Protagoras (311-314)

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.

Soc.

For I tell you there is far more serious risk in the purchase of doctrines than in that of eatables. When you buy victuals and liquors you can carry them off from the dealer or merchant in separate vessels, and before you take them into your body by drinking or eating you can lay them in your house and take the advice of an expert whom you can call in, as to what is fit to eat or drink and what is not, and how much you should take and when; so that in this purchase the risk is not serious. But you cannot carry away doctrines in a separate vessel: you are compelled, when you have handed over the price, to take the doctrine in your very soul by learning it, and so to depart either an injured or a benefited man. These, then, are questions which we have to consider with the aid of our elders, since we ourselves are still rather young to unravel so great a matter. For the moment, however, let us pursue our design and go and hear this person; and when we have heard him we shall proceed to consult others: for Protagoras is not the only one there; we shall find Hippias of Elis and, I believe, Prodicus of Ceos, and numerous other men of wisdom besides. This we resolved on, and set forth; and when we arrived at the doorway, we stood discussing some question or other that had occurred to us by the way: so, not to leave it unfinished, but to get it settled before we went in, we stood there and discussed in front of the door, until we had come to an agreement with each other. Now, I fancy the doorkeeper, who was a eunuch, overheard us; very likely the great number of sophists has made him annoyed with callers at the house: at any rate, when we had knocked on the door, he opened it and, on seeing us,— he said, So saying, he seized the door with both hands and very smartly clapped it to with all his might. We tried knocking again, and then he spoke in answer through the closed door,— But, my good fellow, I said, we have not come to see Callias, nor are we sophists. Have no fear: I tell you, we have come to ask if we may see Protagoras; so go and announce us. Then with much hesitation the fellow opened the door to us;