Protagoras (309-313)

Fr.

Where have you been now, Socrates? Ah, but of course you have been in chase of Alcibiades and his youthful beauty! Well, only the other day, as I looked at him, I thought him still handsome as a man—for a man he is, Socrates, between you and me, and with quite a growth of beard.

Soc.

And what of that? Do you mean to say you do not approve of Homer,[*]

who said that youth has highest grace in him whose beard is appearing, as now in the case of Alcibiades?

Fr.

Then how is the affair at present? Have you been with him just now? And how is the young man treating you?

Soc.

Quite well, I considered, and especially so today: for he spoke a good deal on my side, supporting me in a discussion—in fact I have only just left him. However, there is a strange thing I have to tell you: although he was present, I not merely paid him no attention, but at times forgot him altogether.

Fr.

Why, what can have happened between you and him? Something serious! For surely you did not find anyone else of greater beauty there,—no, not in our city.

Soc.

Yes, of far greater.

Fr.

What do you say? One of our people, or a foreigner?

Soc.

A foreigner.

Fr.

Of what city?

Soc.

Abdera.

Fr.

And you found this foreigner so beautiful that he appeared to you of greater beauty than the son of Cleinias?

Soc.

Why, my good sir, must not the wisest appear more beautiful?

Fr.

Do you mean it was some wise man that you met just now?

Soc.

Nay, rather the wisest of our generation, I may tell you, if wisest is what you agree to call Protagoras.

Fr.

Ah, what a piece of news! Protagoras come to town!

Soc.

Yes, two days ago.

Fr.

And it was his company that you left just now?

Soc.

Yes, and a great deal I said to him, and he to me.

Fr.

Then do let us hear your account of the conversation at once, if you are disengaged take my boy’s place,[*] and sit here.

Soc.

Very good indeed, I shall be obliged to you, if you will listen.

Fr.

And we also to you, I assure you, if you will tell us.

Soc.

A twofold obligation. Well now, listen.

During this night just past, in the small hours, Hippocrates, son of Apollodorus and brother of Phason, knocked violently at my door with his stick, and when they opened to him he came hurrying in at once and calling to me in a loud voice: Then I, recognizing his voice, said: Hippocrates, hallo! Some news to break to me? he replied. Tell it, and welcome, I said: what is it, and what business brings you here at such an hour? he said, standing at my side. Yes, two days ago, I said: have you only just heard? he replied, With this he groped about for the bedstead, and sitting down by my feet he said: Then I, noting the man’s gallant spirit and the flutter he was in, remarked: Well, what is that to you? Has Protagoras wronged you? At this he laughed and, he said, But, by Zeus! I said, if you give him a fee and win him over he will make you wise too. he exclaimed,

Soc.

To this I replied: We had better not go there yet, my good friend, it is so very early: let us rise and turn into the court here, and spend the time strolling there till daylight comes; after that we can go. Protagoras, you see, spends most of his time indoors, so have no fear, we shall find him in all right, most likely. So then we got up and strolled in the court; and I, to test Hippocrates’ grit, began examining him with a few questions. Tell me, Hippocrates, I said, in your present design of going to Protagoras and paying him money as a fee for his services to yourself, to whom do you consider you are resorting, and what is it that you are to become? Suppose, for example, you had taken it into your head to call on your namesake Hippocrates of Cos, the Asclepiad, and pay him money as your personal fee, and suppose someone asked you—Tell me, Hippocrates, in purposing to pay a fee to Hippocrates, what do you consider him to be? How would you answer that? And what would you intend to become? he replied. And suppose you had a mind to approach Polycleitus the Argive or Pheidias the Athenian and pay them a personal fee, and somebody asked you—What is it that you consider Polycleitus or Pheidias to be, that you are minded to pay them this money? What would your answer be to that? And what would you intend to become? Very well then, I said; you and I will go now to Protagoras, prepared to pay him money as your fee, from our own means if they are adequate for the purpose of prevailing on him, but if not, then drawing on our friends’ resources to make up the sum. Now if anyone, observing our extreme earnestness in the matter, should ask us,—Pray, Socrates and Hippocrates, what is it that you take Protagoras to be, when you purpose to pay him money? What should we reply to him? What is the other name that we commonly hear attached to Protagoras? They call Pheidias a sculptor and Homer a poet: what title do they give Protagoras? Then we go to him and pay him the money as a sophist?

Soc.

Now suppose someone asked you this further question: And what is it that you yourself hope to become when you go to Protagoras? To this he replied with a blush—for by then there was a glimmer of daylight by which I could see him quite clearly— In Heaven’s name, I said, would you not be ashamed to present yourself before the Greeks as a sophist? Yet after all, Hippocrates, perhaps it is not this sort of learning that you expect to get from Protagoras, but rather the sort you had from your language-master, your harp-teacher, and your sports-instructor; for when you took your lessons from each of these it was not in the technical way, with a view to becoming a professional, but for education, as befits a private gentleman. he said; Then are you aware what you are now about to do, or is it not clear to you? I asked. I mean your intention of submitting your soul to the treatment of a man who, as you say, is a sophist; and as to what a sophist really is, I shall be surprised if you can tell me. And yet, if you are ignorant of this, you cannot know to whom you are entrusting your soul,—whether it is to something good or to something evil. he said, Then tell me, please, what you consider a sophist to be. he replied, Well, I went on, we are able to say this of painters also, and of carpenters,—that they are the persons who have knowledge of wise matters; and if someone asked us for what those matters are wise, of which painters have knowledge, I suppose we should tell him that they are wise for the production of likenesses, and similarly with the rest. But if he should ask for what the matters of the sophist are wise, how should we answer him? What sort of workmanship is he master of? Perhaps, I replied, we should be speaking the truth, but yet not all the truth; for our answer still calls for a question, as to the subject on which the sophist makes one a clever speaker: just as the harp player makes one clever, I presume, at speaking on the matter of which he gives one knowledge, namely harp-playing,—you agree to that? Well, about what does the sophist make one a clever speaker? So it would seem: now what is this thing, of which the sophist himself has knowledge and gives knowledge to his pupil? he said,

Soc.

I then went on to say: Now tell me, are you aware upon what sort of hazard you are going to stake your soul? If you had to entrust your body to someone, taking the risk of its being made better or worse, you would first consider most carefully whether you ought to entrust it or not, and would seek the advice of your friends and relations and ponder it for a number of days: but in the case of your soul, which you value much more highly than your body, and on which depends the good or ill condition of all your affairs, according as it is made better or worse, would you omit to consult first with either your father

or your brother or one of us your comrades,—as to whether or no you should entrust your very soul to this newly-arrived foreigner; but choose rather, having heard of him in the evening, as you say, and coming to me at dawn, to make no mention of this question, and take no counsel upon it—whether you ought to entrust yourself to him or not; and are ready to spend your own substance and that of your friends, in the settled conviction that at all costs you must converse with Protagoras, whom you neither know, as you tell me, nor have ever met in argument before, and whom you call sophist, in patent ignorance of what this sophist may be to whom you are about to entrust yourself? When he heard this he said: Then can it be, Hippocrates, that the sophist is really a sort of merchant or dealer in provisions on which a soul is nourished? For such is the view I take of him. With doctrines, presumably, I replied. And we must take care, my good friend, that the sophist, in commending his wares, does not deceive us, as both merchant and dealer do in the case of our bodily food. For among the provisions, you know, in which these men deal, not only are they themselves ignorant what is good or bad for the body, since in selling they commend them all, but the people who buy from them are so too, unless one happens to be a trainer or a doctor. And in the same way, those who take their doctrines the round of our cities, hawking them about to any odd purchaser who desires them, commend everything that they sell, and there may well be some of these too, my good sir, who are ignorant which of their wares is good or bad for the soul; and in just the same case are the people who buy from them, unless one happens to have a doctor’s knowledge here also, but of the soul. So then, if you are well informed as to what is good or bad among these wares, it will be safe for you to buy doctrines from Protagoras or from anyone else you please: but if not, take care, my dear fellow, that you do not risk your greatest treasure on a toss of the dice.