Gorgias

Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

CALLICLES: They say, Socrates, that this is how one should turn up for war and battle. SOCRATES: Have we really come, as the saying goes, after the feast, and arrived too late? CALLICLES: Yes, and a very elegant feast it was too — Gorgias just gave us a wonderful display, all sorts of fine things. SOCRATES: Well, Callicles, the blame for that falls on Chaerephon here, who kept us dawdling in the marketplace. CHAEREPHON: No harm done, Socrates — I'll set it right myself. Gorgias is a friend of mine, so he'll give us a display too, now if he's willing, or later if you'd rather. CALLICLES: What's this, Chaerephon? Does Socrates want to hear Gorgias? CHAEREPHON: That's exactly why we're here. CALLICLES: Well then, whenever you like, come to my house — Gorgias is staying with me and will give you a display there. SOCRATES: Good, Callicles. But would he be willing to have a discussion with us? I want to find out from him what the power of the man's art is, and what it is he professes and teaches. The rest of the display he can save for later, as you say. CALLICLES: There's nothing like asking the man himself, Socrates. In fact that was one part of his display — he was just now inviting anyone inside to ask whatever they liked, and said he'd answer anything at all. SOCRATES: Excellent. Chaerephon, ask him. CHAEREPHON: Ask him what? SOCRATES: Who he is. CHAEREPHON: What do you mean? SOCRATES: I mean, if he happened to be a maker of shoes, he'd presumably answer you that he's a cobbler — or don't you follow what I'm saying? CHAEREPHON: I follow, and I'll ask him. Tell me, Gorgias, is it true, as Callicles here says, that you promise to answer whatever anyone asks you?

GORGIAS: It's true, Chaerephon. In fact I was just now promising exactly that, and I'll say too that no one has asked me anything new for years now. CHAEREPHON: Then you must find it easy to answer, Gorgias. GORGIAS: You're welcome to put that to the test, Chaerephon. POLUS: Yes indeed — and if you like, Chaerephon, test it on me instead. Gorgias looks worn out to me; he's just been through a great deal. CHAEREPHON: What's this, Polus? Do you think you'd answer better than Gorgias? POLUS: What does that matter, so long as it's good enough for you? CHAEREPHON: It doesn't matter — since you want to, go ahead and answer. POLUS: Ask away. CHAEREPHON: Very well, I will. If Gorgias happened to have expert knowledge of the same art as his brother Herodicus, what would we rightly call him? The same as we call his brother? POLUS: Certainly. CHAEREPHON: Then we'd be right to call him a doctor. POLUS: Yes. CHAEREPHON: And if he had expertise in the same art as Aristophon son of Aglaophon, or his brother, what would we rightly call him? POLUS: Obviously a painter. CHAEREPHON: Well then, since he has expert knowledge of some art, what would we rightly call him? POLUS: Chaerephon, there are many arts among men that have been discovered by experience, through experience — for experience makes our life proceed by art, while lack of experience makes it proceed by chance. Different people share in each of these in different ways, and the best people share in the best arts. Gorgias here is one of these, and he has a share in the finest of the arts. SOCRATES: Gorgias, Polus does seem well prepared for speeches — but he isn't doing what he promised Chaerephon. GORGIAS: What exactly, Socrates? SOCRATES: He doesn't seem to me to be answering the question at all. GORGIAS: Then you ask him yourself, if you like. SOCRATES: No — 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's practiced what's called rhetoric more than he's practiced conversation. POLUS: Why do you say that, Socrates? SOCRATES: Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asked what art Gorgias has expert knowledge of, you sang the praises of his art as if someone were finding fault with it, but you never answered what it actually is. POLUS: Didn't I answer that it's the finest?

SOCRATES: You certainly did. But no one is asking what kind of thing Gorgias's art is, but what it is — and what we ought to call Gorgias. Just as Chaerephon put it to you earlier, and you answered him well and briefly, now tell me in the same way — what is the art, and what should we call Gorgias? Better still, Gorgias, tell us yourself — what should we call you, as an expert in what art? GORGIAS: Rhetoric, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then we should call you an orator? GORGIAS: A good one, Socrates — if you want to call me what I claim to be, in Homer's words. SOCRATES: Well, I do want to. GORGIAS: Then call me that. SOCRATES: And should we say you're capable of making others into orators too? GORGIAS: That's exactly what I profess to do — not only here but elsewhere as well. SOCRATES: Then would you be willing, Gorgias, to keep on as we're doing now — one of us asking, the other answering — and set aside for later that long-windedness Polus started into? Keep your promise and don't break it: be willing to answer each question briefly. GORGIAS: Some answers, Socrates, necessarily require lengthy speeches. Still, I'll try to be as brief as possible — since this too is one of the things I claim: that no one could say the same things in fewer words than I can. SOCRATES: That's exactly what's needed, Gorgias. Give me a display of just this — your skill at brevity; save the long speeches for another time. GORGIAS: I will, and you'll say you've never heard anyone briefer. SOCRATES: Well then — you say you have expert knowledge of the art of rhetoric, and could make someone else an orator too. What, among the things that exist, does rhetoric actually concern? Weaving, for instance, concerns the production of clothing, doesn't it? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And music concerns the composition of melodies? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: By Hera, Gorgias, I do admire your answers — you answer as briefly as possible. GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, I think I do this rather well. SOCRATES: Good. Come then, answer me the same way about rhetoric — what, among the things that exist, is it knowledge of? GORGIAS: Speeches. SOCRATES: What kind of speeches, Gorgias? The kind that show the sick how they should live to get well? GORGIAS: No. SOCRATES: Then rhetoric isn't concerned with all speeches. GORGIAS: No indeed. SOCRATES: But it does make people capable of speaking. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And of understanding, about the very things it makes them able to speak of? GORGIAS: Of course.

SOCRATES: Now, does medicine — the art we were just discussing — make the sick capable of understanding and speaking? GORGIAS: It must. SOCRATES: So medicine too, it seems, concerns speeches. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Speeches about diseases? GORGIAS: Exactly. SOCRATES: And doesn't gymnastics too concern speeches — those about the good or bad condition of the body? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And indeed, Gorgias, it's the same with all the other arts — each one concerns those speeches that have to do with whatever subject that art is about. GORGIAS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then why on earth don't you call the other arts forms of rhetoric, since they too concern speeches, if you're going to call rhetoric the art that concerns speeches? GORGIAS: Because, Socrates, with the other arts the knowledge is almost entirely about manual work and actions of that sort, whereas with rhetoric there's no such manual work at all — its whole activity and effect happens through speech. That's why I hold that rhetoric is rightly said to concern speeches, and I think I'm right to say so. SOCRATES: Do I understand, then, what kind of thing you want to call it? I'll soon know more clearly. Just answer me this — we have arts, don't we? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Now among all the arts, I think, some consist mostly of doing and need little speech — some need none at all, and their work could be carried out even in silence, like painting, sculpture, and many others. These are the sort you seem to mean when you say rhetoric isn't concerned with them — am I right? GORGIAS: You've grasped it exactly right, Socrates. SOCRATES: But there are other arts that accomplish everything through speech, and need hardly any action at all, or very little — arithmetic, for instance, and calculation, and geometry, and even board games like draughts, and many other arts. Some of these have speech and action in roughly equal measure, but in most, speech predominates — indeed the whole activity and effect is carried out through speech. I think it's one of these you mean when you say rhetoric is such an art. GORGIAS: You're right. SOCRATES: But surely you don't want to call any of these rhetoric either — not that your words literally said 'the art whose effect is through speech is rhetoric,' so that someone looking to pick a quarrel over words might say, 'So you're calling arithmetic rhetoric, Gorgias?' No, I don't think you mean to call either arithmetic or geometry rhetoric.

GORGIAS: You're right to think so, Socrates, and your judgment is fair. SOCRATES: Come then, finish giving me the answer I asked for. Since rhetoric turns out to be one of those arts that mostly make use of speech, and there happen to be other such arts too, try to say what subject it is, among things spoken of, that rhetoric's effect actually concerns. Suppose someone asked me about any of the arts I just mentioned — 'Socrates, what is the art of arithmetic?' I would tell him, just as you did a moment ago, that it's one of the arts whose effect is through speech. And if he asked further, 'Concerning what?' I would say, concerning knowledge of the odd and the even, however many of each there happen to be. And if he then asked, 'What do you call the art of calculation?' I would say that this too is one of those whose whole effect is achieved through speech. And if he asked further, 'Concerning what?' I would answer, as those who draft public proposals do, that in other respects calculation is like arithmetic — for it concerns the same subject, the odd and the even — but it differs in this: calculation examines how much odd and even there is, both in relation to themselves and to each other. And if someone asked about astronomy, and I said that this too achieves everything through speech, and he then asked, 'And what are astronomy's speeches about, Socrates?' I would say, about the motion of the stars, the sun, and the moon, and their speeds relative to one another. GORGIAS: You're quite right to put it that way, Socrates. SOCRATES: Now it's your turn, Gorgias. Rhetoric too turns out to be one of those arts whose whole business is carried out and achieved through speech — isn't that so? GORGIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: Then tell me — concerning what? What, among the things that exist, is the subject of those speeches that rhetoric employs? GORGIAS: The greatest of human affairs, Socrates, and the best. SOCRATES: But Gorgias, that too is disputable, and still nothing is clear. Surely you've heard, at drinking parties, men singing that drinking song in which they list off, as they sing, that health is the best thing, being handsome second, and third — as the poet of the song says — being honestly wealthy. GORGIAS: I have heard it — but what's your point in bringing it up?

SOCRATES: Because if you had standing right beside you the craftsmen of the very things that composer of the drinking-song praised — a doctor, a trainer, a moneymaker — and the doctor spoke first and said, "Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you: his art isn't concerned with the greatest good for human beings, mine is" — suppose I then asked him, "And who are you, to say this?" He'd probably say, "A doctor." "What do you mean, then — that the product of your art is the greatest good?" "Of course, Socrates," he'd probably say, "what else — health? What greater good is there for people than health?" And if after him the trainer said, "I'd be astonished myself, Socrates, if Gorgias could point to a greater good produced by his art than the one I produce by mine" — I'd say to him in turn, "And who are you, my friend, and what's your work?" "A trainer," he'd say, "and my work is making people's bodies beautiful and strong." And after the trainer the moneymaker would speak up, looking down on everyone else, I imagine: "Consider, Socrates, whether any greater good than wealth appears to you, whether in Gorgias' hands or anyone else's." We'd say to him, "Well then — are you a craftsman of this?" He'd say yes. "Which one?" "A moneymaker." "Well then — do you judge wealth to be the greatest good for human beings?" "Of course," he'll say. "And yet," we'd say, "this man Gorgias here disputes that his art is responsible for a greater good than yours." Clearly the next question would be, "And what is this good? Let Gorgias answer." So, Gorgias, consider yourself questioned by them and by me, and answer: what is this thing you say is the greatest good for human beings, and that you are a craftsman of? GORGIAS: It is, Socrates, in truth the greatest good, and the cause at once of freedom for people themselves, and at the same time of each person's ruling over others in his own city. SOCRATES: And what exactly do you mean by that? GORGIAS: I mean the ability to persuade by speech — judges in a courtroom, councilmen in the council chamber, assemblymen in the assembly, and in any other gathering whatever, any political gathering that may take place. And indeed, with this power you will have the doctor as your slave, and the trainer as your slave; and this moneymaker of yours will turn out to be making money for someone else, not for himself — for you, the one able to speak and persuade the crowds.

SOCRATES: Now, Gorgias, you seem to me to have come very close to showing what art you take rhetoric to be — and if I understand at all, you're saying that rhetoric is a craftsman of persuasion, and that its whole business and its sum total comes down to this. Or can you say that rhetoric is capable of anything more than producing persuasion in the souls of its listeners? GORGIAS: Not at all, Socrates — you seem to me to define it well enough; that is indeed its sum. SOCRATES: Listen, then, Gorgias. I, you should know well, am convinced myself that if anyone else engages in discussion with another wanting to know the very thing the discussion is about, I am one of them — and I claim you are too. GORGIAS: Well then, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll say it now. This persuasion coming from rhetoric — whatever it may be that you speak of, and whatever matters it concerns — I clearly don't know for certain, though I do suspect what I think you mean and what it concerns. Nonetheless I'll ask you all the same what you mean by the persuasion that comes from rhetoric, and what it concerns. Why, when I already suspect, do I ask instead of saying it myself? Not for your sake, but for the argument's — so that it may proceed in whatever way makes clearest to us what it's actually about. Consider whether I seem to you to be asking you fairly. It's as if I happened to ask you who among painters Zeuxis is, and you told me, "the one who paints living creatures" — wouldn't I fairly ask you next, which living creatures, and where? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And would that be because there are also other painters who paint many other creatures? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: But if no one painted except Zeuxis, your answer would have been sufficient? GORGIAS: Of course. SOCRATES: Come, then, tell me the same about rhetoric: does it seem to you that rhetoric alone produces persuasion, or do other arts too? I mean something like this — whoever teaches anything at all, does what he teaches persuade, or not? GORGIAS: It certainly does, Socrates — persuades more than anything. SOCRATES: Let's speak again of the same arts we just mentioned. Doesn't arithmetic teach us all the properties of number, and the arithmetician too? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So it also persuades? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then arithmetic too is a craftsman of persuasion? GORGIAS: So it appears.

SOCRATES: So if someone asks us what kind of persuasion, and about what, we'll answer him, I suppose, that it's the teaching kind, concerned with how much odd and even number there is. And we'll be able to show that all the other arts we just mentioned are craftsmen of persuasion too, and of what kind, and about what — won't we? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So rhetoric isn't the only craftsman of persuasion. GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: Then since it isn't the only one producing this effect, but others do too, we would fairly, just as we did with the painter, next ask the one making the claim: what kind of persuasion, persuasion about what, is rhetoric the art of? Doesn't it seem right to you to ask this further question? GORGIAS: It does to me. SOCRATES: Answer, then, Gorgias, since you agree it's right. GORGIAS: I mean, Socrates, the persuasion that occurs in law courts and other crowds, as I said just now, and concerning matters of justice and injustice. SOCRATES: And I too suspected that this was the persuasion you meant, and about these matters, Gorgias. But so you won't be surprised if a little later I ask you something similar again — something that seems obvious, and yet I ask it again — I do it, as I say, for the sake of carrying the argument through in order, not for your sake, but so we don't fall into the habit of snatching at each other's meaning from mere suspicion. Rather, you should carry through your own position however you wish, on your own terms. GORGIAS: And I think you're right to do so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Come, then, let's look at this too. Do you speak of something as "having learned"? GORGIAS: I do. SOCRATES: And what of "having come to believe"? GORGIAS: That too. SOCRATES: Do you think having learned and having come to believe are the same, and learning and belief the same, or something different? GORGIAS: I would think, Socrates, something different. SOCRATES: You think rightly, and you'll see it from this: if someone asked you, "Is there, Gorgias, a false belief and a true one?" you'd say yes, I think. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Well, is there false knowledge and true knowledge? GORGIAS: Not at all. SOCRATES: So it's clear again that they aren't the same. GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: And yet those who have learned have been persuaded, and so have those who have come to believe. GORGIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: Do you want us, then, to posit two kinds of persuasion — one that provides belief without knowledge, and one that provides knowledge? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Which kind, then, does rhetoric produce in courts and other crowds, concerning matters of justice and injustice? The kind from which belief arises without knowledge, or the kind from which knowledge arises? GORGIAS: Clearly, Socrates, the kind that produces belief.

SOCRATES: Rhetoric, then, it seems, is a craftsman of persuasion that produces belief, not of the kind that teaches, concerning justice and injustice. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the orator isn't a teacher of law courts and other crowds about matters of justice and injustice, but only a producer of belief — for surely he couldn't teach so great a crowd such important matters in so short a time. GORGIAS: No indeed. SOCRATES: Come, then, let's see what exactly we're saying about rhetoric — for I myself am not yet able to grasp what I mean by it. Whenever there's a public meeting in the city to choose doctors, or shipbuilders, or any other body of craftsmen, surely the rhetorical man won't give advice there? For clearly in each such choice the most skilled person must be chosen. Nor when the discussion concerns building walls, or constructing harbors or dockyards, but rather the architects. Nor again when the discussion concerns choosing generals, or arranging troops against an enemy, or occupying strongholds — rather the military men will advise then, not the rhetoricians. Or how do you account for such things, Gorgias? Since you yourself claim to be an orator and to make others orators, it's worth learning about your art from you. And consider that in asking now, I'm also pursuing your interest — for perhaps someone here among your listeners wants to become your student, as I sense quite a few do, who might be embarrassed to ask you themselves. So when questioned by me, consider yourself questioned by them too: what will we gain, Gorgias, if we study with you? On what matters will we be able to advise the city? On justice and injustice alone, or on the other things Socrates just mentioned too? Try, then, to answer them. GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I'll try to reveal to you clearly the whole power of rhetoric — for you yourself have led the way well. You know, I suppose, that these dockyards and the walls of Athens and the construction of the harbors came about from Themistocles' advice, and some from Pericles' — not from the craftsmen. SOCRATES: So it's said about Themistocles, Gorgias; and as for Pericles, I myself heard him when he advised us about the middle wall.

GORGIAS: And whenever there's a choice of the kind you just mentioned, Socrates, you'll see that it's the orators who give the advice and who win out in their opinions on these matters. SOCRATES: That's exactly what astonishes me, Gorgias, and why I've long been asking what on earth the power of rhetoric is. For its scope appears almost supernatural to me, looking at it this way. GORGIAS: If only you knew everything, Socrates — that it gathers up under itself, so to speak, all other powers. And I'll tell you a striking proof of this: many times already I have gone in, together with my brother and with other doctors, to see some patient who wasn't willing to take his medicine, or to submit to the knife or the cautery for the doctor; and when the doctor couldn't persuade him, I did — by no other art than rhetoric. And I say further, that if a rhetorical man and a doctor came to any city you like, and had to contend in speech before the assembly or some other gathering over which of the two should be chosen as doctor, the doctor would be nowhere, and the one able to speak would be chosen, if he wished it. And if he contended against any other craftsman whatever, the rhetorical man would persuade them to choose him rather than anyone else — for there is nothing about which the orator could not speak more persuasively before a crowd than any other craftsman whatsoever. Such, then, and so great, is the power of this art. Yet one must use rhetoric, Socrates, as one uses any other form of combat. For in other forms of combat too, one must not use them against everybody just because one has learned boxing, or the pankration, or fighting in armor, so as to be stronger than both friends and enemies — that's no reason to strike or stab or kill one's friends. Nor, by Zeus, if someone who has gone to the wrestling school and gotten his body in good condition and become a boxer should then strike his father and mother or some other relative or friend — that's no reason to hate and banish from their cities the trainers and those who teach fighting in arms. For they handed down these skills to be used justly, against enemies and wrongdoers, in self-defense, not as the aggressor; but some pervert them and use their strength and their art wrongly.

GORGIAS: So it's not the teachers who are wicked, and the craft itself is neither responsible nor wicked on that account—it's the people who misuse it, I'd say. The same holds for rhetoric. The orator can speak to everyone about everything, so as to be more persuasive before a crowd than anyone else on practically any subject—but that's no reason to strip doctors of their good name, on the grounds that he could do this instead of them, nor any other craftsmen either. He ought to use rhetoric justly, just as one uses any competitive skill. And if someone becomes a skilled speaker and then uses that power and craft unjustly, it isn't the teacher we should hate and drive out of our cities. The teacher handed over his craft to be used justly; the other one uses it in the opposite way. So it's the one who misuses it who deserves our hatred, banishment, even death—not the one who taught him. SOCRATES: I imagine, Gorgias, that you too have taken part in a great many discussions and have noticed this about them: that people who set out to argue a point rarely manage to define their terms, teach each other, and part having actually settled the matter. Instead, if they come to disagree about something and one says the other isn't speaking correctly or clearly, they get irritated and think the other is speaking out of spite rather than genuinely investigating the question at hand—competing to win rather than searching for the truth. And some of them end up parting on the ugliest terms, having hurled such insults at each other, and having heard such things said about themselves, that even the bystanders are pained on their behalf, distressed that they ever thought such people worth listening to. Why do I say this? Because right now it seems to me that what you're saying doesn't quite follow from, or agree with, what you said at first about rhetoric. So I'm afraid to cross-examine you, in case you take me to be arguing not to get the matter clear but simply to score a point against you.

SOCRATES: For my part, if you're the kind of man I am, I'd gladly go on questioning you; if not, I'll let it drop. And what kind of man am I? One who is glad to be refuted if I say something untrue, and just as glad to refute someone else who says something untrue—though, mind you, no less glad to be refuted myself than to refute another. I count it the greater good, insofar as it's a greater good for oneself to be rid of the worst thing there is than to rid someone else of it. And I don't think there's any evil worse for a person than a false belief about the very things we're now discussing. So if you say you're that kind of man too, let's continue the discussion; but if you think we should let it go, then let's drop it here and end the conversation. GORGIAS: No, Socrates, I do say I'm that kind of man myself—the kind you describe. Though perhaps we should also consider the people here. Well before you two arrived, I gave a long display for this company, and now, if we keep discussing, we may run on for quite a while. So we ought to think of them too, in case we're keeping some of them from other things they'd rather be doing. CHAEREPHON: You can hear for yourselves, Gorgias and Socrates, the noise these men are making—they want to hear whatever you have to say. And speaking for myself, may I never be so busy that I'd give up a discussion like this, conducted this way, for anything more pressing. CALLICLES: By the gods, Chaerephon, I've sat in on 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, you could talk all day and you'd be doing me a favor. SOCRATES: Well, Callicles, nothing stops me, for my part, if Gorgias is willing. GORGIAS: It would be shameful of me now, Socrates, not to be willing, after announcing myself ready to answer whatever anyone asks. So if it suits this company, go ahead and question me on whatever you like. SOCRATES: Listen then, Gorgias, to what puzzles me in what you've said. Perhaps you're speaking correctly and I'm simply not following you correctly. You say you're able to make someone a skilled speaker, if he wants to learn from you? GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: On every subject, then, so as to be persuasive before a crowd—by persuading, not by teaching? GORGIAS: Exactly so. SOCRATES: In fact you were just saying that even on matters of health the orator will be more persuasive than the doctor. GORGIAS: Yes, I did say that—before a crowd, that is. SOCRATES: And 'before a crowd' means before people who don't know, doesn't it? Surely he won't be more persuasive than the doctor among people who do know. GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: So if he's going to be more persuasive than the doctor, he becomes more persuasive than someone who knows. GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Without being a doctor himself—yes? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And the non-doctor, presumably, is ignorant of what the doctor knows. GORGIAS: Clearly. SOCRATES: So the one who doesn't know will be more persuasive, among those who don't know, than the one who does—whenever the orator is more persuasive than the doctor. Does that follow, or something else? GORGIAS: That's what follows, in this case at least. SOCRATES: And doesn't the same hold for the orator and for rhetoric with respect to all the other crafts as well? Rhetoric has no need to know how matters actually stand—it has simply discovered some device of persuasion so as to appear, to those who don't know, to know more than those who do. GORGIAS: And isn't that a great convenience, Socrates—that without having learned all the other crafts, but only this one, a man is no worse off than the specialists? SOCRATES: Whether the orator is worse off or not on account of being like this, we'll look into shortly, if it bears on our discussion. But for now let's examine this first: does the orator stand in the same relation to justice and injustice, to shame and honor, good and bad, as he does to health and the other things the other crafts deal with—not knowing himself what is good or bad, honorable or shameful, just or unjust, but having devised some persuasion about them so as to seem, among those who don't know, to know more than the one who does, without actually knowing? Or is it necessary that he know these things, and must whoever intends to learn rhetoric already know them before coming to you? And if not, will you, the teacher of rhetoric, simply not teach the newcomer any of this—since that isn't your business—but make him seem, before the many, to know such things when he doesn't, and to seem good when he isn't? Or will you be altogether unable to teach him rhetoric at all, unless he already knows the truth about these matters beforehand? How does this stand, Gorgias? For god's sake, as you said a moment ago, pull back the veil and tell us what exactly the power of rhetoric is.

GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I think that if it happens he doesn't know, he'll learn that from me too. SOCRATES: Hold on there—well said. If you make someone a skilled speaker, he must know what's just and unjust, either before he comes to you or afterward, once he's learned it from you. GORGIAS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Well then—someone who has learned carpentry is a carpenter, isn't he? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And someone who has learned music is a musician? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And someone who has learned medicine is a doctor? And so on by the same reasoning in every case—whoever has learned a given subject becomes the sort of person that knowledge of it produces? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So by this same reasoning, whoever has learned what is just is just? GORGIAS: Surely, at any rate. SOCRATES: And the just man does just things. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the skilled speaker must be just, and the just man must want to do just things? GORGIAS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then the just man will never want to act unjustly. GORGIAS: He must not. SOCRATES: And by our reasoning, the skilled speaker must be just. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the skilled speaker will never want to act unjustly. GORGIAS: It doesn't appear so. SOCRATES: Do you remember, then, saying a little earlier that we shouldn't blame the athletic trainers or drive them out of our cities if the boxer misuses his boxing skill and acts unjustly with it—and likewise, if the orator misuses rhetoric, we shouldn't blame the teacher or banish him from the city, but rather the one who does wrong and misuses rhetoric? Was that said, or not? GORGIAS: It was said. SOCRATES: But now this same man, the skilled speaker, turns out never to be capable of acting unjustly at all. Isn't that so? GORGIAS: So it appears. SOCRATES: And right at the start, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric deals with speeches not about odd and even, but about the just and the unjust. Wasn't that so? GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well then, when you were saying that earlier, I took it to mean that rhetoric could never be an unjust thing, since it always makes its speeches about justice. But then a little later you said that the orator might well use rhetoric unjustly. So I was puzzled, and thinking these statements didn't harmonize, I said what I said—that if you counted it a gain to be refuted, as I do, it would be worth continuing the discussion, but if not, we should let it drop. And now, as we've gone on examining it, you can see for yourself that it's been agreed all over again that the skilled speaker cannot possibly use rhetoric unjustly or be willing to do wrong. Now which way this really stands, by the dog, Gorgias, would take no small discussion to work out properly. POLUS: What's this, Socrates? Is that really your own view of rhetoric, what you're saying now? Or do you imagine—because Gorgias was ashamed not to concede to you that the skilled speaker must also know what's just and honorable and good, and that if he came to him without knowing these things he'd teach him himself—and then perhaps some contradiction turned up in the argument as a result of that concession (something you're delighted with, having led him yourself into such questions)—for who do you think would deny knowing justice himself and being able to teach it to others? No, dragging the discussion into that sort of thing is simply boorish. SOCRATES: My dear Polus, it's precisely for this reason that we acquire companions and sons—so that when we ourselves, grown older, stumble, you younger men will be there to set our life straight again, both in deed and in word. So now, if Gorgias and I have stumbled somewhere in our argument, you're here to correct us—as is only fair—and I for my part am willing to take back anything that's been agreed, if it seems to you not rightly agreed, provided you keep just one thing for my sake. POLUS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Reining in that long-windedness, Polus, which you tried to indulge in at first. POLUS: What? Won't I be allowed to say as much as I like? SOCRATES: It would be a terrible thing indeed, my excellent friend, if on coming to Athens—where there's more freedom of speech than anywhere else in Greece—you alone, of all people, should be denied it here.

SOCRATES: Well, turn it around. If you go on at length and won't answer what's actually asked, wouldn't it be a real hardship for me if I weren't allowed to leave and stop listening to you? No — if you care at all about the argument we were making and want to set it right, take back whatever you like, as I said just now, and question and be questioned in turn, the way Gorgias and I were doing — test and be tested. You say you know the same things Gorgias knows, don't you? POLUS: I do. SOCRATES: And don't you also invite anyone to ask you whatever they like, on the assumption that you'll know how to answer? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well then, do whichever of the two you like right now — ask, or answer. POLUS: All right, I'll do that. Answer me this, Socrates: since Gorgias seems to you to be at a loss about what rhetoric is, what do you say it is? SOCRATES: Are you asking what art I say it is? POLUS: I am. SOCRATES: None at all, Polus, if I'm to tell you the truth. POLUS: Well then, what do you think rhetoric is? SOCRATES: A thing which you say, in that treatise of yours I read recently, you've made into an art. POLUS: What do you mean by that? SOCRATES: I mean a kind of knack. POLUS: So you think rhetoric is a knack? SOCRATES: I do, unless you mean something else. POLUS: A knack for what? SOCRATES: For producing a kind of gratification and pleasure. POLUS: So you think rhetoric is a fine thing, then — being able to gratify people? SOCRATES: What's this, Polus? Have you already learned from me what I say it is, that you're now asking whether I think it's fine? POLUS: Haven't I learned that you call it a kind of knack? SOCRATES: Since you set such store by gratifying people, would you like to do me a small favor? POLUS: I would. SOCRATES: Then ask me now what sort of art I think cookery is. POLUS: All right, I'm asking — what art is cookery? SOCRATES: None, Polus. POLUS: Then what is it? Tell me. SOCRATES: I say it's a kind of knack. POLUS: What kind? Tell me. SOCRATES: A knack for producing gratification and pleasure, Polus. POLUS: So cookery and rhetoric are the same thing? SOCRATES: Not at all — but they're parts of the same practice. POLUS: What practice is that, in your view?

SOCRATES: I'm afraid the truth might sound rather crude to say — I hesitate to say it for Gorgias's sake, in case he thinks I'm making fun of his own profession. Whether this is what Gorgias practices as rhetoric, I don't know — nothing in our conversation just now made clear what he actually thinks it is — but what I call rhetoric is a part of something, and none of it fine. GORGIAS: A part of what, Socrates? Tell me — don't be shy on my account. SOCRATES: Well, Gorgias, it seems to me there's a certain practice — not a skill at all, but the mark of a soul that's shrewd, bold, and naturally clever at dealing with people — and I call the essence of it flattery. This practice, I think, has many parts, and cookery is one of them. It looks like a skill, but by my account it isn't a skill at all — it's a knack, a matter of routine. Rhetoric is a part of this same thing, I say, and so are cosmetics and sophistry — four parts applied to four subjects. So if Polus wants to find out, let him ask — he still hasn't learned what part of flattery I say rhetoric is; he doesn't realize I haven't yet answered that, and instead he asks me the next question, whether I think it's a fine thing. I won't answer him whether I think rhetoric is fine or shameful until I first answer what it is. That wouldn't be fair, Polus. But if you do want to find out, ask what part of flattery I say rhetoric is. POLUS: I'm asking, then — answer, what part is it? SOCRATES: Will you actually understand my answer? By my account, rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics. POLUS: Well then — do you call it fine or shameful? SOCRATES: Shameful, I'd say — I call bad things shameful — since you're making me answer as if you already knew what I mean. GORGIAS: By Zeus, Socrates, I don't even understand what you mean myself. SOCRATES: Naturally, Gorgias — I haven't yet said anything clear, and this Polus here is young and quick to the chase. GORGIAS: Never mind him — tell me how you mean that rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.

SOCRATES: Well, I'll try to explain what rhetoric appears to me to be. If it turns out not to be this, Polus here will refute me. You do speak of something called body, and something called soul? GORGIAS: Of course. SOCRATES: And you think each of these has some state of well-being? GORGIAS: I do. SOCRATES: And what about a well-being that only seems to be, but isn't really? Take this example: many people seem to be in good bodily condition, whom no one would easily notice weren't — except a doctor, or one of the trainers. GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: I say there's something like this in the body and in the soul as well, which makes the body or the soul seem to be in good condition, though it's really nothing of the sort. GORGIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: Come then, let me show you more clearly what I mean, if I can. Given that there are two things, I say there are two arts. The one concerned with the soul I call politics; the one concerned with the body I have no single name to give you, but since caring for the body is one thing, I speak of two parts of it: gymnastics and medicine. Within politics, corresponding to gymnastics, there's legislation, and corresponding to medicine, there's justice. These pair off with each other, since they deal with the same subject — medicine with gymnastics, justice with legislation — yet they differ somewhat from each other. Now, there being these four, and each of them always caring for the best — one pair for the body, the other for the soul — flattery has caught on to this — not by understanding it, I mean, but by guesswork — and has divided itself into four, and has crept in under each of these parts, pretending to be the very thing it has crept beneath. It has no concern at all for what's best, and instead uses whatever is most pleasant at any moment as bait for foolishness, and deceives it, so that it seems to be worth the most. So cookery has crept in under medicine, pretending to know the best foods for the body, with the result that if a cook and a doctor had to compete before children, or before men just as senseless as children, over which of the two understands good food and bad, the doctor would die of hunger.

SOCRATES: This, then, I call flattery, and I say a thing of this kind is shameful, Polus — this is what I'm saying to you — because it aims at what's pleasant without regard for what's best. And I say it isn't a skill but a knack, because it has no rational account of the nature of the things it applies, so that it can't state the cause of each thing it does. I don't call anything a skill that has no reasoned basis. If you dispute this, I'm willing to give an account of it. So, as I say, cookery, a form of flattery, lies concealed under medicine; in just the same way, cosmetics lies concealed under gymnastics — a mischievous, deceptive, base, and slavish thing, deceiving people with shapes and colors and smooth surfaces and clothes, so that people chase after a borrowed beauty and neglect the beauty that's their own, the kind that comes through gymnastics. So as not to go on at length, let me put it to you the way the geometers do — you may be able to follow now — that what cosmetics is to gymnastics, sophistry is to legislation, and what cookery is to medicine, rhetoric is to justice. This is the natural division I mean, though because these things lie so close to each other, sophists and orators get mixed up together in practice, working on the same subjects, and neither they themselves nor other people know what use to make of them. Indeed, if the soul didn't govern the body, but the body governed itself, and if cookery and medicine weren't examined and distinguished by the soul, but the body itself judged them, weighing them by the pleasures they gave it, then Anaxagoras's saying would hold true many times over, my dear Polus — you know all about this — everything would be jumbled together in one mass, with no distinction between what belongs to medicine, to health, and to cookery. So now you've heard what I say rhetoric is — the counterpart, in the soul, of cookery in the body. Perhaps I've done something odd, in that I wouldn't let you make long speeches, and yet I've drawn out a long speech of my own. But I deserve to be forgiven for it: when I spoke briefly you didn't understand, and you weren't able to make any use of the answer I gave you — you needed a full explanation.

SOCRATES: So if I, in turn, can't make use of your answer, you stretch out a speech too; but if I can, let me use it — that's only fair. And now, if you can make some use of this answer, use it. POLUS: Well then, what do you say? Do you think rhetoric is flattery? SOCRATES: I said a part of flattery. Don't you remember, at your age, Polus? What will you do when you're older? POLUS: Do you think, then, that good orators are regarded as base flatterers in their cities? SOCRATES: Is that a question you're asking, or the start of some speech? POLUS: I'm asking. SOCRATES: It seems to me they aren't even regarded at all. POLUS: What do you mean, not regarded? Don't they have the greatest power in their cities? SOCRATES: No — not if by having power you mean something good for the one who has it. POLUS: But that is what I mean. SOCRATES: Then it seems to me orators have the least power of anyone in the city. POLUS: What? Don't they, like tyrants, put to death whoever they wish, and confiscate property and banish from their cities whoever seems good to them? SOCRATES: By the dog, Polus, I honestly can't tell, with each thing you say, whether you're stating your own view, or asking me. POLUS: I'm asking you. SOCRATES: Well then, my friend — are you asking me two things at once? POLUS: How, two things? SOCRATES: Didn't you just say something like this: don't orators put to death whoever they wish, just like tyrants, and confiscate property and banish from their cities whoever seems good to them? POLUS: I did. SOCRATES: Well, I tell you these are two questions, and I'll answer you on both. I say, Polus, that both orators and tyrants have the least power in their cities, as I was just saying — they do practically nothing that they actually want, though they do whatever seems best to them. POLUS: And isn't that having great power? SOCRATES: No, not as Polus describes it. POLUS: I don't describe it that way? I do describe it that way. SOCRATES: By — no, you don't, since you said having great power was a good thing for the one who has it. POLUS: And so I do say that. SOCRATES: So you think it's good, if someone does whatever seems best to him, without having any sense? Is that what you call having great power? POLUS: No, I don't.

SOCRATES: So will you prove that speechmakers have sense and that rhetoric is a skill rather than flattery, by refuting me? But if you leave me unrefuted, then the speechmakers who do whatever they see fit in their cities, and the tyrants too, will have gained nothing good by it—if power really is a good thing, as you say, while doing what one sees fit without sense is, as you yourself agree, a bad thing. Isn't that so? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then how could speechmakers or tyrants have great power in their cities, unless Socrates gets refuted by Polus and shown wrong that they do what they want? POLUS: This man— SOCRATES: I say they don't do what they want. Go on, refute me. POLUS: Didn't you just now agree that they do what seems best to them? Didn't you say that a moment ago? SOCRATES: And I still say it now. POLUS: So don't they do what they want? SOCRATES: I say they don't. POLUS: Even though they do what seems fit to them? SOCRATES: Yes. POLUS: That's outrageous, Socrates—monstrous, even! SOCRATES: Don't abuse me, my excellent Polus—to address you in your own style—but if you're able to question me, show that I'm wrong; otherwise, answer the questions yourself. POLUS: Well, I'm willing to answer, so I can find out what you mean. SOCRATES: Then tell me—do you think people want the very thing they do on any given occasion, or do they want that for the sake of which they do what they do? Take people drinking medicine from their doctors: do you think they want what they're doing—drinking the medicine and suffering pain—or do they want health, the thing for whose sake they drink it? POLUS: Health, clearly. SOCRATES: And in the same way, people who sail the sea or engage in any other business, making money—that isn't what they want, what they're doing at any given moment. Who wants to sail and run risks and have all that trouble? No, I think what they want is that for whose sake they sail—getting rich. It's for the sake of wealth that they sail. POLUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And isn't it the same with everything? If someone does something for the sake of something else, he doesn't want the thing he's doing, but that for whose sake he does it. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Now is there anything that exists which isn't either good or bad, or in between—neither good nor bad? POLUS: There has to be, Socrates. SOCRATES: And you'd say that wisdom, health, wealth, and other such things are good, and their opposites are bad? POLUS: I would.

SOCRATES: And the things that are neither good nor bad—do you mean the sort that sometimes share in the good, sometimes in the bad, and sometimes in neither, like sitting, walking, running, sailing, and again things like stones and sticks and so on? Isn't that what you mean? Or do you call something else the things that are neither good nor bad? POLUS: No, those are what I mean. SOCRATES: Then do people do these in-between things for the sake of the good things, when they do them, or do they do the good things for the sake of the in-between ones? POLUS: The in-between things, surely, for the sake of the good ones. SOCRATES: So it's the good we're pursuing when we walk, whenever we walk—thinking it's better—and conversely we stand still, whenever we stand, for the very same reason, for the sake of the good. Isn't that so? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And don't we also kill someone, if we kill anyone, and banish him and confiscate his property, thinking it's better for us to do these things than not? POLUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: So it's for the sake of the good that people who do all these things do them. POLUS: I agree. SOCRATES: Now didn't we agree that when we do things for the sake of something else, we don't want those things themselves, but that for whose sake we do them? POLUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: So we don't want, simply as such, to slaughter people or banish them from their cities or confiscate their property—but if these things are beneficial, we want to do them, while if they're harmful, we don't want to. For we want the good things, as you say, and we don't want the things that are neither good nor bad, nor the bad things. Isn't that right? Do you think I'm speaking the truth, Polus, or not? Why don't you answer? POLUS: It's true. SOCRATES: Then since we're agreed on this, if someone kills another, or banishes him from his city, or confiscates his property—whether he's a tyrant or a speechmaker—thinking it's better for himself, when it actually turns out worse, this man is doing what seems fit to him. Isn't that so? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then is he also doing what he wants, given that these things happen to be bad? Why don't you answer? POLUS: No, he doesn't seem to me to be doing what he wants. SOCRATES: Then is it possible for such a man to have great power in his city, if having great power is, by your own admission, something good? POLUS: It isn't possible. SOCRATES: So what I said was true, when I said it's possible for a man doing what seems fit to him in a city to lack great power and not to be doing what he wants. POLUS: As if you, Socrates, wouldn't accept the chance to do whatever seemed fit to you in your city rather than not, and as if you don't envy someone when you see him killing whomever he thinks fit, or confiscating property, or throwing people in chains. SOCRATES: Justly, do you mean, or unjustly?

POLUS: Whichever way he does it, isn't it enviable either way? SOCRATES: Watch your words, Polus. POLUS: Why? SOCRATES: Because we shouldn't envy the unenviable or the wretched, but pity them. POLUS: Really? Is that how you feel about the people I'm talking about? SOCRATES: Of course. POLUS: So someone who kills whomever he thinks fit, killing him justly—do you think he's wretched and pitiable? SOCRATES: Not to me, no—but not enviable either. POLUS: But didn't you just say he was wretched? SOCRATES: The one who kills unjustly, my friend—yes, and pitiable besides; but the one who kills justly is not enviable. POLUS: Surely it's the one who dies unjustly who's pitiable and wretched. SOCRATES: Less so than the one who kills him, Polus, and less so than the one who dies justly. POLUS: How can that be, Socrates? SOCRATES: It's because doing wrong happens to be the worst of evils. POLUS: Is that really the worst? Isn't suffering wrong worse? SOCRATES: Not in the least. POLUS: So you'd rather suffer wrong than do it? SOCRATES: I wouldn't want either, myself—but if it were necessary to do wrong or to suffer it, I'd choose to suffer wrong rather than do it. POLUS: So you wouldn't accept being a tyrant? SOCRATES: Not if by being a tyrant you mean what I mean. POLUS: But what I mean is just what I said before—being free to do whatever one thinks fit in the city, killing and banishing and doing everything according to one's own judgment. SOCRATES: My good man, then take hold of my argument as I make it. Suppose I, in a crowded marketplace, took a dagger under my arm and said to you: Polus, some wonderful power and tyranny has just come to me—if it seems fit to me that any one of these people you see here ought to die right away, he'll be dead, this very one I decide on; and if it seems fit to me that someone's skull ought to be cracked, it'll be cracked instantly; or that his cloak should be torn, it'll be torn—that's how much power I have in this city. Now if you doubted me and I showed you the dagger, perhaps you'd say, on seeing it: Socrates, at that rate everyone would have great power, since a house could be burned down that way, whichever one you liked, and the Athenians' shipyards too, and their triremes, and all their vessels, public and private. But that isn't what having great power means—doing what seems fit to one. Or do you think it is? POLUS: No, certainly not that way.

SOCRATES: Can you say, then, why you find fault with that kind of power? POLUS: I can. SOCRATES: Why? Tell me. POLUS: Because someone who acts that way is bound to be punished. SOCRATES: And isn't being punished a bad thing? POLUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Then, my remarkable friend, having great power turns out again to look like this: if doing what seems fit is accompanied by acting beneficially, that's good, and that, it seems, is having great power; but if not, it's bad, and it's having little power. Let's also consider this: don't we agree that sometimes it's better to do these things we were just talking about—killing people, banishing them, confiscating their property—and sometimes not? POLUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Well, that much, it seems, we both agree on. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then when do you say it's better to do these things? Tell me where you draw the line. POLUS: You answer that yourself, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then, I say, Polus, if it's more pleasing to you to hear it from me, that it's better when one does these things justly, and worse when unjustly. POLUS: It's hard to refute you, Socrates—but couldn't even a child refute you and show that what you're saying isn't true? SOCRATES: Then I'll be very grateful to the child, and just as grateful to you, if you refute me and rid me of this nonsense. Come, don't tire of doing a friend a good turn—refute me. POLUS: Well look, Socrates, you don't need me to refute you with ancient history—what happened just yesterday and the day before is enough to refute you and show that many wrongdoers are happy men. SOCRATES: What events do you mean? POLUS: You see this Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, ruling Macedonia? SOCRATES: If not with my own eyes, at least I've heard of him. POLUS: Do you think he's happy or wretched? SOCRATES: I don't know, Polus—I've never met the man. POLUS: What? Would you know if you met him, but you can't tell right off that he's happy? SOCRATES: No, by Zeus, I certainly can't. POLUS: Clearly then, Socrates, you'll say you don't even know whether the Great King is happy. SOCRATES: And I'll be telling the truth—for I don't know how he stands with respect to education and justice. POLUS: What? Does all happiness depend on that? SOCRATES: That's how I see it, Polus—I say that the fine and good man or woman is happy, and the unjust and wicked one is wretched.

POLUS: So by your account this Archelaus is wretched? SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he's unjust. POLUS: But how could he not be unjust? He had no claim at all to the rule he now holds, being the son of a woman who was a slave of Alcetas, Perdiccas's brother; by rights he was Alcetas's slave, and if he'd wanted to do what was just, he'd have been Alcetas's servant and would be happy by your account. But as things stand he's turned out amazingly wretched, since he's committed the greatest wrongs. First he sent for this very man—his own master and uncle—pretending he'd restore to him the rule that Perdiccas had taken from him; then, after entertaining him and getting him and his son Alexander (his own cousin, about the same age) drunk, he threw them into a wagon, drove them out at night, slit their throats, and made them both disappear. And having done this wrong, he never noticed he'd become the most wretched of men, and felt no regret—instead, a little later, he refused to make his brother happy by justly raising him and restoring to him the rule that rightfully belonged to him—the legitimate son of Perdiccas, a boy of about seven—but threw him into a well and drowned him, then told the boy's mother, Cleopatra, that he'd fallen in chasing a goose and died. And so now, since he's committed the greatest wrongs of anyone in Macedonia, he's the most wretched of all Macedonians, not the happiest—and I daresay there's more than one Athenian, starting with you, who'd rather be any other Macedonian at all than Archelaus. SOCRATES: Right at the start of our conversation, Polus, I praised you for being, it seemed to me, well trained in rhetoric, but for having neglected the art of discussion. And now is this the argument by which even a child could refute me, and by which you now think you've refuted me, when you say the wrongdoer isn't happy? Where does that follow, my good man? I don't agree with a single thing you've said. POLUS: That's because you don't want to—since deep down you think it's just as I say.

SOCRATES: My blessed friend, you're trying to refute me the way lawyers do, the way people argue in court. There too one side thinks it refutes the other by producing many respectable witnesses for what it says, while the opponent brings forward only one witness, or none. But that kind of proof is worth nothing when it comes to truth, since a man can sometimes be falsely testified against by a great many people who seem to be somebodies. And in the case we're discussing, nearly everyone would agree with you against me, Athenians and foreigners alike, if you wanted to produce witnesses that what I say isn't true. You could call Nicias son of Niceratus, if you like, and his brothers along with him, whose tripods stand in a row in the precinct of Dionysus; or, if you prefer, Aristocrates son of Scellias, whose fine dedication stands in the temple of Apollo; or, if you like, the entire house of Pericles, or any other family you care to pick from this city. But I, standing alone, don't agree with you—you haven't compelled me to. You've simply produced a crowd of false witnesses against me and are trying to drive me out of my property and out of the truth. But if I can't produce you yourself as my single witness, agreeing with what I say, then I don't think I've achieved anything worth mentioning on the subject we're discussing. And I don't think you have either, unless I alone testify in your favor, while you let all these others go their way. Now there's one kind of proof, the kind you and most people believe in—and there's another kind, which I believe in. Let's set them side by side and see whether they differ at all. And in fact the matters we're disputing aren't small ones—they're about as close as anything can be to what it's most splendid to know and most shameful not to know. The heart of it is simply this: knowing or not knowing who is happy and who isn't. Take the very question before us right now: do you think it's possible for a man to be happy while doing wrong and being unjust—given that you consider Archelaus unjust, yet happy? Are we to take it that this is your view? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And I say it's impossible. That's one point where we disagree. Very well—will a man who does wrong be happy if he actually pays the penalty and is punished for it? POLUS: Not at all—in that case he'd be most wretched. SOCRATES: But if the wrongdoer escapes punishment, then by your account he'll be happy? POLUS: That's what I say. SOCRATES: Whereas in my view, Polus, the man who does wrong and is unjust is wretched in every case—more wretched if he escapes justice and isn't punished for his wrongdoing, less wretched if he pays the penalty and is punished, by gods and men alike.

POLUS: What strange things you're trying to argue, Socrates! SOCRATES: And I'll try to make you say the same things I do, my friend—because I consider you a friend. Now here's where we differ; look at it yourself too. I said earlier that doing wrong is worse than suffering it. POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And you said suffering it is worse. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And I said that wrongdoers are wretched, and you refuted me on that. POLUS: Yes, by Zeus. SOCRATES: So you believe, Polus. POLUS: And rightly so. SOCRATES: Perhaps. And you in turn say that wrongdoers are happy, provided they aren't punished. POLUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: And I say they're the most wretched of all, while those who are punished are less so. Do you want to refute this claim too? POLUS: But that one's even harder to refute than the other, Socrates. SOCRATES: Not harder, Polus—impossible. Because truth is never refuted. POLUS: What do you mean? Suppose a wrongdoer is caught plotting to seize tyranny, and once caught he's racked and mutilated and has his eyes burned out, and suffers many other terrible torments of every kind, and watches his own children and wife suffer the same, and finally is impaled or coated in pitch and burned alive—will such a man be happier than one who escapes, becomes tyrant, and lives out his life ruling the city, doing whatever he wants, envied and considered blessed by the citizens and by foreigners as well? Do you say it's impossible to refute this? SOCRATES: Now you're trying to scare me with monsters, noble Polus, rather than refuting me—a moment ago you were calling witnesses. Still, remind me of one small thing: you said 'plotting for tyranny unjustly'? POLUS: I did. SOCRATES: Then neither of them will ever be happier than the other—not the one who seizes the tyranny unjustly, nor the one who's punished for trying—since between two wretched men, neither can be happier than the other. But the one who escapes and becomes tyrant is more wretched. Why are you laughing, Polus? Is this another kind of refutation—when someone makes a claim, to laugh at it instead of refuting it? POLUS: Don't you think you've already been refuted, Socrates, when you say things nobody on earth would agree to? Just ask any of these men here.

SOCRATES: Polus, I'm no politician. Last year, when I was chosen by lot to sit on the council, and my tribe held the presidency and it fell to me to call for a vote, I made everyone laugh because I didn't know how to conduct it properly. So don't ask me now to poll the people present either. Instead, if you have no better proof than the kind I was just describing, hand the argument over to me for a turn, and let me try the kind of proof I think is called for. Because I know how to produce one witness for whatever I claim—the very man I'm arguing with—and I let the majority go their way; and I know how to take one man's vote, though I don't even converse with the majority. So see whether you're willing to take your turn giving proof by answering my questions. I believe that you and I and everyone else consider doing wrong worse than suffering it, and escaping punishment worse than being punished. POLUS: And I believe nothing of the sort—not for myself, not for anyone else. Would you rather suffer wrong than do it? SOCRATES: Yes, and so would you, and so would everyone else. POLUS: Far from it—not I, not you, not anyone. SOCRATES: Then won't you answer? POLUS: I certainly will—I'm curious to hear what you'll say. SOCRATES: Tell me then, so you'll know, as if I were asking you from the beginning: which seems to you worse, Polus, doing wrong or suffering it? POLUS: Suffering it, in my view. SOCRATES: And which is more shameful—doing wrong or suffering it? Answer. POLUS: Doing wrong. SOCRATES: And isn't the more shameful also the worse, if it's more shameful? POLUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: I see—apparently you don't think the fine and the good are the same thing, nor the bad and the shameful. POLUS: No, I don't. SOCRATES: Well, what about this: when you call things fine—bodies, colors, shapes, sounds, ways of life—do you call them fine without reference to anything? Take fine bodies first: don't you call them fine either in respect of their usefulness, for whatever purpose each is useful, or in respect of some pleasure, if they give pleasure to those who look at them as they look? Can you name anything about bodily beauty apart from these? POLUS: I can't. SOCRATES: And don't you likewise call everything else fine—shapes and colors too—either because of some pleasure or some benefit, or both? POLUS: I do. SOCRATES: And the same goes for sounds and everything in music? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And surely laws and ways of life aren't outside this either—things are called fine because they're beneficial or pleasant or both.

POLUS: I don't think so, no. SOCRATES: And isn't the beauty of studies the same way? POLUS: Certainly—and you're defining it well now, Socrates, marking off the fine by pleasure and benefit. SOCRATES: And the shameful by their opposites, then—pain and harm? POLUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: So whenever, of two fine things, one is finer than the other, it's finer by exceeding the other in one of these—pleasure or benefit or both. POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And whenever, of two shameful things, one is more shameful, it will be more shameful by exceeding in pain or in harm. Isn't that necessary too? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then—how did we put it just now about doing wrong and suffering it? Didn't you say that suffering wrong is worse, but doing wrong is more shameful? POLUS: I did. SOCRATES: So if doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it, then it must be either more painful, and more shameful by an excess of pain, or more shameful by an excess of harm, or both. Isn't that necessary too? POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Then first let's examine whether doing wrong exceeds suffering it in pain—whether wrongdoers feel more pain than those who are wronged. POLUS: Not at all, Socrates, not that. SOCRATES: Then it doesn't exceed in pain. POLUS: No, it doesn't. SOCRATES: And if not in pain, then it can't exceed in both. POLUS: Apparently not. SOCRATES: So it's left with the other one. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: With harm. POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: So doing wrong, exceeding in harm, would be worse than suffering it. POLUS: Clearly so. SOCRATES: Now didn't most people, and you as well, agree earlier that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And now it's turned out to be worse. POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Would you then choose the worse and more shameful over the less so? Don't shrink from answering, Polus—you won't be harmed by it. Just submit nobly to the argument as you would to a doctor, and say yes or no to what I ask. POLUS: No, I wouldn't choose it, Socrates. SOCRATES: Would anyone else? POLUS: Not on this reasoning, I don't think. SOCRATES: So what I was saying was true—that neither I nor you nor anyone else would choose to do wrong rather than suffer it, since it turns out to be worse. POLUS: So it appears.

SOCRATES: You see then, Polus, when one proof is set beside the other, they're nothing alike—while everyone else agrees with you except me, for my part you alone are enough for me, agreeing and testifying, and I take your single vote and let the others go their way. Let's leave that matter as it stands, then, and turn to the second point we disputed: whether a wrongdoer paying the penalty is the greatest of evils, as you supposed, or whether not paying it is greater still, as I supposed. Let's look at it this way: do you call paying the penalty and being justly punished for wrongdoing the same thing? POLUS: I do. SOCRATES: Can you say that whatever is just isn't also fine, insofar as it's just? Think it over and tell me. POLUS: It does seem so to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then consider this too: if someone does something, isn't there necessarily something that has it done to it by the one doing it? POLUS: I think so. SOCRATES: And does it undergo just what the doer does, and in the same manner as the doer does it? I mean something like this: if someone strikes, must something be struck? POLUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes hard or fast, the thing struck is struck in that same way? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the thing struck undergoes whatever sort of experience the striker inflicts? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if someone burns something, must something be burned? POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And if he burns it intensely or painfully, the thing burned is burned just as the burner burns it? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the same reasoning holds if someone cuts something—something is cut? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And if the cut is large or deep or painful, the thing cut suffers a cut of just the kind the cutter makes? POLUS: It appears so. SOCRATES: In short, then, see whether you agree with what I was just saying about all cases: whatever sort of thing the doer does, the sufferer suffers a like thing. POLUS: I agree. SOCRATES: Given this agreement, is paying a penalty a case of suffering something or doing something? POLUS: It must be suffering, Socrates. SOCRATES: And at the hands of someone doing something? POLUS: Of course—the one inflicting punishment. SOCRATES: And the one who punishes correctly punishes justly? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Doing just things, then, or not? POLUS: Just things. SOCRATES: So the one being punished, in paying the penalty, suffers what is just? POLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: And we've agreed that just things are fine? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then of these two, one does what is fine, and the other—the one being punished—suffers it. POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So if they're fine things, they're good things? Because they're either pleasant or beneficial. POLUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: So the person who pays the penalty experiences something good? POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: He's benefited, then? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Benefited in the way I mean — his soul becomes better, if he's punished justly? POLUS: That's likely. SOCRATES: So the one paying the penalty is rid of a vice in his soul? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Is he then rid of the greatest evil? Look at it this way. In managing one's money, do you see any vice other than poverty? POLUS: No, just poverty. SOCRATES: And in the condition of the body? Would you say the vice there is weakness, disease, deformity, and the like? POLUS: I would. SOCRATES: And don't you think there's some corresponding badness in the soul too? POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And don't you call that injustice, ignorance, cowardice, and so on? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So with money, body, and soul — three things — you've named three kinds of badness: poverty, disease, injustice? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Now which of these forms of badness is the most shameful? Isn't it injustice — the soul's badness generally? POLUS: By far. SOCRATES: And if it's the most shameful, is it also the worst? POLUS: What do you mean by that, Socrates? SOCRATES: Like this. Whatever is most shameful is always so because it causes the greatest pain, or the greatest harm, or both — that follows from what we agreed earlier. POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And we just agreed that injustice, and badness of soul generally, is the most shameful thing? POLUS: We did agree to that. SOCRATES: So it's the most shameful either because it's the most painful and exceeds in pain, or because it exceeds in harm, or both? POLUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: Then is being unjust, undisciplined, cowardly, and ignorant more painful than being poor or sick? POLUS: It doesn't seem so to me, Socrates, not on those grounds. SOCRATES: So it must be some extraordinary harm, some astonishing evil, surpassing everything else, that makes the soul's badness the most shameful of all things — since it isn't through pain, as you yourself say. POLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: But surely whatever exceeds in the greatest harm would be the greatest evil there is. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So injustice, lack of self-control, and the soul's other badness are the greatest evil there is? POLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Now what skill relieves poverty? Isn't it money-making? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what relieves disease? Isn't it medicine?

POLUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: And what relieves badness and injustice? If you can't answer easily, look at it this way: where and to whom do we take people who are sick in body? POLUS: To doctors, Socrates. SOCRATES: And where do we take people who act unjustly and without self-control? POLUS: You mean, to the judges? SOCRATES: To pay a penalty, you mean? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And don't those who punish correctly do so by applying a kind of justice? POLUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: So money-making relieves poverty, medicine relieves disease, and justice relieves lack of self-control and injustice. POLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Now which of these is the finest? POLUS: Finest in what sense? SOCRATES: Money-making, medicine, justice. POLUS: Justice is far superior, Socrates. SOCRATES: And doesn't whatever is finest produce the most pleasure, or the most benefit, or both, since it's the finest? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Is being treated by a doctor pleasant, then? Do patients enjoy it? POLUS: I don't think so. SOCRATES: But it is beneficial, isn't it? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Because one is rid of a great evil, so it's worthwhile to endure the pain in order to be healthy. POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So as far as the body goes, would a person be happiest being treated by a doctor, or by never being sick in the first place? POLUS: Clearly by never being sick. SOCRATES: Because happiness, it seems, isn't being rid of an evil, but never having had it at all. POLUS: That's right. SOCRATES: Now, of two people who have some evil, either in body or in soul, which is more wretched — the one who gets treated and is rid of the evil, or the one who isn't treated and keeps it? POLUS: It seems to me the one who isn't treated. SOCRATES: And wasn't paying the penalty a release from the greatest evil, badness itself? POLUS: It was. SOCRATES: Because justice disciplines people and makes them more just — it's a kind of medicine for badness. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the happiest person is the one with no vice in his soul, since that was shown to be the greatest of evils. POLUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: And second happiest, I suppose, is the one who is rid of it. POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And that's the person who is admonished, rebuked, and pays the penalty. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the person who lives worst is the one who has injustice and is never rid of it. POLUS: So it appears.

SOCRATES: And isn't this the very person who, by committing the greatest injustices and using injustice to the fullest, manages to avoid being admonished, punished, or made to pay any penalty — just as you say Archelaus has arranged for himself, and other tyrants, orators, and men of power? POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Because these men, my excellent friend, have more or less achieved the same thing as someone gripped by the worst diseases who manages to avoid paying the doctors any penalty for his bodily faults and avoids treatment altogether, afraid — like a child — of the burning and cutting, because it's painful. Don't you think it's like that? POLUS: I do. SOCRATES: Not understanding, it seems, what health and bodily excellence really are. Because, from what we've now agreed, it looks like those who escape punishment do something similar, Polus — they see the pain of it clearly enough, but they're blind to the benefit, not realizing how much more wretched it is to live with an unhealthy soul than an unhealthy body — a soul that's rotten, unjust, and impious. That's why they do everything they can to avoid paying the penalty and being freed from the greatest evil — piling up money and friends, and making themselves as persuasive speakers as possible. But if what we've agreed is true, Polus, do you see what follows from the argument? Or shall we work it out together? POLUS: If you think so. SOCRATES: Doesn't it follow that injustice, acting unjustly, is the greatest evil? POLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: And we also showed that paying the penalty is the release from that evil? POLUS: It seems so. SOCRATES: And not paying it means the evil remains? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So acting unjustly is the second worst thing in terms of magnitude; but acting unjustly and not paying the penalty is by nature the worst and greatest of all evils. POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Now wasn't this exactly the point we were disputing, my friend — you calling Archelaus happy, a man who commits the greatest injustices and pays no penalty at all, while I hold the opposite: that whoever — Archelaus or anyone else — acts unjustly without paying the penalty deserves to be more wretched than everyone else, and that the wrongdoer is always more wretched than the wronged, and the one who escapes punishment more wretched than the one who is punished? Isn't that what I was saying? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And hasn't it now been shown that this was true? POLUS: So it appears.

SOCRATES: Very well. If all this is true, Polus, what great use is oratory then? From what we've now agreed, a person must above all guard himself against acting unjustly, knowing that this will bring him evil enough. Isn't that so? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if he does act unjustly — either himself, or anyone he cares about — he should go voluntarily, as quickly as possible, to wherever he'll be made to pay the penalty, to the judge as if to a doctor, eager to keep the sickness of injustice from festering in the soul and becoming incurable over time. Isn't that what we must say, Polus, if our earlier agreements still stand? Doesn't this necessarily follow from them, and nothing else? POLUS: Well, what else could we say, Socrates? SOCRATES: So oratory is of no use to us, Polus, for defending one's own injustice, or that of one's parents, friends, children, or country when it acts unjustly — unless someone takes the opposite view: that one should accuse oneself first of all, then one's family and anyone else among one's friends who happens to act unjustly, and not hide the wrongdoing but bring it into the open, so that the penalty may be paid and the soul restored to health; that one should force oneself and others not to shrink back, but to offer oneself bravely, eyes shut, as if to the doctor's knife and cautery, pursuing the good and the fine without weighing the pain; offering oneself for a beating if the wrongdoing deserves a beating, for imprisonment if it deserves imprisonment, paying a fine if that's due, accepting exile if that's due, accepting death if that's due — being the first to accuse himself and his own family, and using oratory for this very purpose: so that, once the injustices are exposed, people may be freed from the greatest evil, injustice itself. Shall we say this, Polus, or not? POLUS: It seems strange to me, Socrates, though perhaps it agrees with what we said before. SOCRATES: Then either we must undo those earlier agreements, or this conclusion must follow. POLUS: Yes, that's how it stands.

SOCRATES: And conversely, if one must do harm to someone — an enemy or anyone else — provided one hasn't been wronged by that enemy oneself (for that must be guarded against), but if the enemy has wronged someone else, then every effort should be made, in word and deed, to keep him from paying the penalty or ever coming before the judge; and if he does come, one should contrive some way for the enemy to escape and avoid paying the penalty — if he's stolen a great deal of gold, to let him keep it and spend it, unjustly and godlessly, on himself and his own; and if he's done something deserving death, to make sure he doesn't die — best of all, never, letting him live on forever in his wickedness, but failing that, letting him live as long as possible in that condition. For such purposes, Polus, oratory seems useful to me; for someone who doesn't intend to act unjustly, it doesn't seem to me to have much use — if indeed it has any use at all, since none has appeared in our discussion so far. CALLICLES: Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates serious about this, or is he joking? CHAEREPHON: To me, Callicles, he seems extraordinarily serious. But there's nothing like asking him yourself. CALLICLES: By the gods, that's just what I want to do. Tell me, Socrates, are we to take you as serious right now, or joking? Because if you're serious and what you're saying happens to be true, then wouldn't our whole human life be turned upside down, and everything we do be the opposite of what we should do? SOCRATES: Callicles, if human beings didn't each experience some feeling — some one thing, some another, or some the same thing as others — but instead each of us had some private experience all our own that no one else shared, it wouldn't be easy to make our own feeling clear to someone else. I say this because I notice that you and I happen right now to be experiencing the same thing: each of us is in love, twice over — I with Alcibiades, son of Clinias, and with philosophy, and you with two loves as well, the Athenian people and the son of Pyrilampes. And I notice that you, clever as you are, can't contradict whatever your beloved says or however he says he feels — you keep shifting back and forth. In the assembly, if you say something and the Athenian people disagree, you change your position and say what they want to hear; and you've experienced the same sort of thing with that handsome young man, the son of Pyrilampes.

SOCRATES: You can't bring yourself to oppose whatever your darling thinks and says, and so if someone were amazed at the strange things you say for his sake and objected, you'd tell him -- if you wanted to speak the truth -- that unless somebody stops your darling from saying such things, you'll never stop saying them yourself either. Well, you should expect to hear the same sort of thing from me now. Don't be surprised that I say what I say -- blame philosophy instead, my own darling, and make her stop saying these things. She's the one who says, dear friend, what you're hearing from me right now, and she's a far less fickle darling than the other one. That son of Cleinias changes his tune from one moment to the next, but philosophy always says the same things -- and what she says is exactly what's amazing you now, and you were there yourself when it was said. So either refute her -- show, as I was just saying, that doing wrong and getting away with it unpunished is not the worst of all evils -- or, if you leave that unrefuted, then by the dog, the god of the Egyptians, Callicles will not agree with you, Callicles, but will be out of tune with himself his whole life long. And yet I, for my part, my good man, would rather have my lyre out of tune and jangling, or a chorus I was directing sound like that, and I would rather practically the whole human race disagreed with me and contradicted me, than that I, a single individual, should be out of harmony with myself and contradict myself. CALLICLES: Socrates, you seem to be indulging yourself in speeches like some kind of true crowd-pleaser -- and that's exactly what you're doing now, making a speech to the crowd, now that Polus has suffered the very thing he accused you of doing to Gorgias. He said, I think, that when you asked Gorgias whether, if someone came to him wanting to learn rhetoric without already knowing what's just, Gorgias would teach him -- Gorgias, out of shame, said he would teach him, because of people's habit of getting angry if you say you won't -- and that because of this admission he was forced to contradict himself, which is exactly what you enjoy. And you laughed at him then, rightly, I thought -- but now he's gone and suffered the very same thing himself. And for my part I don't much admire Polus for this, because he conceded to you that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it -- for it was from this very admission that he in turn got tripped up in the argument by you and had his mouth shut, too ashamed to say what he really thought. Because in truth, Socrates, this pursuit of yours, which you call the pursuit of truth, leads to vulgar, crowd-pleasing conclusions -- things that are not fine by nature, but only by convention.

CALLICLES: And these two, nature and convention, are for the most part opposed to one another; so if a person feels ashamed and doesn't dare say what he really thinks, he's forced to contradict himself. And this is exactly the clever trick you've noticed and exploit in your arguments: if someone speaks according to convention, you cross-examine him according to nature, and if he speaks according to nature, you cross-examine him according to convention. That's just what happened a moment ago, in the case of doing wrong and suffering wrong: when Polus said that doing wrong was more shameful according to convention, you pursued that claim according to nature. For by nature, everything that is worse is also more shameful, and suffering wrong is worse -- but by convention, doing wrong is more shameful. In fact suffering wrong isn't even something that happens to a real man at all -- it's the condition of some slave, for whom it's better to be dead than alive, who when he's wronged and abused can't defend himself or anyone else he cares about. No, I think the people who make the laws are the weak, the many. It's with themselves and their own advantage in mind that they make their laws and hand out their praise and their blame; and to frighten the stronger sort of men, the ones capable of getting more, so that these won't get more than they do, they say that getting more than one's share is shameful and unjust, and that this is what doing wrong means -- seeking to have more than others. Because I think they're quite happy to have an equal share themselves, being the inferior ones. That's why by convention seeking to have more than the majority is called unjust and shameful, and they call it doing wrong -- but nature itself, I think, declares that it's just for the better man to have more than the worse, and the more capable more than the less capable. And this is shown to be so in many places: among the other animals, and among whole cities and races of men, it's judged just in just this way, that the stronger rule the weaker and have the greater share. For what kind of justice did Xerxes rely on when he marched against Greece, or his father when he marched against the Scythians? One could mention countless other examples like these. No, I believe these men act according to the nature of justice -- yes, by Zeus, according to the law of nature -- though perhaps not according to that law which we ourselves lay down,

CALLICLES: when we mold the best and strongest among us, taking them from childhood, like lion cubs, and with our chants and spells we enslave them, telling them that one must have an equal share, and that this is what's fine and just. But if a man is born with a nature strong enough, I believe he'll shake all this off, burst through it, escape -- he'll trample underfoot our documents and tricks and incantations and all our laws that go against nature; the slave will rise up and be revealed as our master, and there the justice of nature will blaze forth. And I think Pindar shows exactly what I'm saying in that song where he says -- "Law, the king of all, of mortals and immortals" -- and this law, he says, "carries out the utmost violence with a hand held highest, and I judge it so by the deeds of Heracles, since without paying for them" -- it goes something like that, I don't know the song by heart -- he means that Heracles drove off Geryon's cattle without buying them and without Geryon giving them, because this is what's just by nature: that cattle and all other possessions belong to the better and stronger man, taken from the worse and weaker. Well, that's how the truth of the matter stands, and you'll see it too, if you finally give up philosophy and turn to greater things. Philosophy, Socrates, is a charming thing, if one takes it up in moderation at the right age; but if one spends more time at it than one should, it ruins a man. Even if someone is very gifted by nature, if he goes on philosophizing well past his youth, he's bound to end up ignorant of everything a man needs to know if he's going to be admirable and respected. Such people end up ignorant of the laws that govern their city, ignorant of the kind of speech one must use in dealing with people in matters of business, whether private or public, ignorant of human pleasures and desires, and, in short, entirely ignorant of human character. So when they go into some private or public activity, they become laughingstocks -- just as, I imagine, statesmen become laughingstocks when they wander into your kind of discussions and arguments.

CALLICLES: For what happens is just what Euripides says: each man shines in the field where he does best, and rushes toward that, giving the greater part of his day to just this, wherever he happens to be at his best -- but wherever he's weak, that's what he flees and runs down, while he praises the other thing, out of goodwill toward himself, thinking that in this way he's praising himself. No, I believe the most correct course is to have a share of both. It's fine to take part in philosophy as far as education goes, and there's nothing shameful in a young man philosophizing; but when a man who's already getting on in years still goes on philosophizing, the thing becomes ridiculous, Socrates, and I have exactly the same reaction to philosophers as I do to people who lisp and play childish games. When I see a small child, for whom it's still appropriate to talk that way, lisping and playing, I'm delighted -- it seems charming to me, and free-spirited, and fitting for the child's age. But when I hear a small child speaking clearly and precisely, it strikes me as something harsh, it grates on my ears, and seems to me somehow slavish. But when one hears a grown man lisping, or sees him playing childish games, it looks ridiculous, unmanly, deserving a beating. Well, that's exactly how I feel about people who philosophize. When I see philosophy in a young boy, I admire it -- it seems fitting to me, and I think such a person shows some breeding, while the one who doesn't philosophize seems to me unfree, someone who will never think himself worthy of anything fine or noble. But when I see an older man still philosophizing, still not giving it up, that man seems to me to need a beating already, Socrates. As I was just saying, such a person, however naturally gifted, is bound to become unmanly, avoiding the center of the city and the marketplaces where, as the poet says, men become distinguished, and instead spend the rest of his life hiding away, whispering in a corner with three or four boys, never uttering anything free and grand and worthy. As for me, Socrates, I feel rather friendly toward you; so I think I must be in much the same position now as Zethus was toward Amphion in the play of Euripides that I mentioned before.

CALLICLES: Yes, the same sort of thing occurs to me to say to you as Zethus said to his brother -- that you neglect, Socrates, what you ought to be attending to, and you take a soul so naturally noble and dress it up in a boyish disguise; you'd be no use framing an argument correctly in a court of law, nor could you come up with anything plausible and persuasive, nor make any bold proposal on someone else's behalf. And yet, my dear Socrates -- and don't be offended with me, I say this out of goodwill toward you -- doesn't it seem shameful to you to be in the condition I think you're in, and the others who keep pushing further and further into philosophy? As things stand, if someone seized you, or anyone else like you, and dragged you off to prison, claiming you'd done wrong when you'd done nothing of the kind, you know you wouldn't have the first idea what to do with yourself -- you'd get dizzy and stand there gaping, with nothing to say, and then when you came up before the court, facing some thoroughly worthless and contemptible accuser, you'd be put to death, if he chose to ask for the death penalty. And yet how can this be wise, Socrates -- that a skill takes a naturally gifted man and makes him worse, unable to help himself or save himself or anyone else from the greatest dangers, stripped of all his property by his enemies, living, quite literally, without any honor in his city? Such a man, if I may put it rather crudely, can be slapped across the face with impunity. No, my good man, listen to me: stop your refutations, practice the graceful conduct of real affairs, and practice whatever will make you look intelligent, leaving these clever little exercises to others -- call them foolishness or nonsense, whichever you like -- things that will leave you living in an empty house; don't envy men who spend their time on these small refutations, but rather those who have a good life, a good reputation, and many other good things. SOCRATES: If it happened, Callicles, that my soul were made of gold, don't you think I'd be glad to find one of those stones they use to test gold -- the very best one -- so that when I brought my soul to it, if it agreed that my soul had been well cared for, I would know for certain that I was in good condition and needed no other test? CALLICLES: Why do you ask this, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll tell you. I think that in meeting you just now, I've met with exactly such a stroke of luck. CALLICLES: How so?

SOCRATES: I know well that if you agree with me about what my own soul believes, then that agreement is the truth itself. Because I've noticed that anyone who's going to test properly whether a soul is living rightly or not needs to have three things, all of which you have: knowledge, goodwill, and frankness. Many people I meet can't test me because they aren't wise the way you are. Others are wise, but they won't tell me the truth because they don't care about me the way you do. As for our two foreign friends here, Gorgias and Polus, they're wise and they're fond of me, but they're a bit short on frankness and more bashful than they need to be. And why wouldn't they be? They've reached such a pitch of bashfulness that shame drives each of them, in front of a large crowd, to contradict himself — and about the most important matters, too. But you have all the things the others lack: you're well enough educated, as many an Athenian would say, and you're well-disposed toward me. What's my evidence? I'll tell you. I know, Callicles, that you four have formed a partnership in wisdom — you, Tisander of Aphidnae, Andron son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of Cholargus. And I once overheard you deliberating about how far one ought to pursue wisdom, and I know that the view that won out among you was this: don't be too eager to philosophize down to the last precision, but be careful, you urged one another, not to ruin yourselves by becoming wiser than you need to be. So when I hear you giving me the very same advice you give your closest companions, that's evidence enough for me that you truly are well-disposed toward me. And that you're the sort of person who can speak frankly and isn't ashamed to — you say so yourself, and the speech you gave a moment ago bears you out. So here's how things clearly stand on this matter: whatever you agree to with me in our discussion will have been tested thoroughly enough by the two of us, and there'll be no need to bring it to any further test. Because you'd never have granted it either from a lack of wisdom or an excess of shame, nor would you grant it to deceive me — you're my friend, as you say yourself. So truly, once you and I reach agreement, that will be the final word on the truth.

SOCRATES: And the finest inquiry of all, Callicles, concerns exactly what you took me to task about: what kind of man one ought to be, what one ought to practice, and how far — whether older or younger. Because if I'm doing something wrong in the way I live my life, know well that I don't go wrong on purpose, but out of my own ignorance. So don't give up now that you've started correcting me — show me clearly enough what it is I ought to practice, and how I might acquire it. And if you catch me agreeing with you now but not doing, later on, the very things I agreed to, consider me a complete fool and never bother correcting me again, since I'd be worth nothing. So go back to the beginning and tell me again how you and Pindar say justice stands by nature. Is it that the stronger should forcibly take what belongs to the weaker, that the better should rule the worse, and that the superior man should have more than the inferior one? Are you saying something different from justice, or have I remembered it correctly? CALLICLES: That's what I said then and what I say now. SOCRATES: And do you call the same man 'better' and 'stronger'? Because even back then I couldn't quite grasp what you meant. Do you mean by 'stronger' the physically more powerful, so that the weaker must obey the stronger — which is what you seemed to be showing then, when you said that large cities attack small ones in accordance with natural justice, because they're stronger and more powerful, as if 'stronger,' 'more powerful,' and 'better' were the same thing? Or can someone be better yet weaker and less powerful, and stronger yet more wretched? Is there one and the same definition for 'better' and 'stronger'? Make this itself clear to me: are 'stronger,' 'better,' and 'more powerful' the same thing, or different? CALLICLES: I tell you plainly, they're the same. SOCRATES: Well then, aren't the many stronger than the one by nature? And it's the many who make the laws over the one, just as you were saying a moment ago. CALLICLES: Of course. SOCRATES: So the customs of the many are the customs of the stronger. CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And so of the better too? Since by your own account the stronger are far better. CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So their customs are, by nature, admirable, since they belong to the stronger? CALLICLES: I say so.

SOCRATES: Well then, do the many believe — as you yourself were just saying — that justice is having an equal share, and that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it? Is that so or not? And mind you don't get caught being ashamed here yourself. Do the many believe, or not, that having an equal share, not more, is just, and that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it? Don't begrudge me an answer to this, Callicles, so that if you agree with me I can take it as settled, coming as it does from a man competent to judge. CALLICLES: Well, yes, the many do believe that. SOCRATES: Then it's not only by convention that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it, and that having an equal share is just, but by nature as well. So it looks like you weren't telling the truth earlier, nor accusing me fairly, when you said that law and nature are opposites — which I supposedly know and exploit in argument, twisting things toward law when someone speaks by nature, and toward nature when someone speaks by law. CALLICLES: This man will never stop talking nonsense. Tell me, Socrates, aren't you ashamed, at your age, to go hunting for words, and to treat it as a windfall whenever someone slips up in phrasing? Do you really think I mean anything other than 'better' when I say 'stronger'? Haven't I been telling you all along that I hold 'better' and 'stronger' to be the same thing? Or do you think I mean that if a rabble of slaves and assorted people worth nothing — except perhaps for bodily strength — gets together, and they declare something, that this then counts as law? SOCRATES: Well now, wisest Callicles — is that what you mean? CALLICLES: Certainly it is. SOCRATES: But my good man, I myself have long suspected that this is roughly the sort of thing you mean by 'the stronger,' and I keep asking because I'm eager to know clearly what you mean. Because surely you don't think two men are better than one, or that your own slaves are better than you just because they're physically stronger than you. So tell me again from the beginning who you mean by 'the better,' since it's not the physically stronger. And, my remarkable friend, teach me more gently, so I don't run off and leave you. CALLICLES: You're being ironic, Socrates. SOCRATES: No, by Zethus, Callicles, whom you invoked yourself just now while being ironic with me so much — come now, tell me, who do you mean by 'the better'? CALLICLES: The superior men, I mean. SOCRATES: You see, then, that you yourself are just uttering words and explaining nothing? Won't you tell me whether by 'better' and 'stronger' you mean the more intelligent, or some other sort of people? CALLICLES: Yes, by Zeus, that's exactly what I mean, very much so.

SOCRATES: So often, on your account, one intelligent man is stronger than countless unintelligent ones, and he ought to rule while they're ruled, and the ruler ought to have more than the ruled. That's what I take you to mean — and I'm not hunting for words — if the one is stronger than the countless many. CALLICLES: Yes, that's exactly what I mean. That's what I think justice by nature is: that the better and more intelligent man should rule and have more than his inferiors. SOCRATES: Hold it right there — what do you mean by this now? Suppose we're all together, as we are now, a large crowd, and we have plenty of food and drink in common, and we're all sorts — some strong, some weak — and one of us, being a doctor, is more knowledgeable about these matters, and, as is likely, stronger than some of us and weaker than others. Won't this man, being more intelligent than we are about these things, be better and stronger when it comes to them? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So should he take a larger share of this food than the rest of us, because he's better? Or rather, should it fall to him, as the one in charge, to distribute everything, while when it comes to consuming and using it for his own body he shouldn't take more than his share, on pain of harming himself — but should take more of some things and less of others, and if he happens to be the weakest of all, should get the smallest share of all, though he's the best, Callicles? Isn't that so, my good man? CALLICLES: You're talking about food and drink and doctors and nonsense. That's not what I mean. SOCRATES: Don't you mean by 'better' the more intelligent? Say yes or no. CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: But shouldn't the better man have more? CALLICLES: Not of food and drink, no. SOCRATES: I see — perhaps of clothing, then, and the most skilled weaver ought to have the biggest cloak and go about wrapped in the most and finest garments? CALLICLES: What clothing are you talking about? SOCRATES: Well then, clearly it must be shoes where the most intelligent and best man in that line should have the advantage. Perhaps the shoemaker ought to walk around wearing the biggest and most numerous shoes. CALLICLES: What shoes? You're talking nonsense. SOCRATES: Well, if you don't mean things like that, perhaps you mean something like this: a farmer, knowledgeable and fine and good about the land — perhaps he ought to have the advantage in seed, and use as much seed as possible on his own land. CALLICLES: How you keep saying the same things, Socrates! SOCRATES: Not only that, Callicles, but also about the same subjects.

CALLICLES: By the gods, you truly never stop talking about cobblers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if our discussion were about them. SOCRATES: Then won't you tell me in what area the stronger and more intelligent man justly has the advantage when he takes more? Or will you neither put up with my suggestions nor say it yourself? CALLICLES: Why, I've been saying it all along. First of all, by 'the stronger' I don't mean cobblers or cooks, but those who are intelligent about the affairs of the city — how it might be well governed — and not only intelligent but also courageous, capable of carrying out what they've conceived, and not giving up halfway through some softness of soul. SOCRATES: Do you see, excellent Callicles, that you and I aren't accusing each other of the same thing? You say I always repeat myself, and you blame me for it; I say the opposite of you — that you never say the same thing about the same subjects, but at one point you defined the better and stronger as the physically more powerful, then as the more intelligent, and now you've come around to something else again — some people are called stronger and better by you because they're more courageous. Come now, my good man, get it over with and tell me once and for all who you mean by the better and stronger, and in regard to what. CALLICLES: Well, I've already said: those who are intelligent about the city's affairs, and courageous. It's fitting for these men to rule their cities, and justice consists in this — that they should have more than the rest, the rulers more than the ruled. SOCRATES: What about themselves, though, my friend — ruling or being ruled? CALLICLES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: I mean each man ruling himself. Or is there no need at all for that — for a man to rule himself — but only to rule others? CALLICLES: What do you mean by 'ruling himself'? SOCRATES: Nothing elaborate — just what most people mean: being temperate and in control of oneself, ruling over the pleasures and desires within oneself. CALLICLES: How charming you are — you mean the fools, the ones people call temperate. SOCRATES: How so? There's no one who wouldn't recognize that's not what I mean.

CALLICLES: Absolutely, Socrates, and emphatically so. How could a man become happy while he's a slave to anything? No, this is what's naturally noble and just, and I'll say it to you now in plain speech: the man who means to live rightly should let his own appetites grow as large as possible and never curb them, and once they're as large as can be he should be capable of serving them through courage and intelligence, and satisfy them with whatever they crave at any moment. But this, I think, most people can't manage, and that's why they run down men like that — out of shame, hiding their own incapacity — and they call self-indulgence shameful, as I said before, enslaving the men who are naturally superior, and being unable themselves to procure fullness for their pleasures they praise self-control and justice on account of their own lack of manhood. Since for those who happened from the start to be sons of kings, or who were naturally capable of securing some rule or tyranny or dominion for themselves, what in truth could be more shameful and worse than self-control and justice for men like these — men who could enjoy good things with nothing standing in their way, and yet they'd bring in as master over themselves the law and talk and blame of ordinary people? How would they not have been made miserable by the so-called nobility of justice and self-control, when they hand out no more to their friends than to their enemies, and this while ruling in their own city? No, Socrates, the truth — which you claim to be pursuing — is this: luxury and self-indulgence and freedom, when they have backing, that is virtue and happiness, and all the rest of it is fine talk, agreements among men that go against nature, nonsense worth nothing at all. SOCRATES: It's not without spirit, Callicles, that you press your argument speaking so frankly. You're now saying clearly what other people think but aren't willing to say. So I beg you not to give an inch anywhere, so that it may truly become clear how one ought to live. Now tell me: you say the appetites shouldn't be curbed, if a person is going to be what he ought to be, but that one should let them grow as large as possible and provide them fulfillment from any source whatever, and that this is virtue? CALLICLES: Yes, that's what I say. SOCRATES: Then it's not right to say that those who need nothing are happy. CALLICLES: No — because on that reckoning stones and corpses would be the happiest of all.

SOCRATES: Well, the life you're describing is certainly a strange one. I wouldn't be surprised if Euripides was speaking the truth in those lines where he says — who knows if living is really dying, and dying, living? Maybe we really are dead. I've actually heard from wise men before that we're dead right now, and that the body is a tomb for us, and that the part of the soul where the appetites reside happens to be the sort of thing that can be persuaded and swayed up and down — and so some clever fellow, a Sicilian perhaps, or an Italian, spinning a myth out of this, twisting the word for effect, named it a jar, because it's so persuadable and persuasible — calling the unthinking uninitiated, and saying that the part of the soul of the unthinking where the appetites lie, the undisciplined and leaky part, is like a jar full of holes, likening it to that because of its insatiability. So this fellow shows you the opposite of what you claim, Callicles: that among the dwellers in Hades — meaning the unseen place — these people, the uninitiated, would be the most wretched of all, and they'd be carrying water into their leaky jar using another leaky thing, a sieve. And the sieve, so my source told me, stands for the soul — he likened the soul of the unthinking to a sieve because it's full of holes, since it can't hold anything, being riddled by faithlessness and forgetfulness. Now all this is admittedly rather strange, but it shows what I want to show you, if I can somehow persuade you to change your mind — to choose, instead of the insatiable and undisciplined life, an orderly life that's content and satisfied with what's always at hand. Am I persuading you at all to change your mind, to admit that orderly people are happier than undisciplined ones, or will you not budge an inch no matter how many more such stories I tell? CALLICLES: That's closer to the truth, Socrates. SOCRATES: Come then, let me give you another image from the same gymnasium as the one just now. Consider whether this is what you mean about each of the two lives, the self-controlled and the undisciplined — suppose two men each had many jars, and one man's jars were sound and full, one with wine, one with honey, one with milk, and many others each with something else, but the streams feeding each of these were scarce and hard to come by, procured only through much toil and difficulty —

SOCRATES: Now the one man, once he'd filled his jars, would neither pour in any more nor give it a further thought, but would be at ease on that score. But for the other, though the streams could likewise be procured, only with difficulty, his vessels are cracked and rotten, and he's forced to keep filling them constantly, night and day, or else suffer the utmost distress. If each life is like this, do you say the undisciplined man's life is happier than the orderly man's? Am I persuading you at all by saying this, to concede that the orderly life is better than the undisciplined one, or am I not persuading you? CALLICLES: You're not persuading me, Socrates. Because the man who's filled up has no pleasure left at all — that's exactly what I was just calling living like a stone, once he's filled up, neither delighted anymore nor pained. No, the pleasant life consists in this: in as much flowing in as possible. SOCRATES: Then isn't it necessary, if much flows in, that much also flows out, and that there be some large holes for the outflow? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: The life you're describing sounds like a plover's, not a corpse's or a stone's. Now tell me: do you mean something like being hungry and eating while hungry? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: And being thirsty and drinking while thirsty? CALLICLES: Yes, and having all the other appetites too, and being able to fill them and enjoy it, and live happily that way. SOCRATES: Well done, my excellent fellow — keep going the way you started, and don't let embarrassment hold you back. Though it seems I mustn't be held back by embarrassment either. So tell me first: if a man had an itch and scratched it, and could scratch to his heart's content, scratching all his life through, could he live happily that way? CALLICLES: What an absurd thing to say, Socrates — you're a regular crowd-pleaser. SOCRATES: Well, that's exactly how I startled and embarrassed Polus and Gorgias, Callicles, but you won't be startled or embarrassed — you're a man of courage. Just answer. CALLICLES: All right then, I say the man who scratches would live pleasantly too. SOCRATES: And if pleasantly, then happily? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Whether he's itching only in his head — or need I ask you more? Consider, Callicles, what you'll answer if someone asks you all the questions that follow from this one after another. And to sum all this up: the life of those who behave like catamites — isn't that a terrible, shameful, wretched life? Or will you dare say that these people are happy, provided they have all they need without stint? CALLICLES: Aren't you ashamed, Socrates, to drag the argument into subjects like that?

SOCRATES: Am I the one dragging it there, my noble friend, or is it the man who says outright that anyone who feels pleasure, however he feels it, is happy, and who draws no distinction among pleasures as to which are good and which are bad? Come, tell me even now: do you say the pleasant and the good are the same thing, or is there some pleasant thing that isn't good? CALLICLES: So that my argument won't be self-contradictory if I say they're different, I say they're the same. SOCRATES: You're ruining our earlier agreements, Callicles, and you won't be able to examine the truth of things properly with me any longer, if you're going to speak against your own real opinions. CALLICLES: Well, so are you, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then I'm not acting rightly either, if I'm doing that — nor are you. But, my good man, consider whether the good really might not be simply feeling pleasure of any kind whatever. Because if that's how it is, then a great many shameful things turn out to follow, as we've just been hinting, and many others besides. CALLICLES: So you think, Socrates. SOCRATES: And do you, Callicles, really maintain this in earnest? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: Shall we take up the argument, then, on the assumption that you mean it seriously? CALLICLES: By all means, very much so. SOCRATES: Come then, since that's how you want it, make this distinction for me: you call something knowledge, don't you? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: And weren't you just saying that there's a kind of courage that goes along with knowledge? CALLICLES: Yes, I was saying that. SOCRATES: So in saying that, you were speaking of courage and knowledge as two different things? CALLICLES: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Well then — pleasure and knowledge, the same thing or different? CALLICLES: Different, surely, wisest of men. SOCRATES: And is courage different from pleasure too? CALLICLES: Of course. SOCRATES: Come then, let's remember this: that Callicles of Acharnae said the pleasant and the good are the same thing, but that knowledge and courage are different both from each other and from the good. CALLICLES: And our Socrates of Alopeke won't agree with us on this — or will he? SOCRATES: He won't agree — and I don't think Callicles will either, once he looks at himself properly. Tell me: don't you think people who are doing well are in the opposite condition from people who are doing badly? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: Then if these are opposites of one another, isn't it necessary that the same holds for them as holds for health and sickness? A person surely isn't healthy and sick at the same time, nor does he get rid of health and sickness at the same time. CALLICLES: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: Take any part of the body you like and consider it. A person has a disease of the eyes, called ophthalmia, doesn't he? CALLICLES: Of course. CALLICLES: (correction) — Of course. SOCRATES: And surely he isn't healthy in those same eyes at the same time? CALLICLES: Not in the least. SOCRATES: Well, what about when he's rid of the ophthalmia? Is he then also rid of the health of his eyes, and does he end up rid of both at once? CALLICLES: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Because that would be strange and irrational, wouldn't it? CALLICLES: Very much so. SOCRATES: No, I think he takes on each in turn and loses it in turn? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: And the same with strength and weakness? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And speed and slowness? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And good things and happiness, and their opposites, bad things and misery — does one take these on in turn and get rid of them in turn? CALLICLES: Entirely so, I should think. SOCRATES: So if we find some things that a person gets rid of and has at the same time, clearly those wouldn't be the good and the bad. Do we agree on that? Consider it carefully before you answer. CALLICLES: I agree completely. SOCRATES: Now let's go back to what we agreed earlier. Did you say that being hungry is pleasant or painful — I mean hunger itself? CALLICLES: Painful, I'd say — though eating while hungry, that I call pleasant. SOCRATES: I understand. But hunger itself is painful, isn't it? Or not? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: And thirst too? CALLICLES: Very much so. SOCRATES: Shall I ask more questions, or do you agree that every lack and every appetite is painful? CALLICLES: I agree — just don't ask me any more. SOCRATES: Very well. And drinking while thirsty — you say that's pleasant? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: Now in what you're describing, the thirsting part is surely something painful? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the drinking is a filling of the lack, and a pleasure? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So with respect to the drinking, you say there's enjoyment? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: While thirsty? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: While in pain? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Do you notice what follows — that you're saying a person feels pain and pleasure at the same time, when you say he drinks while thirsty? Doesn't this happen at once, in the same place and at the same time, whether you're talking about the soul or the body? I don't think it makes any difference. Is this so or not? CALLICLES: It is. SOCRATES: And yet you say it's impossible for a person to be doing well and doing badly at the same time.

CALLICLES: Yes, I do. SOCRATES: And you've agreed that a man in pain can also be feeling pleasure. CALLICLES: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then feeling pleasure isn't the same as faring well, and feeling pain isn't the same as faring badly — so what's pleasant turns out to be different from what's good. CALLICLES: I don't know what tricks you're playing at, Socrates. SOCRATES: You know perfectly well, Callicles, you're just putting on airs. Go on a little further, since you're being coy on purpose, so you can see how cleverly you're lecturing me. Doesn't each of us stop being thirsty at the very same moment we start feeling pleasure from drinking? CALLICLES: I don't know what you're talking about. GORGIAS: No, please, Callicles — answer, for our sake too, so the argument can be brought to some conclusion. CALLICLES: But Socrates is always like this, Gorgias — he asks about small, worthless things and refutes people on them. GORGIAS: What difference does it make to you? It's not your reputation at stake here, Callicles. Just let Socrates refute whatever he wants however he wants. CALLICLES: Go on then, ask your small, narrow little questions, since that's what Gorgias wants. SOCRATES: You're a lucky man, Callicles, to have been initiated into the great mysteries before the small ones — I didn't think that was even allowed. Now pick up where you left off and answer: doesn't each of us stop being thirsty at the same moment we stop feeling pleasure? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the same with hunger and the other appetites and pleasures — they stop together? CALLICLES: That's so. SOCRATES: And pains and pleasures stop together too? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: But goods and evils don't stop together, as you agreed earlier — or do you no longer agree? CALLICLES: I do agree. So what follows? SOCRATES: It follows, my friend, that goods aren't the same as pleasures, nor evils the same as pains. One pair stops together, the other doesn't, since they're different things. So how could pleasant things be the same as good things, or painful things the same as bad things? And if you like, look at it this way too — I don't think you'll agree here either, so pay attention: don't you call people good because good qualities are present in them, the way you call people beautiful because beauty is present in them? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: Well then — do you call men good when they're foolish and cowardly? Just now you were saying the good men were the brave and the sensible ones — or don't you call those men good? CALLICLES: Certainly I do. SOCRATES: Well — have you ever seen a foolish child feeling pleasure? CALLICLES: I have. SOCRATES: And have you ever seen a foolish grown man feeling pleasure? CALLICLES: I suppose I have — but what of it? SOCRATES: Nothing — just answer. CALLICLES: I've seen it.

SOCRATES: And a sensible man, in pain and in pleasure? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Which feel pleasure and pain more intensely, the sensible or the foolish? CALLICLES: I don't think there's much difference. SOCRATES: That's enough for our purposes. Have you ever seen a cowardly man in war? CALLICLES: Of course. SOCRATES: Well then — when the enemy retreats, who seemed to you to feel more pleasure, the cowards or the brave men? CALLICLES: Both, I'd say — or if not, about the same. SOCRATES: It makes no difference. So the cowards do feel pleasure? CALLICLES: Very much so. SOCRATES: And the foolish too, it seems. CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And when the enemy advances, do only the cowards feel pain, or the brave too? CALLICLES: Both. SOCRATES: Equally? CALLICLES: Perhaps the cowards more. SOCRATES: And when the enemy retreats, don't the cowards feel more pleasure? CALLICLES: Perhaps. SOCRATES: So both the foolish and the sensible, both the cowardly and the brave, feel pain and pleasure in much the same way, as you say — though the cowards more so than the brave? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: But the sensible and the brave are good, and the cowardly and foolish are bad? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So the good and the bad feel pleasure and pain in much the same way? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: Then are the good and the bad good and bad in much the same way — or is the good man even more good, and the bad man even more bad? CALLICLES: By Zeus, I have no idea what you're saying. SOCRATES: Don't you know that you said good men are good because good things are present in them, and bad men bad because bad things are present in them — and that the good things are pleasures, and the bad things are pains? CALLICLES: I did say that. SOCRATES: Then don't good things — pleasures — belong to those who feel pleasure, given that they do feel pleasure? CALLICLES: Of course. SOCRATES: So those who feel pleasure are good, since good things are present in them? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about those in pain — don't bad things, pains, belong to them? CALLICLES: They do. SOCRATES: And you say people are bad because bad things are present in them — or do you no longer say that? CALLICLES: I do say it. SOCRATES: So whoever feels pleasure is good, and whoever feels pain is bad? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the more pleasure or pain, the more good or bad — and where it's about the same, they're about equally good and bad? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: But haven't you said that the sensible and the foolish, the cowardly and the brave, feel pleasure and pain in much the same way — or even the cowards more so? CALLICLES: I have.

SOCRATES: Then let's work out together what follows from what we've agreed — for they say it's worth stating and examining fine things twice, even three times over. We're saying the sensible and brave man is good, yes? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the foolish and cowardly man is bad? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And again, the man who feels pleasure is good? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the man in pain is bad? CALLICLES: That follows. SOCRATES: And the good man and the bad man feel pain and pleasure alike, though perhaps the bad man even more so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then doesn't the bad man turn out just as good as the good man — or even more good than the good man? Doesn't this follow, along with everything we agreed before, if someone claims the pleasant and the good are the same thing? Isn't this unavoidable, Callicles? CALLICLES: I've been listening to you for a while now, Socrates, agreeing along the way, and thinking to myself: whatever concession someone tosses you, even in jest, you seize on it gladly, the way boys do. As if you really believe that I, or anyone else, doesn't think some pleasures are better and some worse! SOCRATES: Oh, oh, Callicles, what a rascal you are, treating me like a child — first telling me things are one way, then another, deceiving me! Though I didn't imagine at the start that you'd deliberately deceive me, since I took you for a friend. But now I've been fooled, and it seems I must, as the old saying goes, make the best of what's given and accept this gift from you. So what you're saying now, it seems, is that some pleasures are good and some bad — is that right? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the good ones are the beneficial ones, the bad ones the harmful ones? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And beneficial means producing something good, harmful means producing something bad? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: Do you mean something like this — take the bodily pleasures we were just discussing, in eating and drinking: among these, aren't some, which produce health in the body, or strength, or some other bodily excellence, good, while their opposites are bad? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And likewise with pains — some are useful, some harmful? CALLICLES: Of course. SOCRATES: So we should choose and pursue the useful pleasures and pains? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But not the harmful ones? CALLICLES: Clearly not.

SOCRATES: Because, if you remember, Polus and I agreed that everything should be done for the sake of the good — do you agree with this too, that the good is the end of all our actions, and that everything else must be done for its sake, not the good for the sake of everything else? Do you cast the deciding vote with us, making it unanimous? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: Then everything else, including pleasant things, must be done for the sake of good things, not good things for the sake of pleasant things. CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now, is it within anyone's ability to pick out which pleasant things are good and which are bad, or does that take an expert in each case? CALLICLES: An expert. SOCRATES: Let's recall what I was saying earlier to Polus and Gorgias. I was saying, if you remember, that some practices aim only at pleasure, providing just that and nothing more, without knowing better from worse, while others know what is good and what is bad. And I put cookery among the former, as a knack rather than an art concerned with pleasures, and medicine among the latter, an art concerned with the good. And by the god of friendship, Callicles, don't think you need to joke around with me, or answer however it happens to strike you against your real opinion, and don't take what I say as a joke either. You see that our whole discussion is about this — and what could a person with even a little sense take more seriously than this: how one ought to live? Should it be the life you're urging on me, doing the things of a real man — speaking in the assembly, practicing rhetoric, engaging in politics the way you people do now — or this life spent in philosophy? And what actually distinguishes the one from the other? Perhaps the best approach, as I tried to do just now, is to separate them out, and once we've made the distinction and agreed with each other that these are indeed two different lives, to examine how they differ and which one should be lived. Perhaps you don't yet see what I mean. CALLICLES: No, I don't. SOCRATES: Then I'll put it more clearly. Since you and I have agreed that there is such a thing as the good, and such a thing as the pleasant, and that the pleasant is different from the good, and that each of them involves some pursuit and preparation for acquiring it — the hunt for the pleasant on one hand, the hunt for the good on the other — first tell me whether you agree with this much or not. Do you agree? CALLICLES: Yes, that's what I say.

SOCRATES: Come then, confirm for me what I was also saying to these men — whether it seemed true to you at the time. I said that the art of cooking seems to me not to be an art but a knack, whereas medicine is an art, on the grounds that medicine has examined the nature of what it treats and the reasons behind what it does, and can give an account of each of these things, while the other, wholly devoted to pleasure, approaches its task with no art at all, having examined neither the nature of pleasure nor its cause, keeping hold of nothing rational, so to speak, working purely by routine and habit, preserving only a memory of what usually happens, and by that means supplying its pleasures. So consider first whether this seems adequately said, and whether there are similar pursuits concerning the soul as well — some artful, showing forethought for what is best for the soul, and others neglecting that, focused only, as in the bodily case, on the soul's pleasure, on how it might arise, without ever considering which pleasures are better or worse, caring for nothing except gratification, whether for better or worse. To me, Callicles, such practices do exist, and I call this kind of thing flattery, whether it concerns the body or the soul or anything else where someone tends to pleasure without regard for what is better or worse. Now do you share this view with us on these matters, or do you disagree? CALLICLES: I don't disagree — I concede the point, so the argument can be brought to its conclusion and I can do Gorgias here a favor. SOCRATES: And does this hold true for one soul only, or not for two or many? CALLICLES: No, it holds for two and for many as well. SOCRATES: And is it possible to gratify a whole crowd at once, with no regard at all for what's best? CALLICLES: I suppose so. SOCRATES: Can you name the practices that do this? Or rather, if you like, as I ask, tell me yes for whichever seems to you to be one of these, and no for whichever doesn't. First let's look at flute-playing. Doesn't it seem to you to be just such a thing, Callicles — pursuing only our pleasure and caring for nothing else? CALLICLES: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: And all the similar arts too, like playing the lyre in competitions? CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And what about the training of choruses and the composing of dithyrambs? Doesn't the same thing seem true to you there too? Or do you think Cinesias son of Meles gives any thought to saying something that will make his audience better people, rather than something that will please the crowd of spectators? CALLICLES: That much is obvious about Cinesias, Socrates. SOCRATES: And what about his father Meles? Did he seem to you to play the lyre with an eye to what was best? Or did he not even aim at what was most pleasant? He used to annoy his audience with his singing. But look at it this way — doesn't the whole art of lyre-singing and the composing of dithyrambs seem to you to have been invented for the sake of pleasure? CALLICLES: It does to me. SOCRATES: And what about that solemn and marvelous thing, the composing of tragedy — what is it so serious about? Is its aim and its whole effort, as you see it, simply to gratify the spectators, or does it also fight against them — so that if something is pleasant and gratifying to them but rotten, it won't say that, while if something happens to be unpleasant but beneficial, it will say and sing that, whether or not they enjoy it? Which way does the composing of tragedies seem to you to be arranged? CALLICLES: That much is obvious too, Socrates — that it's aimed more at pleasure and at gratifying the spectators. SOCRATES: And didn't we just say, Callicles, that this sort of thing is flattery? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well then, if someone were to strip away from all poetry its melody, its rhythm, and its meter, wouldn't what's left just be speeches? CALLICLES: It would have to be. SOCRATES: And these speeches are addressed to a large crowd, to the general public? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: So poetry is a kind of public speaking. CALLICLES: So it seems. SOCRATES: And public speaking would be a form of rhetoric — or don't you think the poets are practicing rhetoric in the theaters? CALLICLES: I do think so. SOCRATES: So now we've discovered a kind of rhetoric addressed to a public made up of children and women together with men, both slaves and free people — a kind we don't much admire, since we're calling it a form of flattery. CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Very well — and what about the rhetoric addressed to the Athenian public, and to the other publics of free men in the various cities — what do we say that one is? Do the orators seem to you always to speak with an eye to what is best, aiming at making the citizens as good as possible through their speeches, or are they too bent on gratifying the citizens, neglecting the common good for the sake of their own, treating the public like children, trying only to please them, and not caring at all whether that makes them better or worse?

CALLICLES: That's no longer a simple question you're asking. There are some who say what they say out of genuine concern for the citizens, and there are others of the sort you describe. SOCRATES: That's enough for me. If this too turns out to be twofold, then one part of it would be flattery and shameful public speaking, while the other would be honorable — the part that aims at making the citizens' souls as good as possible, and fights hard to say what is best, whether or not it turns out pleasant to the audience. But you've never yet seen this kind of rhetoric. Or if you can name one of the orators who was like that, why haven't you told me who he is? CALLICLES: But by Zeus, I can't name a single one of today's orators for you. SOCRATES: Well then — can you name one of the old ones, someone the Athenians can credit with having made them better, from the time he began speaking in public, when before that they were worse? I myself don't know who that would be. CALLICLES: What? Don't you hear about Themistocles, that he was a good man, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and this Pericles who has just recently died, whom you yourself have heard? SOCRATES: If that excellence you were talking about earlier is the true one, Callicles — filling up one's own desires and other people's — well and good. But if it isn't, and instead it's what we were forced to agree to later — that satisfying some desires makes a person better, and satisfying others makes him worse, and that this is a skill — then I can't say that any of these men was that sort. CALLICLES: But if you look properly, you'll find one. SOCRATES: Let's look then, calmly, and see whether any of them turns out to have been like that. Come now — won't the good man, the one who speaks with a view to what's best, say whatever he says not at random, but looking toward something — just as all the other craftsmen, each looking to his own work, doesn't pick things out at random to bring to his work, but aims at giving what he's making a certain form?

SOCRATES: For instance, if you're willing to consider painters, builders, shipwrights, all the other craftsmen, whichever you like — how each of them puts each thing he places into some order, and makes one part fit and harmonize with another, until the whole thing stands together as an ordered, well-arranged piece of work. And the other craftsmen do this, including the ones we were just discussing, those concerned with the body — trainers and doctors — they too give the body order and arrangement in some way. Do we agree this is so or not? CALLICLES: Let it be so. SOCRATES: Then a house that has order and arrangement would be a good house, and one lacking order would be a poor one? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: And isn't the same true of a ship? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And surely the same is true of our bodies too? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And what about the soul? Will it be good if it lacks order, or if it has some order and arrangement? CALLICLES: Given what we said before, this too must follow. SOCRATES: So what is the name for the thing that arises in the body from order and arrangement? CALLICLES: I suppose you mean health and strength. SOCRATES: I do. And what, in turn, about the thing that arises in the soul from order and arrangement? Try to find the name and say it, as you did there. CALLICLES: Why don't you say it yourself, Socrates? SOCRATES: Well, if you'd rather, I'll say it — and you, if you think I'm putting it well, say so; if not, refute me and don't let it pass. It seems to me that the name for the orderly conditions of the body is 'healthy,' and from this health arises in it, along with the rest of the body's excellence. Is that so or not? CALLICLES: It is. SOCRATES: And for the orderly and arranged conditions of the soul, the name is 'lawful' and 'law' — and from this people become law-abiding and orderly; and these things are justice and self-control. Do you agree or not? CALLICLES: Let it be so. SOCRATES: So won't the orator we're describing, the one who is skilled and good, look to these things when he brings his speeches to bear on people's souls, and in all his actions too — and if he gives some gift, he'll give it, and if he takes something away, he'll take it, always keeping his mind fixed on this: that justice should come to be in his fellow citizens' souls and injustice be driven out, that self-control should come to be in them and lack of self-control be driven out, and that the rest of excellence should come to be in them and vice depart. Do you agree or not? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: For what good is it, Callicles, to give a sick and poorly conditioned body plenty of food, or the most pleasant food or drink or anything else, if it will do it no more good — and by strict reckoning, even less good — than the opposite would? Is that so?

CALLICLES: Let it be so. SOCRATES: For I don't suppose it profits a person to live with a poorly conditioned body, since that necessarily means living poorly as well — or isn't that so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And as for satisfying one's appetites — for instance, eating as much as one wants when hungry, or drinking when thirsty — doctors generally allow this to a healthy person, but to a sick one they practically never allow him to fill himself up with what he desires. Do you agree with this too? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: And isn't the same true, my good man, of the soul? As long as it's in a bad state — senseless, undisciplined, unjust, and impious — it must be held back from its appetites and not allowed to do anything except what will make it better. Do you agree or not? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: For that is surely better for the soul itself? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And isn't holding it back from what it desires the same as disciplining it? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So being disciplined is better for the soul than lacking discipline, just as you were assuming a moment ago. CALLICLES: I don't know what you're talking about, Socrates — ask someone else. SOCRATES: This man can't stand being helped, even while he himself is undergoing the very thing we're discussing — being disciplined. CALLICLES: And I don't care in the least about anything you're saying — I was only answering you as a favor to Gorgias. SOCRATES: Very well. What shall we do, then? Shall we break off the discussion in the middle? CALLICLES: You'll have to decide that yourself. SOCRATES: But they say it isn't right to leave even stories half-told — one has to put a head on them, so they don't go around headless. So answer the rest, so our discussion can get a head. CALLICLES: How forceful you are, Socrates! If you'll take my advice, you'll let this discussion go, or else carry it on with someone else. SOCRATES: Then who else is willing? We surely shouldn't leave the discussion unfinished. CALLICLES: Couldn't you get through it yourself — either speaking on your own or answering yourself? SOCRATES: So that what Epicharmus said might come true for me — that I, being one man, become equal to what before took two men to say. Still, it looks like it will have to be this way, of necessity. But if we do proceed like this, I think we should all be eager, out of love of the truth rather than love of winning, to find out what is true and what is false about the matters we're discussing — for it's a good shared by everyone that this become clear.

SOCRATES: I'll go through the argument, then, as it seems to me to stand; and if any of you thinks I'm not agreeing with myself about what's really the case, you must object and refute me. For I'm not speaking as one who already knows what I'm saying — I'm searching together with you, so that if the person disputing with me says something that shows itself to be true, I'll be the first to agree. Still, I say this only if you think the argument should be carried through to the end; if you'd rather not, let's let it go now and leave. GORGIAS: But it doesn't seem right to me, Socrates, to leave yet — you should finish going through the argument. And it seems to me the others agree. I myself would like to hear you go through the rest of it yourself. SOCRATES: Well then, Gorgias, I too would gladly have kept on talking with Callicles here, until I'd given him Amphion's speech in return for Zethus's. But since you, Callicles, aren't willing to finish the argument with me, at least listen and correct me if you think I'm saying anything wrong. And if you refute me, I won't be angry with you the way you were with me — instead you'll be recorded in my book as my greatest benefactor. CALLICLES: Go on, my good man, carry it through yourself. SOCRATES: Listen, then, as I take up the argument again from the beginning. Is the pleasant the same as the good? — No, not the same, as Callicles and I agreed. Should the pleasant be pursued for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the pleasant? — The pleasant for the sake of the good. And is the pleasant that by whose presence we feel pleasure, and the good that by whose presence we are good? — Certainly. But surely we — and everything else that is good — are good by the presence of some excellence? — That seems necessary to me, Callicles. But the excellence of each thing — of a tool, of a body, of a soul too, and of every living creature — doesn't come about in the finest way at random, but through order, correctness, and whatever skill has been assigned to each of them. Is that so? — Yes, I say so. So the excellence of each thing is something ordered and arranged by order? — I would say so. So it's some order coming to be in each thing, proper to that thing, that makes each of the things that exist good? — That's how it seems to me. And so a soul that has its own proper order is better than one that lacks order? — It must be. And surely a soul that has order is an orderly soul? — How could it not be?

SOCRATES: And the orderly soul is temperate?—That's absolutely necessary.—So a temperate soul is good. I have nothing else to say against that, my dear Callicles. If you do, teach me. CALLICLES: Go on, my good man. SOCRATES: I say that if the temperate soul is good, the soul in the opposite condition from the temperate one is bad—and that was the soul that is thoughtless and undisciplined.—Certainly.—And further, the temperate person would do what's fitting, both toward gods and toward men—since he wouldn't be temperate if he did what isn't fitting.—That must be so.—And further, in doing what's fitting toward men he'd be acting justly, and toward the gods, piously. And a person who acts justly and piously must be just and pious.—That's so.—And he must also be courageous. It's not the mark of a temperate man to chase or flee whatever isn't fitting, but rather to flee and pursue whatever things and people and pleasures and pains he ought, and to hold his ground and endure where he must. So it's an absolute necessity, Callicles, that the temperate man, being—as we've gone through—just and courageous and pious, is a completely good man, and that the good man does well and admirably whatever he does, and that the one who does well is blessed and happy, while the wicked man who does badly is wretched. And this last would be the man in the opposite condition from the temperate man—the undisciplined man, whom you were praising. So this is how I set the matter down, and I say these things are true. And if they're true, then anyone who wants to be happy must, it seems, pursue and practice temperance and flee undiscipline as fast as his legs will carry him, and arrange things so that above all he needs no punishing—but if he does need it, whether he himself or someone close to him, whether a private person or a city, then punishment and correction must be applied, if he's going to be happy. This seems to me to be the goal a person should keep his eye on as he lives, directing everything of his own and of his city's toward this end, so that justice and temperance will be present in the man who's going to be blessed—acting this way, not letting his desires run undisciplined and trying to fill them up, an endless evil, living the life of a bandit. Such a man could never be dear to any other man, nor to a god—for he's incapable of partnership, and where there's no partnership, there's no friendship.

SOCRATES: The wise say, Callicles, that heaven and earth, gods and men, are held together by partnership and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice, and that's why they call this whole thing a cosmos—an order—my friend, not a disorder or lack of discipline. But you seem to me not to pay attention to these things, wise as you are, and it has escaped your notice that geometric equality carries great power both among gods and among men, while you think one should practice getting more than one's share—you neglect geometry. Well then: either this argument of ours must be refuted—that the happy are happy by possessing justice and temperance, and the wretched are wretched through wickedness—or, if it's true, we must examine what follows from it. And everything that came before, Callicles, follows—the things you asked me about, whether I was speaking in earnest when I said that a man must accuse himself and his son and his friend, if any of them does wrong, and that rhetoric must be used for this purpose. And the things you thought Polus conceded out of shame were true after all—that doing wrong is worse than suffering it, by exactly as much as it is more shameful. And that the man who's going to be a rhetorician in the true sense must be just and knowledgeable about just things—which, again, Polus said Gorgias admitted out of shame. Given that this is how things stand, let's examine what it is you keep reproaching me with—whether it's rightly said or not—that I'm incapable of helping myself or any of my friends or family, or of saving them from the greatest dangers, but am at the mercy of anyone who wants to treat me the way disenfranchised men are treated, at the mercy of whoever wishes—whether he wants to strike me, to use that vigorous phrase of yours, across the jaw, or to take my property, or to banish me from the city, or, worst of all, to kill me. And being in such a position is, on your account, the most shameful thing of all. But my position—which has already been stated many times, though nothing stops it being said again—is this: I do not say that being struck across the jaw unjustly is the most shameful thing, nor having my body or my purse cut open. Rather, striking and cutting me and mine unjustly is more shameful and worse—and stealing, and enslaving, and breaking into my house, and in short doing any wrong at all to me or mine is worse and more shameful for the one doing the wrong than it is for me, the one wronged.

SOCRATES: These things, as I say, appeared to us up above in our earlier discussion, and they are held down and bound fast—if I may put it rather crudely—by arguments of iron and adamant, or so it would seem at least; and unless you or someone more vigorous than you unties them, it's impossible to speak well while saying anything other than what I'm saying now. For my part, my position is always the same: I don't know how these things really stand, but of everyone I've ever met, as now, no one has been able to say anything different without looking ridiculous. So again I set it down that this is how things are: and if that's so, and wrongdoing is the greatest of evils for the wrongdoer, and greater still—if such a thing is possible—is for the wrongdoer to escape paying the penalty for it, then what help would it be for a man who's unable to help himself, and would truly be ridiculous for lacking? Isn't it the help that would turn aside the greatest harm to us? It's an absolute necessity that the most shameful kind of helplessness is being unable to help oneself or one's friends and family, second worst is being unable to guard against the second-greatest evil, and third against the third, and so on—the size of each evil determining, correspondingly, the nobility of being able to guard against it, and the shame of being unable to. Is that how it is, or not, Callicles? CALLICLES: It's not otherwise. SOCRATES: So, there being two things—doing wrong and suffering wrong—we say doing wrong is the greater evil, suffering it the lesser. What, then, should a man equip himself with to help himself, so as to have both these benefits—the benefit of not doing wrong and the benefit of not suffering it? Is it power or is it will? Here's what I mean: if a man simply doesn't want to suffer wrong, will he not suffer it—or must he acquire power to keep from suffering wrong, in order not to suffer it? CALLICLES: That much is obvious—power. SOCRATES: And what about doing wrong? Is it enough if he doesn't want to do wrong—since then he won't do it—or must he also acquire some power and skill for this, so that if he doesn't learn and practice it, he will do wrong? Why don't you answer me this very question, Callicles: do you think Polus and I were right to be forced to agree, back in our earlier discussion, or not, when we agreed that no one does wrong willingly, but all who do wrong do it unwillingly?

CALLICLES: Let's grant you that, Socrates, so you can finish your argument. SOCRATES: Then it seems that for this too we must equip ourselves with some power and skill, so that we don't do wrong. CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: What skill, then, is the skill of equipping oneself to suffer no wrong at all, or as little as possible? See if it seems the same to you as it does to me. To me it seems this: either one must rule in the city, even as a tyrant, or be a partner in whatever government is in power. CALLICLES: Do you see, Socrates, how ready I am to praise you when you say something well? This seems to me very well put. SOCRATES: Then consider this too, and see if it seems well put to me. Every man, I think, is as much a friend to another as possible according to the old saying of the wise—that like is dear to like. Don't you agree? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: So where the ruler is a savage, uneducated tyrant, if there's someone in the city far better than he is, the tyrant would surely be afraid of him, and could never become his true friend, however he tried. CALLICLES: That's so. SOCRATES: Nor could someone far inferior become his friend either—the tyrant would look down on him and would never take him seriously as a friend. CALLICLES: That's true too. SOCRATES: So the only friend left worth mentioning for such a man is someone of the same character, who blames and praises the same things, and is willing to be ruled and to submit to the ruler. This man will have great power in that city, and no one will wrong him and get away with it. Isn't that so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So if one of the young men in that city were to consider, 'How can I become powerful, and how can no one wrong me?'—this, it seems, would be his path: to accustom himself from youth to take joy and offense in the same things as his master, and to arrange to be as much like him as possible. Isn't that right? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So for this man, not being wronged and having great power in the city would be achieved—on your account. CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But would he also avoid doing wrong? Far from it—if he's going to be like a ruler who is himself unjust, and have great power with him. No, I think, on the contrary, his whole preparation will be aimed at being able to do as much wrong as possible and escape paying the penalty for it. Isn't that so? CALLICLES: So it seems.

SOCRATES: So the greatest evil will befall him—being corrupt and maimed in soul through his imitation of his master and through his power. CALLICLES: I don't know how you keep turning the argument upside down and inside out, Socrates. Don't you know that this man who imitates the tyrant will kill the man who doesn't imitate him, if he wants to, and take away everything he has? SOCRATES: I know it, my good Callicles, unless I'm deaf—I've heard it just now from you and from Polus many times, and from just about everyone else in the city. But you listen to me too: he will kill him if he wants to—but he'll be a wicked man killing a fine, good man. CALLICLES: And isn't that exactly the outrageous part? SOCRATES: Not to a man of sense, at least, as the argument shows. Or do you think a person should arrange his life so as to live as long as possible, and practice those skills that always save us from danger—the way you tell me to practice rhetoric, the kind that saves men in the lawcourts? CALLICLES: Yes, by Zeus, and I'm giving you good advice. SOCRATES: Well then, my excellent friend—does the skill of swimming strike you as anything impressive? CALLICLES: No, by Zeus, not to me. SOCRATES: And yet it too saves men from death, whenever they fall into the kind of situation that requires it. But if that seems too small a thing to you, I'll name you something greater—the pilot's skill, which saves not only lives but also bodies and property from the direst dangers, just as rhetoric does. And yet it's modest and orderly, and doesn't put on airs as though it were doing something magnificent, but having accomplished the very same things as the skill of the lawcourts, if it brings you safely here from Aegina, I suppose it charges two obols, and if from Egypt or the Black Sea, then for this great benefit—saving, as I was just saying, the man himself and his children and property and wife—having brought them safely into harbor, it charges two drachmas; and the man who has this skill and has accomplished all this steps off by the sea and walks beside his ship in a modest manner. He knows how to reckon, I think, that it's unclear which of his fellow passengers he benefited by not letting them drown, and which he harmed, since he knows he set them ashore no better than they were when they boarded, neither in body nor in soul.

SOCRATES: Does he not reckon it out like this: if a man is caught in some great, incurable disease of the body, he isn't wretched merely because he wasn't drowned, and he gains nothing from being saved—but if a man has many incurable diseases in the part of him more precious than the body, namely the soul, then is this a man whose life is worth saving, and will you be doing him a favor by rescuing him, whether from the sea or from a courtroom or from anywhere else at all? No—he knows perfectly well that it is not better for a corrupt man to go on living, since he is bound to live badly. That is why there is no custom of the helmsman puffing himself up, even though he saves our lives, nor, my astonishing friend, of the engineer—who can sometimes save lives that even a general, let alone a helmsman, cannot save; there are times he saves whole cities. Doesn't that strike you as being on a par with the courtroom lawyer? And yet if he wanted to talk the way you people do, magnifying his craft, Callicles, he would bury you in words, urging that everyone ought to become an engineer, since nothing else is worth anything—his argument would serve well enough. But you look down on him and his craft all the same, and you would fling 'engineer' at someone as an insult, and you wouldn't be willing to give your daughter to his son, nor to take his daughter for yourself. And yet, given the grounds on which you praise your own qualities, what just argument do you have for despising the engineer and the others I mentioned just now? I know you would say you are better, and from better stock. But if the better is not what I say it is, but is simply this—preserving oneself and one's belongings, whatever sort of person one happens to be—then your contempt becomes ridiculous, whether aimed at the engineer or the doctor or any of the other crafts that exist for the sake of preservation. No, my good man, consider whether the noble and the good might be something other than mere preserving and being preserved. Perhaps the true man ought not to worry about this at all—how long he lives, however long that turns out to be—and ought not to cling to life, but should leave that matter to god, trusting the women's saying that no one can escape his fate, and should instead consider how he might live as well as possible in whatever time he has left to live,

SOCRATES: —by making himself resemble the constitution he lives under. So it seems now, too, you must make yourself as much like the Athenian people as you can, if you mean to be dear to them and to have great power in the city. Consider whether this serves you well, and me too—so that we don't suffer, my good friend, what they say happens to those women of Thessaly who pull down the moon: choosing this power in the city will cost us the people we hold most dear. And if you imagine that anyone anywhere is going to hand you some craft that will make you powerful in this city while you remain unlike its constitution—whether for better or worse—then in my opinion you are planning badly, Callicles. You must not merely imitate them, but be like them by nature, if you mean to produce anything genuine that wins the friendship of the Athenian people—and, by Zeus, of Pyrilampes' circle too. Whoever makes you most like them will make you into the politician and orator you long to be. For people delight in speeches that match their own character, and are irritated by anything foreign to it—unless you have something else to say, dear friend. Do we have any answer to this, Callicles? CALLICLES: I don't know how it is, Socrates, that you seem to speak well, yet I feel what most people feel—I'm not at all persuaded by you. SOCRATES: That's because love of the people, Callicles, sitting there in your soul, resists me. But if we examine these same questions often enough, and better, perhaps you'll be persuaded. Remember, then, that we said there were two ways of tending to each thing, body and soul: one that deals in pleasure, the other aiming at what is best, not indulging but fighting for it. Weren't those the terms we set then? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And one of the two, the one aimed at pleasure, is base and nothing but flattery—isn't that so? CALLICLES: Let it be so, if you like. SOCRATES: And the other aims at making whatever we tend—body or soul—as good as it can be? CALLICLES: Quite so.

SOCRATES: Then is this the way we ought to go about tending to the city and its citizens—by trying to make the citizens themselves as good as possible? Without this, as we found earlier, there is no benefit in offering any other service at all, unless the intentions of those who mean to acquire great wealth, or office, or any other kind of power, are fine and good. Shall we say it stands this way? CALLICLES: Quite so, if it pleases you more. SOCRATES: Suppose, then, Callicles, that we were urging one another to take up public building projects—walls, or dockyards, or temples, the grandest structures—shouldn't we first examine ourselves and ask whether we know the craft of building or not, and from whom we learned it? Shouldn't we? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And second, whether we had ever actually built anything, privately, for ourselves or a friend, and whether that building turned out handsome or ugly. And if, on examination, we found that we'd had good, reputable teachers, and had built many fine buildings together with our teachers, and many more on our own once we'd parted from them—in that condition, it would make sense for sensible men to move on to public works. But if we could point to no teacher of our own, and to buildings that were either nonexistent or worthless, then surely it would be foolish to attempt public works and to urge one another into them. Shall we agree this is rightly said, or not? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And so it goes for everything else, including this: if we set out to serve the public as though we were competent doctors, surely I would examine you and you would examine me—by the gods, tell me, how is Socrates' own body with respect to health? Has anyone else, through Socrates, ever been freed from disease, slave or free? I imagine I would investigate the same sort of thing about you. And if we found that no one's body had been improved because of us, neither foreigner's nor citizen's, neither man's nor woman's—by Zeus, Callicles, wouldn't it truly be laughable, that men should arrive at such a pitch of folly that, before practicing privately—doing much as it happened, succeeding at much, and getting sufficient practice at the craft—they should attempt, as the saying goes, to learn pottery on a wine-jar, and both undertake public office themselves and urge others of the same kind to do so? Wouldn't it seem foolish to you, to act that way? CALLICLES: It would to me.

SOCRATES: But as things stand, best of men, since you yourself are just now beginning to take a hand in the city's affairs, and you urge me on and reproach me for not doing the same, shall we not examine one another—come now, has Callicles already made any citizen better? Is there anyone who was formerly wicked, unjust, undisciplined, foolish, who because of Callicles has become fine and good—foreigner or citizen, slave or free? Tell me, Callicles, if someone were to put this question to you, what would you say? Whom will you claim to have made better through association with you? Do you hesitate to answer, if indeed there is some deed of yours to point to while you were still a private man, before you undertook to enter public life? CALLICLES: You're eager to win, Socrates. SOCRATES: No, it's not eagerness to win that makes me ask, but a genuine wish to know in what manner you think one ought to conduct politics among us. Or will you, once you've entered on the city's affairs, take care of anything else besides making us citizens as good as possible? Haven't we already agreed many times that this is what the political man must do? We have agreed, haven't we? Answer. We have agreed—I'll answer on your behalf. If, then, this is what the good man must provide for his own city, cast your mind back now and tell me about those men you mentioned a little earlier—do they still seem to you to have been good citizens: Pericles, Cimon, Miltiades, and Themistocles? CALLICLES: They do to me. SOCRATES: Then if they were good, clearly each of them made the citizens better instead of worse. Did they, or not? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So when Pericles first began speaking before the assembly, were the Athenians worse than when he gave his last speeches? CALLICLES: Perhaps. SOCRATES: Not 'perhaps,' my good man—it follows necessarily from what we've agreed, if indeed that man was a good citizen. CALLICLES: Well, what of it? SOCRATES: Nothing—but tell me this next: is it said that the Athenians became better because of Pericles, or quite the opposite, that they were corrupted by him? For what I hear is this: that Pericles made the Athenians idle, cowardly, chattering, and greedy for money, by being the first to establish payment for public service. CALLICLES: You're hearing that from people with their ears bashed in, Socrates.

SOCRATES: But this next part I no longer merely hear—I know clearly, and so do you: that at first Pericles was held in high esteem, and the Athenians passed no shameful verdict against him, back when they were worse; but once they had become fine and good, thanks to him, at the very end of Pericles' life they convicted him of theft, and came close to sentencing him to death—clearly treating him as a wicked man. CALLICLES: Well? Was Pericles bad for that reason? SOCRATES: A keeper of donkeys or horses or cattle would certainly seem a bad one, if he took them over not kicking or butting or biting, and delivered them doing all of that out of sheer savagery. Or don't you think any keeper of any animal whatsoever is a bad one, if he takes it over gentler and hands it back wilder than he received it? Do you think so, or not? CALLICLES: I do, just to please you. SOCRATES: Then please me in this too by answering: is man one of the animals, or not? CALLICLES: Of course he is. SOCRATES: And Pericles had care of men? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then? Shouldn't they, as we just agreed, have become more just instead of more unjust under him, if indeed he, being good at politics, was taking care of them? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And the just are gentle, as Homer said—what do you say, isn't that so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: But in fact he made them wilder than when he took them over, and turned that wildness against himself, of all people, the last person he'd have wanted it turned against. CALLICLES: Do you want me to agree with you? SOCRATES: Only if you think I'm telling the truth. CALLICLES: So be it, then. SOCRATES: And if wilder, then also more unjust and worse? CALLICLES: So be it. SOCRATES: Then, on this reasoning, Pericles was not good at politics. CALLICLES: That's your claim, not mine. SOCRATES: No, by Zeus, it's yours too, from what you've agreed to. Now tell me again about Cimon: didn't the very people he served ostracize him, so as not to hear his voice for ten years? And didn't they do the same to Themistocles, adding exile as a penalty? And didn't they vote to throw Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, into the pit, and would have, if not for the intervention of the presiding officer? And yet these men, if they had truly been good, as you claim, would never have suffered such things. Good charioteers don't get thrown from their chariots at the start—it's only after they've trained their horses and become better drivers themselves that they get thrown out. That isn't how it works, not in chariot-driving nor in any other pursuit. Or do you think otherwise? CALLICLES: Not I.

SOCRATES: So it seems our earlier conclusions were true after all — that none of us can name a single man who has proven himself a good statesman in this city. You agreed that none of the current ones qualify, but you picked out these men from the past instead. Yet they turn out to be no better than the men of today. So if they really were orators, they practiced neither the true art of rhetoric — for then they wouldn't have been driven out — nor the flattering kind. CALLICLES: But surely, Socrates, it's a long way from true that anyone alive today could match the achievements of whichever of those men you like. SOCRATES: My good man, I'm not faulting them as servants of the city — I actually think they served it better than today's men, and were more capable of supplying whatever the city desired. But when it comes to redirecting people's desires instead of just giving in to them — persuading and compelling the citizens toward whatever would actually make them better — in that respect, frankly, those men were no different at all. And that is the one true job of a good citizen. As for ships and walls and dockyards and all that sort of thing, I grant you those men were better at providing it than the men of today. So you and I are doing something absurd in this conversation — the whole time we've been talking we keep circling back to the same point, never grasping what the other one means. I think you've admitted, more than once, and you've recognized, that this business of caring for us comes in two forms — one for the body, one for the soul. One kind is a servant's job, able to supply, when our bodies hunger, food, when they thirst, drink, when they're cold, clothing, bedding, shoes, whatever else the body craves. I'm deliberately using the same images so you'll follow more easily. Anyone who can supply these things — whether a shopkeeper, a merchant, or a craftsman who makes them, a baker, a cook, a weaver, a cobbler, a tanner — it's no wonder such a person seems, to himself and to others, to be a caretaker of the body. That's true for anyone who doesn't know there's a further art, distinct from all these — gymnastic and medicine — which really is the genuine care of the body, and which rightly ought to govern all these other crafts and make use of their products, because it alone knows what food or drink is good or bad for the body's excellence, while all the rest are ignorant of that.

SOCRATES: That's why these other crafts are properly called slavish, servile, and unfree in their dealings with the body, while gymnastic and medicine are, by rights, their mistresses. Now, that the very same thing holds true for the soul — sometimes you seem to me to follow what I'm saying, and you agree as though you understood it. But then a little later you come back saying that certain men have proven themselves fine, upstanding citizens in this city, and when I ask who, you seem to me to be putting forward men who are exactly comparable, in politics, to what it would be if, when I asked about gymnastics, who has proven himself — or is — a good caretaker of bodies, you told me, quite seriously, 'Thearion the baker, and Mithaecus, who wrote the book on Sicilian cooking, and Sarambus the wine merchant' — that these men have proven themselves marvelous caretakers of bodies, one supplying wonderful bread, another delicacies, another wine. You'd probably be offended if I said to you: 'My friend, you understand nothing about gymnastics. You're telling me about servants, men who cater to appetites, who understand nothing fine or good about the body itself — men who, if things go that way, stuff and fatten people's bodies and get praised for it, while actually destroying even the flesh they started with. And the people, in their ignorance, won't blame those who feasted them for their illnesses and for the loss of their original good health — no, they'll blame whoever happens to be standing nearby giving advice, whenever the earlier overindulgence brings on sickness much later, since it came about with no regard for health. Those people they'll blame, find fault with, and harm if they can, while the earlier ones — the true causes of the harm — they'll praise to the skies.' And that, Callicles, is exactly what you're doing now. You praise men who feasted the citizens, gorging them on whatever they craved.

SOCRATES: And people say those men made the city great — not noticing that it's bloated and festering underneath, thanks to those men of old. For without self-control and justice they filled the city up with harbors and dockyards and walls and tribute and all that kind of nonsense. So when the collapse comes, brought on by this underlying weakness, people will blame whoever happens to be advising them at the time, and praise Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles — the very men who caused the trouble. And perhaps they'll come after you too, if you're not careful — and my friend Alcibiades — when they start losing even what they originally had, on top of what they've gained since, though you two aren't really the cause of the harm, only perhaps accomplices in it. And yet I see this same foolish thing happening now, and I hear it happened with the men of old too. Whenever the city moves against one of its statesmen as a wrongdoer, I notice they get indignant and complain bitterly about how unjustly they're being treated — as if, having done the city so much good, they're now being destroyed by it unfairly. But the whole thing is a lie, because no leader of a city could ever be unjustly destroyed by the very city he leads. Politicians who merely claim to be statesmen, it seems, are really no different from sophists. Sophists too, wise as they are in other respects, do this strange thing — while claiming to be teachers of virtue, they often turn around and accuse their own students of wronging them, cheating them out of their fees or otherwise showing no gratitude, despite having been well treated by them. But could anything be more illogical than that argument — that men who have become good and just, having had injustice removed from them by their teacher and having gained justice instead, should then use that very justice to do wrong, when they no longer have injustice in them to do it with? Doesn't that strike you as absurd, my friend? You've truly forced me into making speeches, Callicles, by refusing to answer. CALLICLES: And you couldn't talk if no one answered you? SOCRATES: It seems I can — right now, at least, I'm stretching my arguments out at length, since you won't answer me. But, my good man, tell me, in the name of Zeus Philios — doesn't it seem irrational to you, for someone to claim he's made another person good, and then blame that very person because, having been made good and being good, he later turns out bad? CALLICLES: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: Then don't you hear people who claim to educate men in virtue saying exactly that kind of thing?

CALLICLES: I do — but why should you bother talking about men who aren't worth anything? SOCRATES: And what would you say about those who claim to lead the city and take care that it becomes as good as possible, and then turn around and accuse it, whenever it suits them, of being utterly corrupt? Do you think they're any different from the sophists? A sophist and an orator are really the same thing, my good man, or nearly the same and close kin, just as I said to Polus. But out of ignorance you think one of them — rhetoric — is something splendid, while you look down on the other. In truth, though, sophistry is as much finer than rhetoric as lawgiving is finer than judging cases, and gymnastic finer than medicine. I used to think that only public speakers and sophists were in no position to complain about the very thing they themselves teach — as if it were somehow harmful to them — because doing so would, in the same breath, be an accusation against themselves, admitting they had done no good for the very people they claim to have benefited. Isn't that so? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And presumably it would also make sense that only these same people could reasonably offer their services for free, without a fee — if what they claimed were true. Someone who's been helped in some other way — say, made fast through the trainer's teaching — might perhaps cheat the trainer out of his due thanks, if the trainer gave the training away without first agreeing on a fee to be paid alongside the speed. For it's not through slowness, I think, that people do wrong, but through injustice — isn't that right? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So if someone removes this very thing — injustice — from a person, there's no danger that person will ever be wronged because of it; it's the one and only benefit that can safely be given away for free, if someone really is capable of making people good. Isn't that so? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: That's why, it seems, there's nothing shameful in charging money for other kinds of advice — about building houses, say, or other crafts. CALLICLES: So it seems. SOCRATES: But when it comes to this particular matter — how a person might become as good as possible and best manage his own household or city — it's considered shameful to refuse advice unless someone pays for it. Isn't that so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Clearly the reason is that this is the only kind of benefit that makes the person who received it want to do good in return, so that it seems a good sign if, having done this favor, one receives a favor back in return — and a bad sign if not. Is that how things stand?

CALLICLES: They do. SOCRATES: Then tell me clearly which kind of care for the city you're inviting me to practice — draw the line for me: the kind that fights constantly with the Athenians to make them as good as possible, like a doctor, or the kind that serves them and speaks only to please them? Tell me the truth, Callicles — you're obliged to, since you started out being frank with me, so keep saying what you actually think. Speak now, plainly and nobly. CALLICLES: Well then, I say the kind that serves them. SOCRATES: So you're inviting me to flatter them, my noble friend. CALLICLES: If you'd rather I call it something cruder, Socrates — because if you don't do that— SOCRATES: Don't repeat what you've already said so many times, that anyone who wants to can kill me — so that I don't in turn say, 'a bad man killing a good one' — and don't say he'll take my property, so that I don't in turn say, 'well, having taken it unjustly, he won't know what to do with it, but just as he took it from me unjustly, he'll use it unjustly too, and if unjustly, then shamefully, and if shamefully, then badly.' CALLICLES: You really seem to me, Socrates, to believe none of this could happen to you — as if you lived somewhere out of reach, and could never be hauled into court by some thoroughly wicked, worthless man. SOCRATES: Then I truly am foolish, Callicles, if I don't believe that in this city anyone at all might suffer just that, whoever he happens to be. But this much I know well: if I should ever come before a court facing danger over the sort of thing you're describing, whoever brings me in will be some wicked person — for no decent man would prosecute someone who's done no wrong — and it wouldn't be at all strange if I were put to death. Would you like me to tell you why I expect this? CALLICLES: By all means. SOCRATES: I believe I'm one of a very few Athenians — not to say the only one — attempting the true art of politics, and the only one among the men of today actually practicing it. So, since the things I say each time aren't spoken to please people but aimed at what's best, not at what's most pleasant, and since I'm unwilling to do the clever things you recommend, I won't know what to say for myself in court. And the same argument comes back to me that I made to Polus: I'll be judged the way a doctor would be judged before a jury of children, prosecuted by a cook.

SOCRATES: Just think what such a man could say in his own defense if he were caught in that position, if someone accused him, saying: 'Children, this man has done you great harm, both to you and to himself — he ruins the youngest of you, cutting and burning, and by starving and choking you he leaves you helpless, giving you the most bitter draughts and forcing you to hunger and thirst, not like me, who feasted you on all sorts of pleasant things.' What do you suppose a doctor, caught in that predicament, could find to say? Or if he told the truth — 'All this I did for your health, children' — how loud an outcry do you think such judges would raise? A tremendous one, wouldn't they? CALLICLES: Perhaps so — you'd have to assume it. SOCRATES: And don't you think he'd be at a complete loss for what to say? CALLICLES: Absolutely. SOCRATES: That is exactly the sort of thing I know would happen to me if I went into a courtroom. I won't be able to point to any pleasures I've provided them, the sort of thing they consider good deeds and benefits — and I envy neither the people who provide them nor those they're provided to. And if someone charges that I corrupt the younger men by leaving them at a loss, or that I slander my elders with bitter words, whether in private or in public, I'll be able to say neither the truth — that I say all these things justly, gentlemen of the jury, doing exactly what serves your interest — nor anything else. So whatever happens to come my way, I suppose that's what I'll suffer. CALLICLES: And does it seem right to you, Socrates, that a man should be in that position in his city, unable to help himself? SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, provided he has that one thing going for him which you yourself have often agreed to — that he has helped himself by never having said or done anything unjust toward gods or men. That, we've agreed many times, is the strongest form of self-help there is. Now if someone could prove that I'm incapable of giving this kind of help to myself or to anyone else, I would be ashamed, whether refuted before many or before few, or alone before one man — and if I died from this incapacity, I would be distressed. But if I should die for lack of flattering rhetoric, I know well you would see me bear my death easily. For the act of dying itself frightens no one, unless he is utterly thoughtless and cowardly — what people fear is doing wrong. For arriving in Hades with a soul crammed full of wrongdoing is the worst of all evils. And if you like, I'm willing to tell you a story to show that this is so. CALLICLES: Well, since you've finished everything else, finish this too.

SOCRATES: Listen then, as they say, to a very fine story — one you will think a myth, I imagine, though I think of it as an account, since what I am about to tell you I will tell as being true. As Homer tells it, Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto divided up the rule between them when they took it over from their father. Now in the time of Cronos there was a law concerning men, which still holds among the gods even now: that a man who has passed his life justly and piously should, when he dies, go off to the Isles of the Blessed and dwell there in complete happiness, free from evils, while the man who has lived unjustly and godlessly should go to the prison of retribution and justice, which they call Tartarus. Now in the time of Cronos, and even recently while Zeus held rule, the judges of these cases were living men judging the living, and they gave their judgments on the very day the men were due to die — so the verdicts were coming out badly. So Pluto, and the overseers who came from the Isles of the Blessed, went to Zeus and told him that people were arriving on both sides who did not deserve to be there. Zeus said: 'Well, I will put a stop to this. Right now the cases are being judged badly, because,' he said, 'the people on trial are judged while still clothed — that is, while still alive. Many,' he went on, 'who have wicked souls are dressed up in fine bodies, good birth, and wealth, and when the trial comes around, many witnesses come forward to testify that they have lived justly. So the judges are dazzled by all this, and besides, they themselves are judging while still clothed, having their own eyes and ears and their whole body draped as a screen in front of their soul. All of this gets in their way — both their own coverings and those of the people on trial. So first of all,' he said, 'we must stop them from knowing their death beforehand, as they do now. This has already been arranged — word has gone to Prometheus to put a stop to that. Next, they must be judged stripped of all these things — stripped naked, since they must be judged after death. And the judge too must be naked — dead himself — studying with his bare soul the bare soul of each person, the moment after he has died, cut off from all his kin and having left behind on earth all that fine array, so that the judgment may be just.'

SOCRATES: So, having realized this before you did, I appointed sons of my own as judges — two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe, Aeacus. These, once they have died, will hold court in the meadow, at the crossroads from which the two paths lead off, one to the Isles of the Blessed, the other to Tartarus. Those from Asia will be judged by Rhadamanthus, those from Europe by Aeacus; and to Minos I will give the privilege of casting the deciding vote whenever the other two are in doubt about anything, so that the judgment on which road men take may be as just as possible. This, Callicles, is what I have heard and believe to be true, and from this account I reckon something like the following follows. Death, it seems to me, is nothing other than the separation of two things from one another, the soul and the body. And once they have been separated from each other, each of the two keeps very nearly the same condition it had while the person was alive — the body keeps its own nature, along with the effects of its care and its sufferings, all plainly visible. For instance, if someone's body was large, by nature or by nurture or both, while he was alive, then his corpse is large too once he has died; and if he was fat, his corpse is fat too after death, and so on for the rest. And again, if he liked to wear his hair long, his corpse has long hair too. Or if someone was a man who got whipped, and had scars on his body left by whips or other wounds while alive, you can see his body bearing these same marks once he is dead. Or if any of his limbs were broken or twisted while he lived, these same things are visible once he is dead. In short, whatever condition the body was kept in during life shows plainly after death too, either entirely or for the most part, for some time. And it seems to me the very same thing holds for the soul, Callicles. Once it is stripped bare of the body, everything is plainly visible in the soul — both its natural traits and the marks it has taken on from each pursuit the man engaged in. So when they arrive before the judge, those from Asia before Rhadamanthus, Rhadamanthus stops each of them and studies his soul, not knowing whose it is — often, in fact, he takes hold of the Great King himself, or some other king or ruler, and finds nothing sound in his soul at all, but sees it scourged and covered with scars from perjuries and injustice —

SOCRATES: — marks each of his actions has left smeared onto his soul — everything twisted from lying and pretense, nothing straight, because it was raised without truth; and he sees the soul brimming with disproportion and ugliness because of license, luxury, insolence, and lack of restraint in its actions. Seeing this, he sends it off in disgrace, straight to the place of confinement, where it is bound to go and endure the sufferings that fit it. And it is fitting for everyone undergoing punishment, if rightly punished by another, either to become better and gain from it, or to serve as an example to others, so that others, seeing him suffer whatever he suffers, may grow better out of fear. Those who benefit and pay their penalty at the hands of gods and men are the ones whose wrongs are curable; still, the benefit comes to them through pain and suffering, both here and in Hades — there's no other way to be rid of injustice. But those who have committed the worst wrongs and have become incurable because of such crimes — these become the examples: they themselves no longer gain anything, being incurable, but others gain, those who see them suffering the greatest, most painful, and most frightening punishments forever, for their sins, hung up there in the prison of Hades quite literally as examples, a sight and a warning for whichever wrongdoers arrive there from time to time. Archelaus, I say, will be one of these, if Polus is telling the truth, and so will any other tyrant of his kind. And I think most of these examples turn out to have come from tyrants, kings, rulers, and men who have managed the affairs of cities, since it is people with power who commit the greatest and most impious crimes. Homer bears this out too: it is kings and rulers he has shown suffering eternal punishment in Hades — Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Tityus. But Thersites, or any other ordinary man who was wicked, no one has shown bound in great torments as incurable — I suppose because it wasn't within his power to do such things. That's exactly why he was better off than those who did have the power —

SOCRATES: But of course, Callicles, it is from among the powerful that the truly wicked come — though nothing stops good men from arising among them too, and it is well worth admiring those who do; for it is hard, Callicles, and deserves great praise, for a man who has had great scope to act unjustly to live his life justly instead. Few such men appear — though both here and elsewhere, I think, there have been, and will be, fine and good men possessing this excellence — the excellence of managing justly whatever is entrusted to them. One in particular has become quite famous even among the rest of the Greeks, Aristides son of Lysimachus. But most powerful men, my good friend, turn out badly. So, as I was saying, whenever Rhadamanthus gets hold of one of these, he knows nothing else about him — not who he is nor from what family — only that he is wicked; and seeing this, he sends him off to Tartarus, marking him as either curable or incurable, and once there he suffers what is fitting. But sometimes, seeing another soul that has lived piously and truthfully, that of a private citizen or anyone else — most of all, I would say, Callicles, a philosopher who has minded his own business and not meddled in everything during his life — he is struck with admiration and sends it off to the Isles of the Blessed. Aeacus does the same — each of these two holds a rod as he judges — while Minos sits overseeing them, alone holding a golden scepter, as Odysseus in Homer says he saw him — 'holding a golden scepter, giving judgments to the dead.' As for me, Callicles, I am persuaded by this account, and I take care to present my soul to the judge as healthy as possible. So, setting aside the honors that most men value, and practicing truth, I will try, as best I can, to live and — when I die — to die, as good a man as I am able to be. And I urge everyone else, as far as I can, and I urge you especially, in return, to choose this life and this contest, which I say is worth more than all the contests here — and I reproach you for the fact that you will not be able to help yourself when the judgment and trial come, the one I was just now speaking of.

SOCRATES: But when you come before that judge, the son of Aegina, and he seizes you and brings you to trial, you'll gape and reel with dizziness there just as much as I would here, and someone will very likely strike you across the face, without any regard for your dignity, and treat you like dirt in every way. Perhaps all this sounds to you like an old wives' tale, something to be dismissed with contempt — and it would be no wonder if you did dismiss it, if we had somewhere else found better and truer things to say. But as it stands, you can see that the three of you — you and Polus and Gorgias, who are supposed to be the wisest men in Greece today — cannot show that one ought to live any life other than this one, the very life that turns out to be advantageous even down there. No: out of all these arguments, though everything else has been refuted, this one claim alone stands unshaken — that doing wrong is something to guard against far more than suffering it, and that above everything else a man must practice not seeming good but being good, both in private and in public life; and that if anyone becomes bad in some respect, he must be punished for it, and that this — becoming, through punishment, someone who pays what he owes — is the second-best good after being just to begin with; and that every kind of flattery, whether aimed at oneself or at others, whether at the few or at the many, is something to flee from; and that rhetoric, like every other pursuit, must always be used in the service of justice. So listen to me, and follow me to where, once you arrive, you will be happy both in life and after it, as this argument shows. Let anyone who wants to despise you as a fool and treat you shamefully — let him do it. And, by Zeus, let him even strike that disgraceful blow, and take it bravely; you'll suffer nothing terrible, if you are truly a good and admirable man, one who practices virtue. And then, once we have practiced this together, only then, if it still seems right, shall we turn to public affairs — or to whatever else seems best to us — and deliberate about it then, once we are better equipped to deliberate than we are now. Because it is shameful, given the condition we plainly find ourselves in at present, to go on acting the bold young man as though we were somebody — we, who never agree with ourselves twice about the same things, and that on the most important matters of all. That is the depth of ignorance we have sunk to. So let us take as our guide the argument that has just now come to light, which shows us that this way of living is the best — to live and to die practicing justice and every other virtue. Let us follow this, then, and let us call on others to follow it too — not that other argument, the one you trust in and by which you keep calling on me. For that one, Callicles, is worth nothing at all.

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