and congratulated on his happiness by the 473d citizens and by foreigners too? Is that what you say is impossible to refute?

SocratesNow you’re trying to scare me with bogeymen, my noble Polus, instead of refuting me; a moment ago you were calling witnesses. Still, remind me of one small thing: “unjustly plotting to make himself tyrant,” did you say?

PolusI did.

SocratesThen neither of them will ever be happier—neither the one who unjustly achieved the tyranny nor the one who pays the penalty. Of two wretched men, neither 473e could be happier. But the one who escapes and becomes tyrant is more wretched. What’s this, Polus? You’re laughing? Is this yet another form of refutation—when someone says something, laugh him down instead of refuting him?

PolusDon’t you think you’ve been refuted, Socrates, when you say things no human being would say? Just ask anyone here.

SocratesPolus, I’m not a politician. Last year, when I was chosen by lot for the Council and my tribe was presiding, and it was my job to put a question to the vote, 474a I made a laughingstock of myself because I didn’t know how. So don’t tell me to put the question to the vote among the people here now. If you have no better refutation than these, then, as I suggested just now, hand it over to me in my turn and try out the kind of refutation I think is called for. For I know how to produce one witness to what I say—the very person I’m talking with—and I let the many go their way. And I know how to put the question to the vote with one person; with the 474b many I don’t even carry on a conversation. So see whether you’ll be willing in your turn to submit to refutation by answering my questions.note

PolusAnd I think that neither I nor anyone else believes it. Would you, then, rather suffer injustice than do it?

SocratesYes, and so would you and everyone else.

PolusFar from it. Neither I nor you nor anyone else would.

SocratesThen won’t you answer?

PolusCertainly. In fact I’m eager to know what on earth you’ll say.

SocratesThen tell me, so you’ll find out, as though I were asking you from the beginning: which do you think is worse, Polus, doing injustice or suffering it?

PolusSuffering it, I think.

SocratesAnd what about this: which is more shameful, doing injustice or suffering it? Answer.

PolusDoing it.

SocratesThen it’s also worse, if it’s more shameful.

PolusNot in the least.

SocratesI see. You don’t 474d think, it seems, that fine and good are the same, or bad and shameful.

PolusNo, I don’t.

SocratesThen what about this? All fine things—bodies, for instance, and colors and shapes and sounds and practices—do you call them fine each time without reference to anything? Take fine bodies first: don’t you say they’re fine either with reference to their use, according to what each is useful for, or with reference to some pleasure, if in being looked at they delight those who look at them? Can you say anything besides these about the fineness of a body?

PolusI can’t.

SocratesAnd isn’t it the same with everything else—shapes and colors too: you call them fine either because of some pleasure or because of some benefit, or both?

PolusI do.

SocratesAnd isn’t it the same with sounds and everything that has to do with music?

PolusYes.

SocratesAnd certainly what has to do with laws and practices—the fine ones, surely, don’t fall outside this: being either beneficial or pleasant or both.

PolusI don’t think so.

SocratesAnd isn’t it the same with the fineness of branches of learning?

PolusCertainly. And that’s a fine definition you’re giving now, Socrates, when you define the fine by pleasure and good.

SocratesAnd the shameful by the opposite—pain and bad?

PolusNecessarily.

SocratesSo when one of two fine things is finer, it’s finer because it exceeds in one of these or in both—either in pleasure or in benefit or in both.

PolusCertainly.

SocratesAnd when one of two shameful things is 475b more shameful, it will be more shameful because it exceeds either in pain or in badness. Isn’t that necessarily so?

PolusYes.

SocratesCome, then: what was being said just now about doing and suffering injustice? Weren’t you saying that suffering injustice is worse, but doing it more shameful?

PolusI was.

SocratesThen if doing injustice is more shameful than suffering it, isn’t it either more painful—and more shameful because it exceeds in pain—or because it exceeds in badness, or both? Isn’t this necessary too?

PolusOf course.

SocratesFirst, 475c then, let’s consider whether doing injustice exceeds suffering it in pain. Do those who do injustice feel more pain than those who suffer it?

PolusNot at all, Socrates, not that.

SocratesThen it doesn’t exceed in pain.

PolusNo, it doesn’t.

SocratesAnd if not in pain, then it could no longer exceed in both.

PolusApparently not.

SocratesThen it’s left to exceed in the other.

PolusYes.

SocratesIn badness.

PolusIt seems so.

SocratesThen since it exceeds in badness, doing injustice would be worse than suffering it.

PolusClearly.

SocratesNow didn’t most people, and you yourself, agree with us earlier that doing injustice is more shameful than suffering it?

PolusYes.

SocratesAnd now it’s turned out to be worse.

PolusIt seems so.

SocratesThen would you welcome what’s worse and more shameful rather than what’s less so? Don’t hesitate to answer, Polus—you won’t come to any harm. Submit yourself nobly to the argument as you would to a doctor, and answer: 475e say yes or no to what I ask.

PolusNo, I wouldn’t welcome it, Socrates.

SocratesAnd would anyone else?

PolusI don’t think so—not on this argument, anyway.

SocratesThen I was telling the truth when I said that neither I nor you nor anyone else would rather do injustice than suffer it. For it happens to be worse.

PolusApparently.

SocratesSo you see, Polus, when one refutation is set beside the other, they’re nothing alike. Everyone else agrees with you except me; but for me you alone are enough, just one 476a man, agreeing and testifying; and I put the question to the vote with you alone and let the others go their way. Let that stand as it is. Next, let’s consider the second point we disagreed about: whether paying the penalty for wrongdoing is the greatest of evils, as you thought, or whether not paying it is greater, as I for my part thought.

Let’s look at it this way. Do you call paying the penalty and being justly punished for wrongdoing the same thing?

PolusI do.

SocratesThen can you say that just things aren’t all fine, insofar as they’re just? Think it over before you answer.

PolusNo, I think they are, Socrates.

SocratesNow consider this too. If someone does something, must there also be something that has it done to it by the one doing it?

PolusI think so.

SocratesAnd does it have done to it what the doer does, and of the same kind as what the doer does? What I mean is this: if someone strikes, must something be struck?

PolusIt must.

SocratesAnd if the 476c striker strikes hard or fast, is what’s struck struck in the same way?

PolusYes.

SocratesSo what happens to the thing struck is of the same kind as what the striker does?

PolusCertainly.

SocratesAnd again, if someone burns, must something be burned?

PolusOf course.

SocratesAnd if he burns severely or painfully, is what’s burned burned just as the burner burns it?

PolusCertainly.

SocratesAnd isn’t it the same account if someone cuts? Something is cut.

PolusYes.

SocratesAnd if the cut is large or deep or painful, the thing cut is cut with the same kind 476d of cut as the cutter cuts?

PolusApparently.

SocratesThen, to sum up, see whether you agree to what I said just now about everything: whatever kind of thing the doer does, the one it’s done to has the same kind of thing done to it.

PolusYes, I agree.

SocratesGiven all that, is paying the penalty having something done to you, or doing something?

PolusNecessarily it’s having something done to you, Socrates.

SocratesBy someone who does it?

PolusOf course—by the one who punishes.

SocratesAnd does the one who punishes rightly 476e punish justly?

PolusYes.

SocratesDoing what’s just, or not?

PolusWhat’s just.

SocratesThen the one being punished, when he pays the penalty, has something just done to him?

PolusApparently.

SocratesAnd we’ve agreed, I think, that just things are fine?

PolusCertainly.

SocratesThen of these two, the one does something fine, and the other—the one being punished—has something fine done to him.

PolusYes.

SocratesAnd if fine, then good? For it’s either pleasant or beneficial.

PolusNecessarily.

SocratesSo the one who pays the penalty has something good done to him?

PolusIt seems so.

SocratesSo he’s benefited?

PolusYes.

SocratesIs it the benefit I suppose it is—does he become better in his soul, if he’s justly punished?

PolusThat’s likely.

SocratesSo the one who pays the penalty is freed from badness of soul?

PolusYes.

SocratesThen is he freed from the greatest 477b evil? Look at it this way. In the matter of a person’s wealth, do you see any badness other than poverty?

PolusNo, just poverty.

SocratesAnd in the body’s condition? Would you say its badness is weakness and disease and ugliness and so on?

PolusI would.

SocratesAnd do you think there’s a kind of wickedness in the soul too?

PolusOf course.

SocratesAnd don’t you call it injustice and ignorance and cowardice and so on?

PolusAbsolutely.

SocratesSo for wealth 477c and body and soul, three things, you’ve named three kinds of defect: poverty, disease, injustice?

PolusYes.

SocratesWhich of these defects is most shameful, then? Isn’t it injustice—in short, the soul’s wickedness?

PolusBy far.

SocratesAnd if most shameful, also worst?

PolusWhat do you mean, Socrates?

SocratesThis: what’s most shameful is always most shameful because it causes either the greatest pain or the greatest harm or both. That follows from what we agreed earlier.

PolusVery much so.

SocratesAnd we’ve just 477d agreed that injustice, and wickedness of soul generally, is most shameful?

PolusYes, we have.

SocratesThen either it’s most distressing, and most shameful of these because it exceeds in distress, or it exceeds in harm, or both?

PolusNecessarily.

SocratesNow is being unjust and intemperate and cowardly and ignorant more painful than being poor or sick?

PolusI don’t think so, Socrates, not from what we’ve said.

SocratesSo it must be by some prodigiously great harm and astonishing badness that the wickedness of the soul exceeds 477e the others and is most shameful of all—since it isn’t by pain, on your account.

PolusApparently.

SocratesBut surely what exceeds in the greatest harm would be the greatest evil there is.

PolusYes.

SocratesThen injustice and intemperance and the rest of the soul’s wickedness are the greatest evil there is?

PolusApparently.

SocratesNow what craft frees us from poverty? Isn’t it moneymaking?

PolusYes.

SocratesAnd from disease? Isn’t it medicine?

PolusNecessarily.

SocratesAnd from wickedness and injustice? If you’re at a loss that way, look at it like this: where do we take people who are sick in body, and to whom?

PolusTo the doctors, Socrates.

SocratesAnd where do we take those who act unjustly and intemperately?

PolusTo the judges, you mean?

SocratesTo pay the penalty?

PolusI agree.

SocratesAnd don’t those who punish rightly punish by using a kind of justice?

PolusClearly.

SocratesSo moneymaking frees us from poverty, 478b medicine from disease, and justice from intemperance and injustice.

PolusApparently.

SocratesWhich of these things you mention is finest?

PolusWhich things do you mean?

SocratesMoneymaking, medicine, justice.

PolusJustice is far superior, Socrates.

SocratesThen again, if it’s finest, it produces either the most pleasure or the most benefit or both?

PolusYes.

SocratesNow is it pleasant to be given medical treatment? Do people enjoy being treated?

PolusI don’t think so.

SocratesBut it’s beneficial, isn’t it?

PolusYes.

SocratesBecause the patient is freed from a great evil, so that it pays to put up with the pain and be healthy.

PolusOf course.

SocratesThen would a man be happiest where his body is concerned by being treated, or by not being sick in the first place?

PolusObviously by not being sick.

SocratesBecause happiness, it seems, wasn’t being freed from an evil, but never having it in the first place.

PolusThat’s so.

SocratesWell then, of two people who have something bad, whether in body or in soul, which is more wretched: the one who is treated and freed from the bad thing, or the one who isn’t treated but keeps it?

PolusThe one who isn’t treated, it seems to me.

SocratesAnd wasn’t paying the penalty a release from the greatest evil, wickedness?

PolusIt was.

SocratesBecause justice, I suppose, teaches people self-control and makes them more just; it turns out to be a medicine for wickedness.

PolusYes.

SocratesSo the happiest is the one who has no badness in his soul, since that 478e has turned out to be the greatest of evils.

PolusClearly.

SocratesAnd second, I suppose, is the one who is freed from it.

PolusIt seems so.

SocratesAnd that was the one who is admonished and rebuked and pays the penalty.

PolusYes.

SocratesSo the one who lives worst is the one who has injustice and isn’t freed from it.

PolusApparently.

SocratesAnd isn’t this in fact the man who commits the greatest wrongs and practices the greatest injustice, and then manages to avoid being admonished 479a or punished or paying the penalty—just as you say Archelaus has contrived to do, and the other tyrants and orators and potentates?

PolusIt seems so.

SocratesFor what these people have managed, my excellent friend, is pretty much the same as if someone afflicted with the worst diseases managed not to pay the penalty to the doctors for his bodily faults, and not to be treated, because like a child he was afraid of being cauterized and cut, since 479b it hurts. Or don’t you think so too?

PolusI do.

SocratesBecause he doesn’t know, it seems, what health and bodily excellence are like. And from what we’ve now agreed, Polus, those who run away from justice are probably doing something similar: they see what’s painful in it but are blind to what’s beneficial, and don’t realize how much more wretched than living with an unhealthy body it is to live with a soul that isn’t healthy but rotten, unjust 479c and unholy. That’s why they do everything they can to avoid paying the penalty and being freed from the greatest evil, providing themselves with money and friends and the ability to speak as persuasively as possible. But if what we’ve agreed is true, Polus, do you see what follows from the argument? Or would you like us to draw the conclusions together?

PolusIf you think so.

SocratesDoesn’t it follow that injustice and doing 479d injustice are the greatest evil?

PolusIt seems so.

SocratesAnd paying the penalty turned out to be a release from this evil?

PolusIt looks that way.

SocratesAnd not paying it is a continuing in the evil?

PolusYes.

SocratesSo doing injustice is second among evils in magnitude; but doing injustice and not paying the penalty is by its nature the greatest and first of all evils.

PolusIt seems so.

SocratesNow wasn’t this what we disagreed about, my friend? You called Archelaus happy, the man who commits the greatest injustices 479e and pays no penalty at all, while I thought the opposite: that whether it’s Archelaus or anyone else at all who does injustice and doesn’t pay the penalty, he deserves to be wretched beyond all other men; and that the one who does injustice is always more wretched than the one who suffers it, and the one who doesn’t pay the penalty more wretched than the one who does. Wasn’t that what I was saying?

PolusYes.

SocratesThen hasn’t it been proved that what I said was true?

PolusApparently.

SocratesVery well. If this is true, Polus, what is the great use of rhetoric? For on what we’ve now agreed, a man should above all guard himself against doing injustice, since it will bring him quite enough evil. Isn’t that so?

PolusCertainly.

SocratesAnd if he does do injustice, he himself or anyone else he cares about, he should go of his own accord where he’ll pay the penalty as quickly as possible—to the judge, as he would to a doctor— 480b hurrying so that the disease of injustice doesn’t become chronic and make his soul fester and turn incurable. Or what are we to say, Polus, if our earlier agreements stand? Isn’t it necessary that this agrees with them only in this way and in no other?

PolusWell, what else are we to say, Socrates?

SocratesSo for defending oneself when one has done injustice, or when one’s parents or friends or children or country do injustice, rhetoric is of no use to us at all, Polus—unless one 480c took it to be useful for the opposite purpose: that one should accuse oneself above all, and then one’s family and whichever of one’s friends happens to be doing injustice at the time; and not hide the wrongdoing but bring it into the open, so that the wrongdoer pays the penalty and becomes healthy; and force oneself and the others not to shrink back, but to submit with eyes shut, bravely, as to a doctor’s cutting and cauterizing, pursuing what is good and fine and not counting the pain. If one’s wrongdoing 480d deserves a flogging, one should submit to the flogging; if prison, to imprisonment; if a fine, pay it; if exile, go into exile; if death, die. One should be the first to accuse oneself and the rest of one’s family, and use rhetoric for this: that by having their wrongdoings exposed they may be freed from the greatest evil, injustice.

PolusIt seems absurd to me, Socrates, though I suppose it agrees with what you said earlier.

SocratesThen either we must undo those conclusions as well, or this necessarily follows?

PolusYes, that is how it stands.

SocratesAnd to turn the other way round: suppose one ought to harm someone, whether an enemy or anyone else—provided only that one isn’t being wronged by the enemy oneself, for that one must guard against—but if the enemy wrongs someone else, one must do everything in one’s power, in both 481a action and speech, to see that he doesn’t pay the penalty or come before the judge. And if he does come before the judge, one must contrive for the enemy to get away and not pay the penalty. If he’s stolen a lot of gold, he shouldn’t give it back but keep it and spend it on himself and his people, unjustly and godlessly. If his crimes deserve death, he shouldn’t die—preferably never, but be immortal in his wickedness, or failing that, live 481b as long as possible in that condition.

CalliclesTell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates serious about this, or is he joking?

ChaerephonHe seems to me to be extraordinarily serious, Callicles. But there’s nothing like asking him yourself.

CalliclesBy the gods, that’s just what I want to do. Tell me, Socrates, 481c are we to take you as serious just now, or joking? Because if you’re serious and what you say happens to be true, wouldn’t the life of us human beings be turned upside down? Wouldn’t we be doing, it seems, the exact opposite of what we should?

SocratesCallicles, if human beings didn’t share some common experience—if some had one experience and others another, and each of us had some private experience unlike everyone else’s—it wouldn’t be easy 481d to show another person what one felt oneself. I say this because I notice that you and I are in fact in the same situation just now: we are both in love, and each of us with two loves—I with Alcibiades son of Clinias and with philosophy, and you with two, the Athenian people and Pyrilampes’ son.note

CalliclesSocrates, you’re swaggering about in these arguments like a real mob orator. And now you’re haranguing us like this because Polus has fallen into the very same trap he accused Gorgias of falling into with you. He said, I think, that when you asked Gorgias whether, if someone came to him wanting to learn rhetoric 482d without knowing what’s just, Gorgias would teach it to him, Gorgias was ashamed and said he would, because of people’s habits—they’d be indignant if anyone said no. And because of that admission he was forced to contradict himself, which is just what you love. And Polus laughed at you then—rightly, in my view. But now he himself has had exactly the same thing happen to him.

That is the truth of it, and you’ll recognize it if you move on to greater things and leave philosophy behind at last. For philosophy, Socrates, is a charming thing, if one engages in it in moderation at the right age; but if one spends more time on it than one should, it ruins a man. For even if someone is very gifted, if he goes on philosophizing well beyond that age, he’s bound to end up without experience 484d of all the things a man must be experienced in if he is to be a fine and good and well-regarded man. Such people become inexperienced in the laws of the city, and in the kind of speech one must use in dealing with people in business, private and public, and in human pleasures and desires—in short, they become utterly inexperienced in human character.

SocratesIf my soul happened to be made of gold, Callicles, don’t you think I’d be delighted to find one of those stones they test gold on—the best one—so that I could apply my soul to it, and if it agreed with me that my soul had been well cared for, I’d know for certain that I was in good condition and needed no further test?note

CalliclesWhat’s the point of that question, Socrates?

SocratesI’ll tell you. I think that in meeting you I’ve met with just such a godsend.

CalliclesHow so?

SocratesI know for certain that if you agree with me on the opinions my soul holds, then these are the very truth. For I realize 487a that anyone who is going to test a soul adequately as to whether it lives rightly or not must have three things, all of which you have: knowledge, goodwill, and frankness. I meet many people who can’t test me because they aren’t wise, as you are. Others are wise, but aren’t willing to tell me the truth because they don’t care about me as you do. And our two visitors here, Gorgias and Polus, are wise and 487b my friends, but rather lacking in frankness and more bashful than they should be. How could they not be?

CalliclesWell, that’s what I said then, and it’s what I say now.

SocratesDo you call the same person “better” and “stronger”? 488c I really couldn’t make out back then what exactly you meant. Do you call the more powerful “stronger,” and must the weaker obey the more powerful? That’s what you seemed to be showing me then too, when you said that big cities attack small ones in accordance with natural justice because they are stronger and more powerful—as though stronger, more powerful and better were the same thing. Or is it possible to be better but weaker and feebler, and to be stronger but more wicked? Or is the 488d definition of the better and the stronger the same? Define this very point for me clearly: are the stronger, the better and the more powerful the same or different?

CalliclesI’m telling you clearly: they’re the same.

SocratesNow aren’t the many stronger by nature than the one? They’re the ones, after all, who make the laws against the one, as you yourself were saying just now.

CalliclesOf course.

SocratesSo the rules of the many are the rules of the stronger.

CalliclesCertainly.

SocratesAnd so the rules of the better? For by your account the stronger are far better.

CalliclesYes.

SocratesThen their rules are fine by nature, since they’re the stronger?

CalliclesI say so.

SocratesNow do the many believe, as you yourself were saying again just now, that it is just to have an equal share, and that doing injustice is more shameful 489a than suffering it? Is that so or not? And mind you don’t get caught being ashamed yourself this time. Do the many believe, or don’t they, that having an equal share, not more, is just, and that doing injustice is more shameful than suffering it? Don’t begrudge me an answer on this, Callicles, so that if you agree with me I can have it confirmed by you at last, since a man competent to judge will have agreed.

CalliclesWell, the many do believe that.

SocratesSo it isn’t only by convention that doing injustice is more shameful than 489b suffering it, or that having an equal share is just, but by nature too. It looks, then, as if what you said earlier wasn’t true, and you were wrong to accuse me of saying that convention and nature are opposed—and that I, knowing this, play dirty in arguments: if someone speaks in terms of nature, I steer him to convention, and if in terms of convention, to nature.

CalliclesThis man will never stop talking drivel! Tell me, Socrates, aren’t you ashamed, at your age, to go hunting after words, and 489c to treat it as a windfall if someone slips up on a phrase? Do you imagine that by “stronger” I mean anything other than “better”? Haven’t I been telling you for ages that I say the better and the stronger are the same? Or do you think I mean that if a rabble of slaves and all sorts of people gets together, people worth nothing except perhaps for their bodily strength, and they declare something, then that is the law?

SocratesVery well, Callicles, you wisest of men. Is that what you mean?

CalliclesAbsolutely.

SocratesWell, my remarkable friend, I’ve been guessing for some time myself that this sort of thing was what you meant by “stronger,” and I keep questioning you because I’m eager to know clearly what you mean. For surely you don’t think two people are better than one, or your slaves better than you because they’re more powerful than you are. So start again from the beginning and tell me: what on earth do you mean by the better, since you don’t mean the more powerful? And, my wonderful friend, go easier on me with my first lessons, or I’ll stop coming to your school.

CalliclesYou’re being ironic, Socrates.

SocratesNo, by Zethus, Callicles—the one you made such ironic use of against me just now. But come, tell me: who do you say the better are?

CalliclesThe superior, of course.

SocratesDo you see that you yourself are uttering words and revealing nothing? Won’t you say whether by the better and stronger you mean the more intelligent, or some other people?

CalliclesYes, by Zeus, those are the ones I mean—emphatically.

SocratesSo on your account one intelligent man is often stronger than ten thousand unintelligent ones, and he should rule and they be ruled, and the ruler should have more than those he rules. That’s what you seem to me to mean—and I’m not hunting after phrases—if the one is stronger than the ten thousand.

CalliclesYes, that’s what I mean. For this, I think, is what is just by nature: that the man who is better and more intelligent should both rule and have more than his inferiors.

SocratesHold it right there. What do you mean this time? Suppose we were gathered in the same place, as we are now, many of us together, and we had plenty of food and drink in common, and we were a mixed lot, some strong, some weak; and suppose one of us, being a doctor, were more intelligent about these things, but, as is likely, stronger than some and weaker than others. Won’t this man, since he is more intelligent than us, be better and stronger in these matters?

CalliclesCertainly.

SocratesShould he then have more of this food than the rest of us, because he is better? Or should he, as the one in charge, distribute it all, but when it comes to consuming it and using it up on his own body, not take more than his share, if he isn’t to suffer for it, but have more than some and less than others? And if he happens to be the weakest of all, should the best man get the least of all, Callicles? Isn’t that how it is, my good friend?

CalliclesFood, you say, and drink and doctors and drivel! 490d That’s not what I mean.

SocratesDon’t you say the more intelligent man is better? Yes or no?

CalliclesI do.

SocratesAnd that the better man should have more?

CalliclesNot of food, at any rate, or drink.

SocratesI see. Perhaps of cloaks, then: the best weaver should have the biggest cloak and go around wrapped in the most and the finest?

CalliclesCloaks? What cloaks?

SocratesWell, when it comes to shoes, clearly the 490e man most intelligent and best in that field should have more. Perhaps the shoemaker should walk around wearing the biggest shoes, and the most of them.

CalliclesShoes? What shoes? You keep talking drivel.

SocratesWell, if you don’t mean things like these, perhaps things like this: take a farmer, say, a man intelligent about the land, a fine, upstanding man. Perhaps he should have more seed than others and sow as much seed as possible on his own land.

CalliclesHow you keep saying the same things, Socrates!

SocratesNot only that, Callicles, but about the same things too.

CalliclesBy the gods, you simply never stop going on about shoemakers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if our discussion were about them!

SocratesThen will you tell me in what things the stronger and more intelligent man justly gets the advantage by having more? Or will you neither put up with my suggestions nor say it yourself?

CalliclesBut I’ve been saying it for ages. First, by the stronger I don’t mean shoemakers or cooks, but 491b those who are intelligent about the city’s affairs, about how it would be well run; and not only intelligent but courageous, capable of carrying out whatever they have in mind, and not flagging through softness of soul.

SocratesDo you see, my excellent Callicles, that you and I don’t accuse each other of the same thing? You say I always say the same things, and you find fault with me for it. I say the opposite about you: that you never say the same things about the same subjects. At one moment you were defining the 491c better and stronger as the more powerful, then as the more intelligent, and now you’ve turned up with something else again: according to you the stronger and better are some more courageous people. Come on, my good friend, tell me once and for all whom you mean by the better and stronger, and in what.

CalliclesBut I’ve already said: those who are intelligent about the city’s affairs, and courageous. These are the ones 491d who ought to rule the cities, and justice is this: that they have more than the others, the rulers more than the ruled.

SocratesWhat about over themselves, my friend? Are they rulers or ruled in some way?

CalliclesWhat do you mean?

SocratesI mean each individual ruling himself. Or is there no need for that—ruling oneself—only for ruling others?

CalliclesWhat do you mean, ruling himself?

SocratesNothing complicated, just what most people mean: being self-controlled and master of oneself, ruling the pleasures and desires 491e within oneself.

CalliclesHow charming you are! By the self-controlled you mean the simpletons.

SocratesOf course! Anyone at all can see that’s not what I mean.

CalliclesOh, they very much are, Socrates. For how could a person be happy if he’s a slave to anyone at all? No, what is fine and just by nature is this—and I’m telling you frankly now: the man who is going to live rightly must let his own desires grow as great as possible and not discipline them, 492a and when they are as great as can be, he must be able to serve them through courage and understanding, and fill them with whatever his desire is for at any moment. But this, I think, isn’t possible for the many. So they criticize people like that out of shame, hiding their own incapacity, and they say that intemperance is shameful, as I was saying earlier, enslaving those who are better by nature; and since they themselves can’t provide fulfillment for their pleasures, they praise self-control 492b and justice because of their own lack of manliness.note

SocratesThere’s nothing ignoble, Callicles, about the frankness with which you pursue the argument. You’re saying clearly now what other people think but aren’t willing to say. So I beg you not to let up in any way, so that it may become truly plain how one should live. Tell me: you say that one mustn’t discipline one’s desires if one is to be the kind of person one should be, but let them grow as great as possible and provide them with fulfillment from any source whatever, and 492e that this is virtue?

CalliclesThat’s what I say.

SocratesSo it’s wrong to call those who need nothing happy.

CalliclesYes—that way stones and corpses would be happiest of all.

CalliclesThat last thing you said is nearer the truth, Socrates.

SocratesCome, then, let me give you another image from the same school as this one. Consider whether this is what you’d say about each of the two lives, the self-controlled and the intemperate. Suppose each of two men had many jars. One man’s 493e jars were sound and full, one of wine, one of honey, one of milk, and many others full of many things; and the sources of each of these were scarce and hard to come by, obtainable only with much hard labor. Now the one man, having filled his jars, would pour nothing more in and give them no further thought, but as far as they are concerned would be at peace. The other man, like the first, would have sources he could draw on, though with difficulty; but his vessels would be leaky and rotten, and he’d be forced to keep filling them constantly, night and 494a day, or else suffer the most extreme pains. If each life is like this, do you say the life of the intemperate man is happier than that of the orderly one?

CalliclesYou’re not, Socrates. That man who has filled himself up has no pleasure left at all. That’s what I was just saying: it’s living like a stone, once he’s 494b full, no longer feeling either joy or pain. No, living pleasantly lies in this: in having as much as possible flow in.

SocratesBut if a lot flows in, then a lot must flow out too, and the holes for it to flow out must be pretty big?

CalliclesCertainly.

SocratesNow it’s the life of a plover you’re describing, not that of a corpse or a stone. Tell me: do you mean something like being hungry and, when hungry, eating?note

CalliclesI do.

SocratesAnd being thirsty and, when thirsty, drinking?

CalliclesI do—and having all the other desires, and being able to fill them and enjoy it, and so living happily.

SocratesWell done, my excellent friend! Keep on as you began, and mind you don’t lose your nerve out of shame. And it seems I mustn’t lose my nerve out of shame either. First tell me whether a man who has an itch and wants to scratch, with all the scratching he likes, can live happily spending his whole life scratching.

CalliclesHow absurd you are, Socrates—a regular crowd-pleaser.

SocratesThat’s just how I shocked Polus and Gorgias, Callicles, and made them ashamed. But you won’t be shocked, and you won’t be ashamed: you’re courageous. Just answer.

CalliclesThen I say that even the man who scratches would live pleasantly.

SocratesAnd if pleasantly, then happily too?

CalliclesCertainly.

SocratesWhat if he itches only on his head—or what more shall I ask you? Think, Callicles, how you’ll answer if someone asks you, one after another, about everything that goes along with this. And as the culmination of all such things, the life of men who seek to be the passive partner in sex with other men—isn’t that terrible and shameful and miserable? Or will you dare to say that they are happy, if they have all they want in abundance?

CalliclesAren’t you ashamed, Socrates, to lead the discussion to such things?

SocratesIs it I who am leading it there, my noble friend, or the man who says so unreservedly that those who enjoy themselves, however they enjoy themselves, 495a are happy, and doesn’t distinguish which pleasures are good and which bad? But even now, tell me: do you say that the pleasant and the good are the same, or is there something pleasant that isn’t good?

CalliclesSo that my argument won’t be inconsistent if I say they’re different, I say they’re the same.

SocratesYou’re wrecking your earlier statements, Callicles, and you’d no longer be investigating the truth with me properly if you’re going to say things contrary to what you think.

CalliclesSo are you, Socrates.

SocratesWell then, if I’m doing that, I’m not acting rightly either, any more than you are. But, my blessed friend, consider whether the good is really this: enjoying oneself in any way whatever. For if it is, the many shameful consequences just hinted at evidently follow, and many others besides.

CalliclesSo you think, Socrates.

SocratesAnd do you really insist on these things, Callicles?

CalliclesI do.

SocratesShall we take up the argument, then, on the understanding that you’re serious?

CalliclesAbsolutely.

SocratesCome on, then, since that’s your view, draw this distinction for me. I suppose there’s something you call knowledge?

CalliclesThere is.

SocratesAnd weren’t you saying just now that there’s such a thing as courage along with knowledge?

CalliclesYes, I was.

SocratesAnd you spoke of them as two, meaning that courage is something other than knowledge?

CalliclesVery much so.

SocratesWell then: are pleasure and knowledge the same or different?

CalliclesDifferent, of course, you wisest of men.

SocratesAnd courage is different from pleasure too?

CalliclesOf course.

SocratesCome, then, let’s make sure we remember this: Callicles of Acharnae said that pleasant and good are the same, but that knowledge and courage are different both from each other and from the good.note

CalliclesAnd Socrates of Alopece doesn’t agree with us on this. Or does he?

SocratesHe doesn’t agree. And I don’t think Callicles will either, once he looks at himself properly. Tell me: don’t you think that those who fare well are in the opposite condition to those who fare badly?

CalliclesI do.

SocratesThen, if these are opposites, must it be with them as it is with health and sickness? For surely a person isn’t healthy and sick at the same time, nor is he rid of health and sickness at the same time.

CalliclesWhat do you mean?

SocratesTake any part of the body you like, for example, and 496a consider. A person can be sick in the eyes, with what’s called ophthalmia?

CalliclesOf course.

SocratesSurely he isn’t also healthy in those same eyes at the same time?

CalliclesNot in any way.

SocratesAnd what about when he gets rid of the ophthalmia? Does he then get rid of the health of his eyes too, and in the end is he rid of both at once?

CalliclesNot in the least.

SocratesThat would be amazing, I think, 496b and unreasonable, wouldn’t it?

CalliclesVery much so.

SocratesRather, I think, he gets and loses each of them in turn?

CalliclesI agree.

SocratesAnd strength and weakness likewise?

CalliclesYes.

SocratesAnd speed and slowness?

CalliclesCertainly.

SocratesAnd good things and happiness, and their opposites, bad things and misery—does he get each in turn and get rid of each in turn?

CalliclesAbsolutely, of course.

SocratesSo if we find things that a person is rid of at the same time and has at the same time, clearly these couldn’t be the good and the bad. Do we agree on that? Think it over very carefully before you answer.

CalliclesI agree with it wholeheartedly.

SocratesGo back, then, to what we agreed earlier. Did you say that being hungry is pleasant or painful? I mean being hungry itself.

CalliclesPainful, I’d say. But eating when you’re hungry I say is 496d pleasant.

SocratesI see. But in any case being hungry itself is painful, isn’t it?

CalliclesYes.

SocratesAnd being thirsty too?

CalliclesVery much so.

SocratesShall I ask any more questions, then, or do you agree that every lack and desire is painful?

CalliclesI agree—just stop asking.

SocratesVery well. But drinking when thirsty—you say that’s pleasant, don’t you?

CalliclesI do.

SocratesNow in what you’re describing, being thirsty surely means being in pain?

CalliclesYes.

SocratesAnd drinking is a filling of the lack, and a pleasure?

CalliclesYes.

SocratesSo you say that in drinking one enjoys oneself?

CalliclesVery much.

SocratesWhen thirsty, that is.

CalliclesI agree.

SocratesAnd in pain?

CalliclesYes.

SocratesDo you notice what follows—that you’re saying someone enjoys himself and is in pain at the same time, when you speak of a thirsty person drinking? Or doesn’t this happen at the same time and in the same place, whether of soul or body, as you like? I don’t think it makes any difference. Is that so or not?

CalliclesIt is.

SocratesBut you say it’s impossible for someone faring well to be faring badly 497a at the same time.

CalliclesI do.

SocratesYet you’ve agreed that it’s possible to enjoy oneself while in pain.

CalliclesApparently.

SocratesSo enjoying oneself isn’t faring well, nor is being in pain faring badly; and so the pleasant turns out to be different from the good.

CalliclesI don’t know what clever tricks you’re up to, Socrates.

SocratesYou do know, Callicles; you’re just playing coy. Go on a bit further—you know you’re only playing the fool—so you can see what a wise man it is who 497b lectures me. Doesn’t each of us stop being thirsty and stop feeling pleasure through drinking at the same time?

CalliclesI don’t know what you mean.

GorgiasNo, Callicles, don’t do that. Answer, for our sakes too, so that the discussion can be brought to a finish.

CalliclesBut Socrates is always like this, Gorgias. He asks petty questions of little value and refutes people with them.

GorgiasWhat difference does that make to you? It isn’t your reputation at stake in any case, Callicles. Let Socrates refute you in whatever way he likes.

CalliclesGo on, then, ask your petty, narrow little questions, since that’s what Gorgias wants.

SocratesYou’re a lucky man, Callicles, to have been initiated into the Greater Mysteries before the Lesser. I didn’t think that was permitted. So answer from where you left off: doesn’t each of us stop being thirsty and feeling pleasure at the same time?note

CalliclesI agree.

SocratesAnd stop being hungry, and stop having the other desires and pleasures, at the same time?

CalliclesThat’s so.

SocratesSo we stop having pains 497d and pleasures at the same time?

CalliclesYes.

SocratesBut we don’t stop having good things and bad things at the same time, as you agreed. Or don’t you agree now?

CalliclesI do. So what?

SocratesSo, my friend, good things don’t turn out to be the same as pleasant ones, nor bad things the same as painful ones. For with one pair we stop having both at once, with the other we don’t, since they are different. How, then, could pleasant things be the same as good ones, or painful things the same as bad? And if you like, look at it this way too (for I don’t think you’ll agree this way 497e either—but consider it): don’t you call good people good because of the presence of good things, just as you call beautiful those in whom beauty is present?

CalliclesI do.

SocratesWell, do you call foolish and cowardly men good? You didn’t just now; you said it was the courageous and intelligent. Or aren’t these the ones you call good?

CalliclesAbsolutely.

SocratesWell then, have you ever seen a child with no sense enjoying himself?

CalliclesI have.

SocratesAnd have you never yet seen a man with no sense enjoying himself?

CalliclesI suppose I have. But what of it?

SocratesNothing. Just answer.

CalliclesI have.

SocratesWell, and a man with sense, in pain and enjoying himself?

CalliclesYes.

SocratesWhich enjoy themselves and feel pain more, the intelligent or the foolish?

CalliclesI don’t think there’s much difference.

SocratesThat will do. Now, have you ever seen a cowardly man in war?

CalliclesOf course.

SocratesWell, when the enemy withdrew, who seemed to you to enjoy it more, the cowards or the courageous?

CalliclesBoth, 498b it seemed to me, enjoyed it more; or if not, about equally.

SocratesIt makes no difference. In any case the cowards enjoy themselves too?

CalliclesVery much so.

SocratesAnd the foolish too, it seems.

CalliclesYes.

SocratesAnd when the enemy advance, do only the cowards feel pain, or the courageous too?

CalliclesBoth.

SocratesEqually?

CalliclesThe cowards more, perhaps.

SocratesAnd when the enemy withdraw, don’t they enjoy it more?

CalliclesPerhaps.

SocratesSo the foolish and the intelligent, the cowardly and the courageous, feel pain and enjoyment about equally, 498c as you say, but the cowards more than the courageous?

CalliclesI agree.

SocratesBut the intelligent and the courageous are good, and the cowardly and the foolish bad?

CalliclesYes.

SocratesSo the good and the bad feel enjoyment and pain about equally?

CalliclesI agree.

SocratesThen are the good and the bad about equally good and bad? Or are the bad even more good and bad?

CalliclesBy Zeus, I don’t know what you mean.

SocratesDon’t you know that you say the good are good by the presence of good things, and the bad bad by the presence of bad things? And that pleasures are the good things, and pains the bad?

CalliclesI do.

SocratesSo good things—pleasures—are present to those who are enjoying themselves, if they really are enjoying themselves?

CalliclesOf course.

SocratesSo since good things are present, those who enjoy themselves are good?

CalliclesYes.

SocratesWell, and aren’t bad things—pains—present to those who are in pain?

CalliclesThey are.

SocratesAnd it’s by the presence of bad things, you say, that the bad are bad. Or don’t you say so any more?

CalliclesI do.

SocratesSo whoever enjoys himself is good, and whoever is in pain is bad?

CalliclesCertainly.

SocratesThose who do so more, more so; those who do so less, less so; and those who do so about equally, about equally?

CalliclesYes.

SocratesNow you say that the intelligent and the foolish, the cowardly and the courageous, enjoy themselves and feel pain about equally, or the cowards even more?

CalliclesI do.

SocratesThen work out with me what follows for us from what we’ve agreed. For they say it’s a fine thing 499a to say and examine fine things twice, even three times. We say the intelligent and courageous man is good, don’t we?