Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
SOCRATES: Hippias — handsome and wise! It's been ages since you've put in at Athens. HIPPIAS: No time for it, Socrates. Whenever Elis needs to negotiate something with one of the other cities, she always comes to me first among her citizens and chooses me as ambassador, believing me the ablest judge and messenger of whatever speeches pass between the various cities. Many times, then, I've served as ambassador to other cities, but most often, and on the most numerous and weightiest matters, to Sparta. That's why, as you ask, I don't come around to these parts very often. SOCRATES: That's just what it is, Hippias, to be truly wise and a complete man. You're capable, privately, of taking large sums of money from the young and benefiting them still more than what you take, and you're also capable, publicly, of doing great service to your own city, as anyone must who means not to be looked down on but to win a good name among the many. But tell me, Hippias, what in the world is the reason that those men of old, whose names are spoken of as great in wisdom — Pittacus, and Bias, and the circle of Thales of Miletus, and even the later ones down to Anaxagoras — why is it that all or most of them plainly kept away from public affairs? HIPPIAS: What else could you think, Socrates, except that they were incapable, not able enough in judgment to reach both sides at once, the public and the private? SOCRATES: So then, by Zeus, just as the other arts have advanced, and the old practitioners are inferior to today's craftsmen, shall we say the same holds for your art — the sophists' art — that it too has advanced, and the ancients in wisdom are inferior to you? HIPPIAS: Quite right, yes.
SOCRATES: So if Bias came back to life among us now, Hippias, he'd earn a laugh from you people — the way the sculptors say Daedalus would, if he came back now and produced the sort of work that first won him his name — it would be laughable. HIPPIAS: That's so, Socrates, just as you say. Still, I myself am in the habit of praising the ancients, those who came before us, more and more readily than the men of today — being wary of the envy of the living, and fearful of the anger of the dead. SOCRATES: Well put, Hippias, both in the words you choose and the thought behind them, it seems to me. And I can bear you witness that what you say is true — your art really has advanced, to the point of being able to handle public business along with private. Take Gorgias, this sophist from Leontini — he came here publicly, sent from home as ambassador, on the grounds that he was the ablest of the Leontines to manage public affairs, and he was thought to speak best before the assembly, and privately, giving displays and keeping company with the young, he earned and took a great deal of money from this city. Or if you like, our friend Prodicus here — he too has come publicly many other times, and most recently, arriving publicly from Ceos, he spoke before the Council and won great acclaim, and privately, giving displays and keeping company with the young, he took in an astonishing amount of money. None of those old men, though, ever thought it right to charge a fee in silver, or to give displays of his own wisdom before all sorts of people — so simple were they, and so unaware how valuable silver could be. Yet each of these two men here has made more money from wisdom than any other craftsman from any craft — and even before them, Protagoras did. HIPPIAS: You know nothing, Socrates, of the fine points of this business. If you knew how much money I've made, you'd be amazed. Never mind the rest — once, arriving in Sicily, with Protagoras in residence there and in high repute, and older than I, though I was much younger, in a short time I made well over a hundred and fifty minas — and from one very small place alone, Inycus, more than twenty minas. And I brought it home and gave it to my father, so that he and the other citizens were astonished and dumbfounded. And I daresay I've made more money, all told, than any two sophists you care to name put together.
SOCRATES: That's a fine thing to say, Hippias, and a great proof of your own wisdom, and of how far the men of today outstrip the ancients. About the men of old, and about Anaxagoras in particular, a story is told of great foolishness, going by your account: quite the opposite happened to Anaxagoras from what happens to you — left a great fortune, he neglected it and lost it all, so senselessly wise was he. And they tell similar things about other men of old too. So this seems to me a fine proof you're offering about the wisdom of the men of today compared with those before, and many agree that a wise man above all needs to be wise for himself — and the mark of this, it seems, is whoever makes the most money. Well, enough of that. But tell me this: from which of the cities you visit have you made the most money? Surely from Sparta, since that's where you've gone most often? HIPPIAS: No, by Zeus, Socrates. SOCRATES: What do you mean — the least, then? HIPPIAS: None at all, ever, not the slightest bit. SOCRATES: What a strange and astonishing thing to say, Hippias! Tell me — isn't your wisdom the sort that makes those who keep company with it and learn from it better in virtue? HIPPIAS: Yes, very much so, Socrates. SOCRATES: But you were able to make the sons of the Inycines better, while you were powerless with the Spartans? HIPPIAS: Far from it. SOCRATES: But surely the Sicilians want to become better, while the Spartans don't? HIPPIAS: Oh, the Spartans do too, Socrates, certainly. SOCRATES: So was it lack of money that made them avoid your company? HIPPIAS: No indeed, since they have plenty. SOCRATES: Then what could it be, that though they want it and have the money, and though you're able to benefit them enormously, they didn't send you off loaded with silver? Or is it this — could the Spartans educate their own children better than you? Shall we say that's the case, and do you agree? HIPPIAS: Not in the least. SOCRATES: Then were you unable to persuade the young men in Sparta that they'd advance further in virtue by keeping company with you than with their own people, or were you unable to persuade their fathers that they ought to hand their sons over to you rather than look after them themselves, if indeed they care at all for their sons' welfare? Surely they weren't grudging their own children the chance to become as good as possible. HIPPIAS: No, I don't think they were grudging. SOCRATES: And yet Sparta certainly has good laws.
HIPPIAS: Of course. SOCRATES: And in cities with good laws, virtue is held in the highest honor. HIPPIAS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And you know better than anyone alive how to hand that on to others. HIPPIAS: Yes, far better, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then, someone who knows best how to teach horsemanship — wouldn't he be honored most, in all of Greece, in Thessaly, and paid the most money, and anywhere else where this is taken seriously? HIPPIAS: Likely so. SOCRATES: So then, the man capable of handing on the most valuable lessons for virtue — won't he be honored most in Sparta, and make the most money there, if he wishes, and in any other Greek city with good laws? Or do you suppose it's rather in Sicily, my friend, and in Inycus? Shall we accept this, Hippias? For if you tell us to, we must accept it. HIPPIAS: Well, it's not ancestral custom, Socrates, for the Spartans to change their laws, or to educate their sons contrary to what's customary. SOCRATES: What do you mean? Is it ancestral custom for the Spartans to act wrongly rather than rightly? HIPPIAS: I wouldn't say that, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't they act rightly by educating their young men better rather than worse? HIPPIAS: Rightly, yes — but it's not lawful for them to give their children a foreign education, since — you should know — if any Spartan ever took money for education from anyone, it would be me most of all he'd take it from; they certainly enjoy listening to me and praise me. But, as I say, it's not the law. SOCRATES: And when you say 'law,' Hippias, do you mean something harmful to a city, or something beneficial? HIPPIAS: It's laid down, I suppose, for the sake of benefit — though sometimes it does harm, if the law is badly made. SOCRATES: Well then? Don't those who lay down the law intend it as the greatest good for the city, and is it not impossible to live under good laws without it? HIPPIAS: True. SOCRATES: So whenever those who attempt to lay down laws miss what's good, they've missed both the lawful and law itself — or how do you put it? HIPPIAS: Strictly speaking, Socrates, that's how it is — though people aren't in the habit of naming it that way. SOCRATES: Which people, Hippias — those who know, or those who don't? HIPPIAS: The many. SOCRATES: And are these many the ones who know the truth? HIPPIAS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: But surely those who know hold that what's more beneficial is more lawful for all people, in truth, than what's less beneficial — or don't you agree? HIPPIAS: Yes, I agree, that in truth it is so. SOCRATES: And is it not, in fact, just as those who know believe it to be? HIPPIAS: Quite so.
SOCRATES: But it is, as you say, more beneficial for the Spartans to be educated by you, in a foreign fashion, than in their own. HIPPIAS: And what I say is true. SOCRATES: And you also say this, Hippias — that what's more beneficial is more lawful? HIPPIAS: I did say so. SOCRATES: Then by your own account, it's more lawful for the sons of the Spartans to be educated by Hippias, and less lawful to be educated by their fathers, if indeed they'll truly be more benefited by you. HIPPIAS: But they will be benefited, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then the Spartans are breaking the law by not giving you gold and entrusting their sons to you. HIPPIAS: I grant you that — you seem to me to be arguing my own case, and there's no need for me to oppose it. SOCRATES: So we find the Spartans lawbreakers, my friend, and in the weightiest matters at that — they who are thought the most law-abiding of all. But tell me, for heaven's sake, Hippias, what is it they praise you for and delight in hearing? Surely it's obviously those things you know best of all — the stars, and the phenomena of the heavens? HIPPIAS: Not in the least — they can't even stand that. SOCRATES: Well, do they enjoy hearing about geometry? HIPPIAS: Not at all, since many of them, so to speak, don't even know how to count. SOCRATES: Then they're far from putting up with you giving displays of calculation. HIPPIAS: Far from it indeed, by Zeus. SOCRATES: Well then, surely those things which you, of all men, know how to distinguish most precisely — the power of letters, and syllables, and rhythms, and harmonies? HIPPIAS: What harmonies and letters are you talking about, my good man? SOCRATES: Then what in the world is it they listen to with pleasure and praise? Tell me yourself, since I can't find it. HIPPIAS: About genealogies, Socrates — of heroes and of men, and about the foundings of cities, how they were settled in ancient times, and in short, they listen with the greatest pleasure to the whole of antiquarian lore, so that on their account I've been forced to learn and practice all such things thoroughly. SOCRATES: Well, by Zeus, Hippias, you're lucky the Spartans don't enjoy hearing someone list our own archons going back to Solon — otherwise you'd have had your work cut out learning that by heart. HIPPIAS: Why, Socrates? I hear fifty names once and I can recite them from memory.
SOCRATES: True enough, but I hadn't realized you had such a memory. So I can see why the Spartans are so fond of you, seeing you know so much - they treat you the way children treat their old nurses, for the pleasure of a good story. HIPPIAS: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, and just recently I made quite a hit there talking about fine pursuits - what a young man ought to practice. I have a speech put together on the subject, a very fine one, well turned in its phrasing too. The setup and opening of the speech run something like this: after the fall of Troy, the story goes that Neoptolemus asked Nestor what pursuits are fine, ones that a young man might practice and become most highly regarded for. And after that Nestor speaks, laying out for him a great many fine and proper customs. I gave that performance there, and I mean to give it here too, the day after tomorrow, in Pheidostratus's schoolroom - along with plenty of other things worth hearing. Eudicus, son of Apemantus, asked me to. But be sure to come yourself, and bring others along, people capable of judging what they hear. SOCRATES: I will, god willing, Hippias. For now, though, answer me a small question about it - you've reminded me of something at just the right moment. Recently, my good man, someone put me in a real bind, in a discussion where he was condemning some things as shameful and praising others as fine. He asked me, in quite an insolent way: 'And how do you know, Socrates, what things are fine and what shameful? Go on, then - can you tell me what the fine itself is?' And because I'm such a poor thing, I was at a loss and couldn't answer him properly. So when I left that gathering I was angry at myself, and reproached myself, and swore that the first time I ran into one of you wise men, I'd learn from him, master it thoroughly, and go back to the man who'd asked me, to fight the argument over again. So now, as I say, you've come at just the right time. Teach me adequately what the fine itself is, and try to answer as precisely as you possibly can, so I don't get refuted a second time and made a laughingstock all over again. You surely know this clearly - it must be a small thing among all you know, compared to the rest. HIPPIAS: Small indeed, by Zeus, Socrates, and worth nothing at all, so to speak. SOCRATES: Then I'll learn it easily, and no one will ever refute me again.
HIPPIAS: No one indeed - otherwise my profession would be a poor, amateurish thing. SOCRATES: Well said, by Hera, Hippias, if we're going to get the better of that fellow. But wait - would it bother you if I imitated him, and pushed back against your answers as you give them, just so you can put me through my paces as thoroughly as possible? I'm fairly practiced at raising objections. So if it makes no difference to you, I'd like to object, so I learn more solidly. HIPPIAS: Go ahead and object. As I just said, it's not a big question - I could teach you to answer much harder ones than this, so that no one on earth could refute you. SOCRATES: Ah, well said. But come, since you tell me to, let me try to question you, becoming that man as much as I can. Suppose you gave him that speech of yours, the one about fine pursuits - once you'd finished speaking, the first thing he'd ask about, before anything else, is the fine itself - he has a habit of that - and he'd say: 'Stranger from Elis, is it not by justice that the just are just?' Answer, Hippias, as though he were asking. HIPPIAS: I'll answer that it is by justice. SOCRATES: So this is something, justice? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And is it not also by wisdom that the wise are wise, and by the good that all good things are good? HIPPIAS: Of course. SOCRATES: These being real things - not things that don't exist. HIPPIAS: They are real, certainly. SOCRATES: And isn't it also true that all fine things are fine by the fine? HIPPIAS: Yes, by the fine. SOCRATES: Which is also something real? HIPPIAS: Real - of course, what else would it be? SOCRATES: 'Then tell me, stranger,' he'll say, 'what is this fine?' HIPPIAS: Is there any difference, Socrates, between what this man is asking and simply wanting to know what is fine? SOCRATES: I don't think so - he's asking what the fine is, Hippias. HIPPIAS: And what's the difference between that and the other? SOCRATES: You see no difference? HIPPIAS: None at all. SOCRATES: Well, clearly you know better than I do. Still, my good man, think it over - he's not asking you what is fine, but what the fine is. HIPPIAS: I understand, my friend, and I'll answer him what the fine is, and never be refuted. The truth is, Socrates - mark this well, if I'm to speak plainly - a beautiful young woman is a fine thing.
SOCRATES: Well answered indeed, Hippias, by the dog, and with real style! So then, if I give that as my answer, I'll have answered what was asked, and answered correctly, and I'll never be refuted? HIPPIAS: How could you possibly be refuted, Socrates, on a point everyone agrees with, that everyone listening will back you up on as correct? SOCRATES: All right, let's say so. But come, Hippias, let me run through in my own mind what you're telling me. He'll question me something like this: 'Come, Socrates, answer me: all these things you say are fine - if there is some fine itself, would they be fine because of it?' And I'll say: if a beautiful young woman is fine, is there something because of which such things would be fine? HIPPIAS: Do you think he'll still try to refute you, claiming what you say isn't fine - or if he tries, that he won't make a fool of himself? SOCRATES: That he'll try, my astonishing friend, I'm quite sure. Whether trying will make a fool of him, the outcome will show. But what he'll say, I'm willing to tell you. HIPPIAS: Go on then. SOCRATES: 'How charming you are, Socrates,' he'll say. 'But isn't a fine mare also fine - one that even the god praised in his oracle?' What shall we say, Hippias? Must we not admit the mare is fine too, at least a fine one? How could we dare deny that the fine is not fine? HIPPIAS: True, Socrates - and indeed the god was right to say so, for we do breed magnificent mares where I come from. SOCRATES: 'Very well,' he'll say, 'and what about a fine lyre - isn't that fine?' Shall we say so, Hippias? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then after that he'll say next - I'm fairly sure, judging from his manner - 'And what, my excellent fellow, of a fine pot? Is that not fine?' HIPPIAS: Socrates, who is this man? What an uncultivated fellow, to dare bring up such lowly things in so dignified a discussion! SOCRATES: That's the sort he is, Hippias - not refined, but common as rubbish, caring about nothing but the truth. Still, we must answer the man, and I'll say my own view in advance: if the pot were made by a good potter, smooth and round and well fired - like some of those fine two-handled pots that hold six choes, quite splendid - if that's the kind of pot he means, we must agree it's fine. How could we say a fine thing is not fine? HIPPIAS: We couldn't, Socrates. SOCRATES: 'So then a fine pot is fine too?' he'll say. Answer. HIPPIAS: Well, Socrates, I think it's like this: this utensil too is fine, if it's well made - but the whole thing doesn't deserve to be judged as fine when set beside a mare, a young woman, and all the other fine things.
SOCRATES: Very well - I see, Hippias, that we must answer the man who asks these questions like this: 'Sir, you forget that Heraclitus's saying holds true - that the finest of monkeys is ugly compared to the human race, and the finest of pots is ugly compared to the race of young women - as Hippias the wise tells us.' Isn't that right, Hippias? HIPPIAS: Quite right, Socrates - well answered. SOCRATES: Listen then - for after this, I'm sure he'll say: 'But Socrates, what about this - if one compares the race of young women to the race of gods, won't the same thing happen as when the pots were compared to the young women? Won't the finest young woman appear ugly? Doesn't Heraclitus himself, whom you cite, say exactly this - that the wisest of men will appear a monkey next to a god, in wisdom and beauty and everything else? Shall we agree, Hippias, that the finest young woman is ugly compared to the race of gods?' HIPPIAS: Who could argue with that, Socrates? SOCRATES: If we agree to that, then he'll laugh and say: 'Socrates, do you remember what you were asked?' 'I do,' I'll say, 'what the fine itself is.' 'Then,' he'll say, 'when asked about the fine, do you answer with something that turns out to be, by your own admission, no more fine than ugly?' 'So it seems,' I'll say. 'Or what would you have me say, my friend?' HIPPIAS: Say just that - since indeed, compared to the gods, it's true that the human race is not fine. SOCRATES: 'But if I had asked you from the start,' he'll say, 'what is fine and ugly, and you'd given me the very answer you just gave, wouldn't you have answered correctly? And do you still think that the fine itself, which adorns all other things and makes them appear fine whenever that form is added to them, is a young woman, or a mare, or a lyre?' HIPPIAS: But really, Socrates, if that's what he's after, it's the easiest thing in the world to answer him what the fine is that adorns all other things and makes them appear fine when added to them. The man must be perfectly simple-minded and understand nothing about fine possessions. If you answer him that what he's asking about, the fine, is nothing other than gold, he'll be stuck and won't try to refute you. We all know, after all, that wherever gold is added, even something that looked ugly before will look fine once it's adorned with gold. SOCRATES: You don't know the man, Hippias - how stubborn he is, and how he accepts nothing easily.
HIPPIAS: What of it, Socrates? What is said correctly, he's bound to accept - or if he doesn't accept it, he only makes himself ridiculous. SOCRATES: Yet that very answer, my excellent friend, he won't just fail to accept - he'll mock me thoroughly for it, and say: 'You poor deluded man - do you think Pheidias was a bad craftsman?' And I suppose I'll say, not in the least. HIPPIAS: And you'll be right to say so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Right indeed. And so, once I've agreed that Pheidias was a good craftsman, he'll say: 'Then do you think Pheidias didn't know this fine thing you're talking about?' And I'll say: 'What do you mean?' 'Because,' he'll say, 'he didn't make the eyes of Athena out of gold, nor the rest of her face, nor her feet, nor her hands - though if gold really made things look finest, that's what he would have used - instead he used ivory. Clearly he made this mistake out of ignorance, not knowing that gold is what makes everything fine, wherever it's added.' So what shall we answer him when he says this, Hippias? HIPPIAS: That's no trouble - we'll say he did it correctly. Ivory is fine too, I think. SOCRATES: 'Then why,' he'll say, 'didn't he also make the whites of the eyes out of ivory, but used stone instead - finding a stone as close to ivory in color as he could? Or is fine stone also fine?' Shall we say so, Hippias? HIPPIAS: We'll say so, certainly - when it's fitting. SOCRATES: And when it's not fitting, it's ugly? Do I have your agreement, or not? HIPPIAS: Agreed - when it doesn't fit. SOCRATES: 'Well then,' he'll say, 'clever as you are - don't ivory and gold make things look fine when they fit, and ugly when they don't?' Shall we deny it, or agree that he's right? HIPPIAS: We'll agree to this much: that whatever fits each thing is what makes each thing fine. SOCRATES: 'Then which is fitting,' he'll say, 'when someone is boiling that fine pot we mentioned earlier, full of fine soup - a golden ladle for it, or a fig-wood one?' HIPPIAS: Heracles, what a man you're describing, Socrates! Won't you tell me who he is? SOCRATES: You wouldn't recognize him even if I told you his name. HIPPIAS: Well, even now I can tell that he's some ignorant fellow.
SOCRATES: He's a real bother, Hippias — but still, what shall we say? Which of the two ladles suits the porridge and the pot? Clearly the fig-wood one, isn't it? It gives the porridge a better smell, and besides, my friend, it wouldn't shatter the pot and spill the porridge and put out the fire and leave the people about to dine without any decent food at all — whereas that golden one would do all of that. So it seems to me we ought to say the fig-wood ladle is more fitting than the golden one, unless you have something else to say. HIPPIAS: Well, it is more fitting, Socrates — but I wouldn't stoop to discuss such things with a man who asks questions like that. SOCRATES: And you're right not to, my friend — it wouldn't suit you to get mixed up in such names, dressed as beautifully as you are, shod as beautifully as you are, and famous for wisdom among all the Greeks. But it's no trouble at all for me to get tangled up with the fellow — so teach me first, and answer for my sake. If the fig-wood ladle really is more fitting than the golden one, the man will say, wouldn't it also be more beautiful, since you agreed, Socrates, that the fitting is more beautiful than the unfitting? Shall we agree, Hippias, that the fig-wood ladle is more beautiful than the golden one? HIPPIAS: Do you want me to tell you, Socrates, what you can say the beautiful is and free yourself from all this talk? SOCRATES: By all means — but not before you tell me which of the two ladles I should answer is the fitting and more beautiful one, of the two I just mentioned. HIPPIAS: Well, if you like, just answer him that it's the one made of fig wood. SOCRATES: Now say what you were just about to say. Because with that answer — that the beautiful is gold — nothing, it seems, will turn out to be more beautiful than gold, not even a piece of fig wood. So what do you say now the beautiful is? HIPPIAS: I'll tell you. You seem to me to be looking for an answer to 'what is the beautiful' that will never appear ugly to anyone, anywhere, ever. SOCRATES: Exactly, Hippias — and now you've got hold of it well. HIPPIAS: Listen, then. Know this in advance: if anyone can find fault with what I'm about to say, you may say I understand nothing at all. SOCRATES: Speak, then, for heaven's sake, as quickly as you can. HIPPIAS: I say, then, that it is always, for everyone, everywhere, most beautiful for a man to be rich, healthy, honored by the Greeks, to reach old age, and — having given his own parents a beautiful funeral — to be buried beautifully and magnificently by his own children. SOCRATES: Wow, Hippias — that's a marvelous, grand answer, worthy of you! And by Hera, I admire you for trying so hard, as far as you're able, to help me out. But the fact is, we're not hitting our man — he's going to laugh at us now more than ever, you can be sure of it.
HIPPIAS: A poor sort of laughter, Socrates. Because when a man has nothing to say against an argument and just laughs, he's laughing at himself, and he'll be a laughingstock to everyone present. SOCRATES: That may well be so. But then again, with this answer, I have a feeling — call it a hunch — that he'll be laughing at more than just me. HIPPIAS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: I mean that if he happens to have a stick, and I don't get away from him fast enough, he'll try his best to land it on me. HIPPIAS: What are you saying? Is this man some kind of master over you, that he could do such a thing and not be hauled into court and made to pay damages? Or is your city not a just one — does it allow citizens to strike each other unjustly? SOCRATES: Not in the least — it doesn't allow that at all. HIPPIAS: Then he'll be made to pay for striking you unjustly. SOCRATES: I don't think so, Hippias — not if I gave that answer. I think it would be a just beating. HIPPIAS: Well then, so do I, Socrates, since that's what you think yourself. SOCRATES: Shall I tell you, then, how I too think it would be a just beating for that answer? Or will you strike me without a trial? Will you hear my case? HIPPIAS: It would be shameful not to hear it. But how do you mean? SOCRATES: I'll tell you — in the same way as just now, imitating that man, so that I don't have to say to you the harsh and strange things he'll say to me. Be sure of this, he'll say — tell me, Socrates, don't you think you deserve a beating, when you sang such a long dithyramb and missed the question so badly, so tunelessly? How so? I'll ask. How? he'll say. Can't you remember that I was asking about the beautiful itself, the thing that, whatever it attaches to, makes that thing beautiful — stone or wood or man or god or every action and every branch of learning? I'm asking you, man, what beauty itself is, and I can get no more sense out of you than if a stone were sitting beside me — and a millstone at that, with neither ears nor a brain. Now, Hippias, if out of fear I said this in reply: but Hippias claimed this was the beautiful — even though I was asking him, just as you're asking me, for what is beautiful to everyone, always — wouldn't you be annoyed if I said that? HIPPIAS: Well, I know perfectly well, Socrates, that what I said is beautiful to everyone, and will be thought so. SOCRATES: And will it be so as well? he'll say — for surely the beautiful is always beautiful. HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And was it so before? he'll say. HIPPIAS: It was.
SOCRATES: And was it also beautiful, he'll say, for Achilles to be buried after his ancestors — according to the stranger from Elis — and for his grandfather Aeacus, and for all the others born of gods, and for the gods themselves? HIPPIAS: What's this? To hell with it! Those aren't even decent questions to ask, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well, what about it — is it not fairly indecent for someone else to be asked such things and to say yes, that's how it is? HIPPIAS: Perhaps. SOCRATES: Then perhaps you're the one, he'll say, who claims it's always and for everyone beautiful to be buried by one's descendants and to bury one's parents — or wasn't Heracles one of the whole company, and all the others we just mentioned? HIPPIAS: But I wasn't talking about the gods. SOCRATES: Nor about the heroes either, it seems. HIPPIAS: Not the ones who were children of gods, at least. SOCRATES: But the ones who weren't? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then, by your own account, it seems, among the heroes it is a terrible, unholy, shameful thing for Tantalus and Dardanus and Zethus, but beautiful for Pelops and the others born in the same way. HIPPIAS: So it seems to me. SOCRATES: Then you think, he'll say — though you just denied it — that being buried by one's descendants, after having buried one's own ancestors, is sometimes and for some people shameful; and further, it seems, it's impossible for this to happen to everyone and be beautiful — so that this, like the earlier cases, the girl and the pot, has suffered the same fate, and even more absurdly: beautiful for some, not beautiful for others. And to this very day, he'll say, you still haven't been able to answer, Socrates, what was asked about the beautiful — what it is. He'll reproach me with this and things like it, justly, if I answer him that way. For the most part, Hippias, that's roughly how he talks to me. But sometimes, as if taking pity on my inexperience and lack of education, he himself throws out a suggestion, asking whether I think the beautiful is such-and-such — or about whatever else happens to come up in the conversation. HIPPIAS: What do you mean by this, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll show you. My good Socrates, he says, stop giving answers like that — they're too simple-minded and too easy to refute. Instead, consider this: does it seem beautiful to you — the very thing we touched on just now in your answer, when we said that gold is beautiful for those it suits, but not for those it doesn't, and likewise everything else that has this quality — consider whether this very thing, the fitting, and the nature of fitting itself, happens to be the beautiful. Now I'm in the habit of agreeing to such things each time — I don't have anything else to say — but do you think the fitting is the beautiful? HIPPIAS: Absolutely, I'd say, Socrates. SOCRATES: Let's examine it, then, in case we're somehow being deceived. HIPPIAS: We should examine it.
SOCRATES: Look here, then — do we mean by 'the fitting' that which, when present, makes each of the things it's present in appear beautiful, or that which makes them be beautiful, or neither of these? HIPPIAS: I think it's the one that makes them appear beautiful — just as when someone puts on clothes or shoes that fit well, even if he's a ridiculous figure, he appears more handsome. SOCRATES: Then if the fitting makes things appear more beautiful than they are, the fitting would be a kind of deception where beauty is concerned, and it wouldn't be the thing we're looking for, would it, Hippias? For surely what we were looking for was that by which all beautiful things are beautiful — just as it is by excess that all large things are large: by that, all things are large, and even if it doesn't appear so, so long as there is excess, they must be large. So too, we say, with the beautiful: that by which all things are beautiful — whether it appears so or not — what would it be? For it couldn't be the fitting, since, on your account, that makes things appear more beautiful than they are, and doesn't let them appear as they really are. But we must try to say what it is that makes things be beautiful, whether it appears so or not — for that's what we're looking for, if we're really looking for the beautiful. HIPPIAS: But Socrates, the fitting, when present, makes things both be and appear beautiful. SOCRATES: Then it's impossible for things that are really beautiful not to appear beautiful, given that the very thing that makes them appear so is present? HIPPIAS: Impossible. SOCRATES: Shall we then agree to this, Hippias — that all the things that are really beautiful, both the customs and the practices, are believed to be beautiful and always appear so to everyone — or is it rather the complete opposite: that they're misunderstood, and that more than anything else there is strife and battle about them, both privately among individuals and publicly among cities? HIPPIAS: The latter is more the case, Socrates — they're misunderstood. SOCRATES: That wouldn't happen if appearing beautiful were attached to them — and it would be attached, if the fitting were the beautiful and made things not only be beautiful but also appear so. So the fitting — if it's what makes things be beautiful — would be the beautiful we're looking for, but not what makes them appear beautiful. But if, on the other hand, it's what makes things appear beautiful that is the fitting, then it wouldn't be the beautiful we're looking for. For that makes things be beautiful, while appearing beautiful and being beautiful could never be the same thing — not for beauty, nor for anything else at all. Let's choose, then, which we think the fitting is — that which makes things appear beautiful, or that which makes them be beautiful. HIPPIAS: The one that makes them appear beautiful, I think, Socrates. SOCRATES: Ah, well! Then it's slipped away from us, Hippias — our chance to know what the beautiful actually is — since the fitting has turned out to be something other than the beautiful.
HIPPIAS: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, and quite strangely too. SOCRATES: Well, my friend, let's not give up on it yet — I still have some hope that what the beautiful is will come to light. HIPPIAS: Certainly, Socrates — it isn't even hard to find. I know very well that if I went off alone for a little while and thought it over by myself, I could tell you more precisely than anything could possibly be precise. SOCRATES: Ah, don't say anything so grand, Hippias! You see how much trouble it's already given us — I'm afraid that if we make it angry it will run off from us even further. Though really I'm talking nonsense — you, I imagine, will find it easily enough once you're alone. But for the gods' sake, find it out in front of me, or if you like, look for it together with me as we're doing now. And if we find it, wonderful; if not, I'll resign myself, I suppose, to my fate, and you'll go off and easily find it. And if we do find it now, rest assured I won't bother you by asking what it was that you discovered on your own. So — look now at what you think the beautiful is. I'll say it is — well, watch me closely, so I don't babble nonsense — let this be beautiful for us: whatever is useful. I say this from thinking it through as follows: we call eyes beautiful, not the ones that seem to be such but can't see, but the ones that are capable and useful for seeing. Right? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And don't we likewise call the whole body beautiful in this way — one body for running, another for wrestling — and likewise all animals, a horse beautiful, and a rooster, and a quail, and all implements, and vehicles both on land and ships and triremes at sea, and all instruments, both those used in music and those in the other arts — and if you like, customs and laws too — pretty much all these we call beautiful in the same way: looking at each of them in terms of how it's made, how it's worked, how it's arranged, we say that what is useful is beautiful, in the way it's useful, for what it's useful, and when it's useful, and what is in every respect useless in that way is ugly. Doesn't it seem so to you too, Hippias? HIPPIAS: It does to me. SOCRATES: So we're right to say now that the useful, more than anything, happens to be the beautiful? HIPPIAS: Quite right, Socrates. SOCRATES: And isn't what's capable of producing something — whatever it's capable of — for that very thing also useful, while what's incapable is useless? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So capability is beautiful, and incapacity ugly?
HIPPIAS: Very much so. In fact other things too testify to us, Socrates, that this is so, and political affairs especially: in politics and in one's own city, being capable is the most beautiful thing of all, and being incapable the ugliest of all. SOCRATES: Well said. So then, for god's sake, Hippias, is it for this reason that wisdom too is the most beautiful thing of all, and ignorance the ugliest of all? HIPPIAS: What else could you think, Socrates? SOCRATES: Wait calmly a moment, my dear friend — I'm afraid of what we're saying now. HIPPIAS: Afraid of what now, Socrates, when the argument has gone forward so beautifully for you? SOCRATES: I wish it had. But look this over with me: could someone do something he neither knew how to do nor was capable of at all? HIPPIAS: In no way — how could he, if he weren't capable? SOCRATES: So those who err and do bad things, working and acting unwillingly — wouldn't they, if they weren't capable of doing these things, never have done them? HIPPIAS: Clearly so. SOCRATES: But surely those who are capable are capable by their capability — not, I suppose, by incapacity. HIPPIAS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: And all who do what they do are capable of doing it? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And all people do far more bad things than good, starting from childhood, and they err unwillingly. HIPPIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: Well then — this capability, and these useful things, whatever are useful for producing something bad, shall we say these are beautiful, or far from it? HIPPIAS: Far from it, it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then, Hippias, capability and usefulness are not, it seems, the beautiful for us. HIPPIAS: They are, Socrates, provided the capability is for good things and the usefulness is toward such things. SOCRATES: Well then that's gone — that being capable and useful is simply and without qualification beautiful. But was this perhaps what our soul wanted to say all along, Hippias — that the useful and the capable for producing something good, this is the beautiful? HIPPIAS: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: But surely this is exactly beneficial. Or not? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So in this way beautiful bodies too, and beautiful customs, and wisdom, and all the things we were just now mentioning, are beautiful because they are beneficial. HIPPIAS: Clearly so. SOCRATES: So the beneficial appears to be the beautiful for us, Hippias. HIPPIAS: Absolutely, Socrates. SOCRATES: But surely the beneficial is what produces something good. HIPPIAS: It is. SOCRATES: And what produces is nothing other than the cause. Right? HIPPIAS: So it is.
SOCRATES: So the beautiful is the cause of the good. HIPPIAS: It is. SOCRATES: But surely, Hippias, the cause and that of which the cause is a cause are different things — for surely a cause could not be the cause of a cause. Look at it this way: didn't the cause turn out to be something that produces? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And isn't it only the thing coming into being that is produced by the producer, and not the producer itself? HIPPIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: So the thing coming into being is one thing, and the thing producing is another? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the cause is not the cause of a cause, but of that which comes into being by means of it. HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So if the beautiful is the cause of the good, then the good would come into being by means of the beautiful — and this, it seems, is why we take seriously wisdom and all the other beautiful things, because their product and offspring, the good, is worth taking seriously; and it looks, from what we've found, as though the beautiful stands in the position of a father to the good. HIPPIAS: Quite so — you put it well, Socrates. SOCRATES: And don't I also put this well — that the father is not the son, nor the son the father? HIPPIAS: Well put indeed. SOCRATES: Nor is the cause the thing that comes into being, nor in turn is the thing that comes into being the cause. HIPPIAS: True. SOCRATES: By Zeus, my excellent friend, then neither is the beautiful good, nor the good beautiful — or does it seem to you possible, given what we've said? HIPPIAS: No, by Zeus, it doesn't seem so to me. SOCRATES: Does this please us, then, and would we be willing to say that the beautiful isn't good, nor the good beautiful? HIPPIAS: No, by Zeus, it doesn't please me at all. SOCRATES: Yes, by Zeus, Hippias — and of everything we've said, this pleases me least of all. HIPPIAS: So it seems. SOCRATES: So it's likely, after all, that what just now appeared to be the most beautiful of all our accounts — that the beneficial, the useful, and the capable of producing something good is the beautiful — is not so, but if it's possible, is even more ridiculous than those first ones, in which we thought the beautiful was a maiden, or each of the other things said earlier. HIPPIAS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And for my part, Hippias, I no longer have anywhere to turn — I'm at a loss. Do you have anything to say? HIPPIAS: Not at the moment — but as I said just now, once I think it over I know well I'll find it.
SOCRATES: But I find myself, out of eagerness to know, unable to wait for you while you take your time — for indeed I think I've just now hit on something of a way forward. Look: if what makes us feel joy — not all pleasures, but whatever comes through hearing and sight — that's what we called beautiful, how would we hold up in the contest? Beautiful people, Hippias, and all decorated things and paintings and sculptures delight us when we look at them, if they are beautiful; and beautiful sounds and music altogether, and speeches and stories, produce this very same effect — so that if we answered that bold fellow: 'My good man, the beautiful is what is pleasant through hearing and through sight' — don't you think we'd check his boldness? HIPPIAS: To me at least, Socrates, it now seems well said, what the beautiful is. SOCRATES: But what about this — beautiful practices and laws, Hippias, shall we say they're beautiful because they're pleasant through hearing or through sight, or that they have some other character? HIPPIAS: These, Socrates, might perhaps slip past the man. SOCRATES: By the dog, Hippias, not the one before whom I would be most ashamed to talk nonsense and pretend to say something while saying nothing. HIPPIAS: Who is this? SOCRATES: The son of Sophroniscus, who would allow me no more to say such things easily, unexamined, than to claim I know what I don't know. HIPPIAS: Well, now that you've said it, it does seem to me too that this matter of the laws is something different. SOCRATES: Hold on quietly, Hippias — we're in danger of having fallen into the very same difficulty about the beautiful as before, while thinking we're somewhere else, in some easier way out. HIPPIAS: What do you mean by this, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll tell you what appears to me, if indeed I'm saying anything. This business of laws and practices might perhaps turn out not to be outside the perception that comes to us through hearing and sight; but let's hold to this account — that what's pleasant through these is beautiful — without bringing laws into the discussion at all. But if someone should ask us — whether the man I mean, or anyone else — 'Why, Hippias and Socrates, have you marked off, from the pleasant as a whole, this part that's pleasant in the way you say is beautiful, while denying that what concerns the other senses — food and drink and sexual matters and all such things — is beautiful? Or do you say these aren't even pleasant, that there's no pleasure at all in such things, nor in anything other than seeing and hearing?' What shall we say, Hippias? HIPPIAS: We shall certainly say, Socrates, that in the other things too there are quite great pleasures.
SOCRATES: What then, he'll say, are these pleasures no less pleasures than the others, and yet you strip them of the name and deny that they're beautiful? Because, we'll say, no one, whoever he is, could help laughing at us if we claimed that eating well isn't pleasant but beautiful, or that a pleasant smell is not pleasant but beautiful. And as for sex, everyone would fight us tooth and nail if we said it's not the most pleasant thing there is—yet it has to be done, if it's done at all, in such a way that no one sees, because it's the ugliest thing to be seen doing. When we say this, Hippias, I understand, he might say—and I understand too—that you've long been ashamed to call these pleasures beautiful, because people don't think they are. But that wasn't my question—not what most people think is beautiful, but what actually is beautiful. So we'll say, I suppose, what we proposed at the start: that this part of the pleasant—the kind that comes through sight and hearing—we claim is beautiful. But do you have anything more to offer this argument, or shall we say something else, Hippias? HIPPIAS: Given what's been said, Socrates, there's nothing else to say but this. SOCRATES: Well said, then, he'll say. So if the pleasant that comes through sight and hearing is beautiful, then whatever pleasant thing doesn't happen to be of that kind clearly wouldn't be beautiful—shall we agree? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Is the pleasant through sight, he'll say, pleasant through both sight and hearing, or is the pleasant through hearing pleasant through both hearing and sight? Not at all, we'll say—what comes through one of them wouldn't be through both together (that seems to be what you mean)—rather we meant that each of these, taken by itself, is beautiful among pleasant things, and so are both together. Isn't that how we'll answer? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then does one pleasant thing differ from another pleasant thing, he'll say, in this respect—in being pleasant? I don't mean whether one pleasure is greater or smaller, or more or less intense, but whether one differs from another in this very point, that one is a pleasure and the other is not a pleasure. That doesn't seem so to us, does it? HIPPIAS: No, it doesn't. SOCRATES: Then, he'll say, wasn't it for some reason other than their being pleasures that you picked out these particular pleasures from the rest—seeing something distinctive in both of them, something that sets them apart from the others, and looking to that you call them beautiful? For surely the pleasure through sight isn't beautiful because it comes through sight—if that were the reason it was beautiful, the other one, through hearing, would never be beautiful, since it isn't a pleasure through sight. Isn't that true, we'll say? HIPPIAS: We will say that.
SOCRATES: Nor again is the pleasure through hearing beautiful because it comes through hearing—for then the one through sight would never be beautiful either, since it isn't a pleasure through hearing. Shall we say the man is speaking the truth in saying this, Hippias? HIPPIAS: True. SOCRATES: But surely both are beautiful, as you claim. We do claim that? HIPPIAS: We do. SOCRATES: Then they have some one and the same thing that makes them beautiful, some common feature that belongs to both of them together and to each one separately—for otherwise they wouldn't both be beautiful, and each one too. Answer me as though I were him. HIPPIAS: I answer, and it does seem to me to be as you say. SOCRATES: So if these two pleasures have both experienced something together, but neither has experienced it alone, then it wouldn't be by virtue of that shared condition that they're beautiful. HIPPIAS: But how could that be, Socrates—that neither of two things has undergone some real condition, and yet both together have undergone this condition which neither underwent? SOCRATES: You don't think so? HIPPIAS: I'd have to be thoroughly ignorant of both the nature of these things and the way we're now speaking about them to think so. SOCRATES: A nice thought, Hippias. But I'm probably in danger of thinking I see something that you say is impossible, when really I see nothing at all. HIPPIAS: You're not in danger, Socrates—you're just very ready to see wrong. SOCRATES: And yet many such things do appear before my mind—but I distrust them, because they don't appear to you, a man who has made more money from wisdom than anyone alive today, while they do appear to me, who has never made a penny from it. And I suspect, my friend, that you might be playing with me and deliberately deceiving me—so strongly and so often do these things appear to me. HIPPIAS: No one will know better than you, Socrates, whether I'm playing or not, if you try to state these things that appear to you—you'll be shown to be talking nonsense. For you will never find that what neither I nor you have undergone, both of us together have undergone. SOCRATES: What do you mean, Hippias? Maybe you mean something, but I don't follow—listen to what I want to say more clearly. It appears to me that what I have not undergone and am not, nor again are you, this is something we could both, together, have undergone; and on the other hand there are things we've both undergone which neither of us individually is.
HIPPIAS: More monstrous answers, Socrates, even bigger than the ones you gave a moment ago. Just consider: if both of us are just, isn't each of us just too? Or if each is unjust, aren't both? Or if we're both healthy, isn't each? Or if each of us were tired, or wounded, or struck, or had suffered anything at all, wouldn't both of us together have suffered it too? Further, if we happened to be both made of gold, or silver, or ivory—or if you like, both noble or wise or honored, or old or young, or whatever else you like among human qualities—isn't it a great necessity that each of us is that too? SOCRATES: Absolutely, I suppose. HIPPIAS: But you, Socrates, don't look at things as wholes, nor do the people you're used to talking with—you knock things apart, taking beauty and each of the things there are and cutting them up in your arguments. That's why such great, continuous bodies of reality escape your notice. And now it's escaped you so completely that you think there's some condition or reality that holds of both these things together but not of each one, or again of each one but not of both together—so unreasonably, so carelessly, so simple-mindedly, so thoughtlessly are you all disposed. SOCRATES: Such is our condition, Hippias—not as one might wish, as people always say in their proverbs, but as it can be. Still, you do us good by always setting us straight. Since even now, before you set us straight on this, we were so simple-minded—shall I show you even more clearly by telling you what we used to think about these matters, or shall I not say it? HIPPIAS: You'll be telling someone who already knows, Socrates—I know how each of these people who deal in arguments is disposed. Still, if it's more pleasant for you, say it. SOCRATES: Well, it is more pleasant. You see, my good friend, before you told us this, we were so foolish as to hold the opinion about you and me that each of us is one, and that what each of us individually is, both of us together are not—for we're not one but two—so foolish were we. But now we've been taught by you that if both of us together are two, then each of us must be two as well, and if each is one, then both together must be one too. For it's not possible, on Hippias's account of a continuous unity of being, for it to be otherwise—whatever holds of both must hold of each, and whatever holds of each must hold of both. So, persuaded by you, I now sit here. But first, Hippias, remind me—are you and I one, or are you two and I two? HIPPIAS: What are you saying, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Just what I say—I'm afraid to speak plainly with you, because you get angry with me whenever you think you've said something. Still, tell me this—isn't each of us one, and hasn't each of us undergone this, being one? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then if each is one, wouldn't each of us also be odd? Or don't you think one is odd? HIPPIAS: I do. SOCRATES: Then are both of us together also odd, being two? HIPPIAS: That couldn't be, Socrates. SOCRATES: But both together are even, surely? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then is it because both together are even that each of us is also even? HIPPIAS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: So it's not an absolute necessity, as you were just saying, that whatever holds of both holds of each, and whatever holds of each holds of both. HIPPIAS: Not in cases like these—but in the cases I was talking about earlier, it is. SOCRATES: That's enough, Hippias—we can be content with that, since it turns out that some things are so and others are not. For as I said, if you remember where this argument started, I said that the pleasure through sight and hearing were not beautiful by virtue of the fact that each of them individually had some experience while both together did not, or both together had it while neither individually did—but by virtue of that which belongs to both together and to each individually, since you agreed that both of them together are beautiful, and each individually. That's why I thought that, following the reality that applies to both together, if indeed both are beautiful, it's by virtue of that that they must be beautiful—not by virtue of whatever falls short in one but not the other. And I still think so now. But tell me again, as from the beginning: the pleasure through sight and the pleasure through hearing, if both together are beautiful and each individually is too, doesn't whatever it is that makes them beautiful follow both of them together and each one separately? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Is it, then, because each is a pleasure, and both are, that they'd be beautiful? Or would all the other pleasures, for that same reason, be no less beautiful than these? For they turned out to be no less pleasures, if you remember. HIPPIAS: I remember. SOCRATES: But it was because they come through sight and hearing that these were said to be beautiful. HIPPIAS: Yes, that's what was said. SOCRATES: Consider whether I'm speaking the truth. It was said, as I recall, that the pleasant is beautiful—not all of it, but whatever comes through sight and hearing. HIPPIAS: True. SOCRATES: Now doesn't this condition follow both of them together, but not each one individually? For surely neither of them individually, as was said before, comes through both—but both together come through both, while each individually does not. Is that so? HIPPIAS: It is.
SOCRATES: Then beauty doesn't belong to each of them in the way that follows only one but not the other — since 'both together' doesn't follow each one separately — so that although we're allowed by our hypothesis to say both are beautiful, we're not allowed to say each one is. Isn't that how it stands? Isn't it necessary? HIPPIAS: It appears so. SOCRATES: Shall we then say both are beautiful, but not say each is? HIPPIAS: What's stopping us? SOCRATES: This is what seems to me to stop us, my friend: we had it that some things belong to each item in such a way that, if they belong to both, they also belong to each one, and if to each one, then also to both — all the things you went through. Isn't that right? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: But the things I went through, in turn, were not like that — and among these were 'each itself' and 'both.' Is that so? HIPPIAS: It is. SOCRATES: Well then, Hippias, to which class does beauty seem to you to belong? To the one you were describing — where if I am strong and you are, then both of us are, and if I am just and you are, then both of us are, and if both of us are, then each of us is — so that likewise, if I am beautiful and you are, then both of us are, and if both of us are, then each of us is? Or is there nothing to stop it being like the case of numbers, where two things might both be even while each one, taken separately, might happen to be odd, or both even — or again where two things might each be irrational while together they might be rational, or again irrational — and countless other cases of that sort, which I said occurred to me? To which class do you assign beauty? Or does it appear to you just as it appears to me? It seems to me thoroughly unreasonable that both of us should be beautiful while neither is individually, or each of us beautiful while both together are not, or any such combination. Do you choose as I do, or the other way? HIPPIAS: As you do, Socrates. SOCRATES: Good of you, Hippias — that spares us a longer search. For if beauty belongs to that class, then the pleasant-through-sight-and-hearing could no longer be beauty. For the pleasant-through-sight-and-hearing makes both beautiful but not each one — and that, as you and I have agreed, Hippias, was impossible. HIPPIAS: Yes, we agreed to that. SOCRATES: So it's impossible for the pleasant-through-sight-and-hearing to be beauty, since its becoming beauty produces one of those impossibilities. HIPPIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: 'Tell me again, then, from the beginning,' he'll say, 'since you've missed the mark on this one — what do you claim this beauty is, that belongs to both these pleasures, on account of which you honored them above the others and named them beautiful?' It seems to me necessary, Hippias, to say that these are the least harmful and the best of the pleasures, both together and each separately — unless you have something else to say by which they differ from the rest. HIPPIAS: Not at all — they really are the best. SOCRATES: 'So this,' he'll say, 'is what you claim beauty is — beneficial pleasure?' It seems so, I'll say for my part — what about you? HIPPIAS: I too.
SOCRATES: 'Now then,' he'll say, 'isn't the beneficial what produces the good? And didn't the producing and the produced just now turn out to be different things — so that your argument comes back around to the earlier one? For neither would the good be beautiful nor the beautiful good, if each of them really is something different from the other.' 'Absolutely,' we'll say, Hippias, if we're being sensible — for it's not right to refuse agreement to someone who's speaking correctly. HIPPIAS: But really, Socrates, what do you think all this amounts to? It's just scrapings and shavings of arguments, as I said just now, chopped up into little bits. What's truly beautiful and worth a great deal is being able to present a speech well and beautifully before a court, or a council, or whatever body it's addressed to, and to persuade them and walk away not with the smallest prizes but the greatest — one's own safety, and that of one's property and friends. These are the things one ought to hold onto, letting go of this petty hair-splitting, so as not to seem an utter fool, fussing over nonsense and trifles the way we're doing now. SOCRATES: My dear Hippias, you're a fortunate man — you know what a person ought to practice, and you've practiced it well enough, as you say. But some strange fate, it seems, holds me in its grip: I wander about forever in confusion, and when I display my confusion to you wise men, I get pelted with abuse in return, once I've shown it. You all tell me — as you're telling me now — that what I'm busy with is silly and small and worth nothing. But then, when I'm won over by you and say what you say — that it's by far the best thing to be able to carry through a speech, presented well and beautifully, in a court or some other gathering — I get called every kind of bad name, both by others here and by this fellow who's always cross-examining me. He happens, in fact, to be a close relative of mine and lives in the same house — so whenever I go home and he hears me saying these things, he asks whether I'm not ashamed to dare talk about beautiful pursuits when I'm so plainly refuted about beauty itself, not even knowing what it is. 'And yet how will you know,' he says, 'whether some speech has been presented beautifully or not, or any other action whatever, if you don't know beauty?' And when I'm in that state, do you think it's better for me to live than to die? So it has turned out for me, as I say — to be spoken ill of by you and reproached, and spoken ill of by him as well. But perhaps it's necessary to put up with all this — it wouldn't be strange if it did me some good. And I do think, Hippias, that I've profited from conversing with both of you: for I think I now know what the proverb means — that beautiful things are hard.