Phaedrus — Plato
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p. 50When Ctesippus heard this he got very angry (as a lover might) and said : . Strangers of Thurii — ^if politeness would allow me I should say, You be hanged. What can make you tell such a lie about me and the others, which I hardly like to repeat, as that I wish Cleinias to perish ? Euthydemus replied : And do you think, Ctesippus, that it is possible to tell a lie ?
Yes, said Ctesippus ; I should be mad to deny that. g And in telling a lie, do you tell the thing of which ^ you speak or not ? You tell the thing of which you speak. And he who tells, tells that thing which he tells, and no other ? Yes, said Ctesippus. And that is a distinct thing apart from other things ? Certainly. And he who says that thing says that which is ? Yes. And he who says that which is, says the truth.
And therefore Dionysodorus, if he says that which is, says the truth of you and no lie. Yes, Euthydemus, said Ctesippus; but in saying this, he says what is not. Euthydemus answered : And that which is not is not. True. And that which is not is nowhere ? Nowhere. And can any one do anything about that which has no existence, or do to Cleinias that which is not and is nowhere? I think not, said Ctesippus.
Well, but do rhetoricians, when they speak in the assembly do nothing? Nay, he said, they do something.* And doing is making ? Yes. And speaking is doing and making ? He agreed. Then no one says that which is not, for in saying that, he would be doing nothing ; and you have already acknowledged that no one can do what is not. And therefore, upon your
p. 51 own showing, no one says what is false ; but if Dionysodorus says anything, he says what is true and what is. Yes, Euthydemus, said Ctesippus ; but he speaks of things in a certain way and manner, and not as they really are. Why, Ctesippus, said Dionysodorus, do you mean to say that any one speaks of things as they are ? Yes, he said, — all gentlemen and truth-speaking persons. And are not good things good, and evil things evil ?
He assented. And you say that gentlemen speak of things as they are? Yes. Then the good speak evil of evil things, if they speak of them as they are ? Yes, indeed, he said ; and they speak evil of evil men. And if I may give you a piece of advice, you had better take care that they don't speak evil of you, since I can tell you that the good speak evil of the evil.
And do they speak great things of the great, rejoined Euthydemus, and warm things of the warm ? Yes, indeed, said Ctesippus ; and they speak coldly of the insipid and cold dialectician. You are abusive, Ctesippus, you are abusive !
Indeed, I am not, Dionysodorus, he replied ; for I love you and am giving you friendly advice, and, if I could, would « persuade you not to make so uncivil a speech to me as ^ that I desire my beloved, whom I value above all men, to perish.
I saw that they were getting exasperated with one another, so I made a joke with him and said : O Ctesippus, I think that we must allow the strangers to use language in their own way, and not quarrel with them about words, but be thankful for what they give us.
If they know how to destroy men in such a way as to make good and sensible men out of bad and foolish ones — whether this is a discovery of their own, or whether they have learned from some one else, this new sort of death and destruction, which enables them to get rid of a bad man and put a good one in his place — if they know this (and they do know this — ^at any rate they said just now that this was the secret of their newly-discovered art) — let them, in their phraseology, destroy the youth and make him wise, and all of us with him. But if you young men do not like to trust yourp. 52selves with them, then let the experiment be made on the body of an old man. I will be the Carian ^^ on whom they shall operate. And here I offer my old person to Dionysodorus ; he may put me into the pot, like Medea ^* the Colchian, kill me, pickle me, eat me, if he will make me good.
Ctesippus said : And I, Socrates, am ready to commit myself to the stranger ; they may skin me alive, if they please (and I am pretty well skinned by them already), if only my skin is made at last, not like that of Marsyas," into a leathern bottle, but into a piece of virtue.
And here is Dionysodorus fancpng that I am angry with him, when I am really not angry at all ; I do but contradict him when he seems to me to be in the wrong : and you must not confound abuse and contradiction, O illustrious Dionysodorus ; for they are quite different things. Contradiction ! said Dionysodorus ; why, there never was such a thing. Certainly there is, he replied ; there can be no question of that.
Do you, Dionysodorus, maintain that there is not ? You will never prove to me, he said, that you have heard any one contradicting any one else. Indeed, he said : then now you may hear Ctesippus contradicting Dionysodorus. Are you prepared to make that good ? Certainly, he said. Well, then, are not words expressive of things ? Yes. Of their existence or of their non existence ? Of their existence.
For, as you may remember, Ctesippus, s86 ^^ ^"^^ ^^^ proved that no man could affirm a negative ; for no one could affirm that which is not. And what does that signify, said Ctesippus ; you and I may contradict all the same for that. >> Caria nc2L'ri-a) : a district of Asia Minor whose inhabitants the Greeks regarded as despicable and stupid.
Many of the Greek slaves were Carians. *' In later times the Carians hired themselves out as mercenaries ; as such they were used in forlorn hopes, so as to spare the lives of citizen-soldiers ; whence the proverb, — to make tne risk not with one's own person but with a Carian.
L. and S. ** Medea (mS-de'a) the Colchian : a mythical princess and sorceress of Colchis (kdlldfs) in Asia, said to have the power to make the old young by means of a magic liquid which she prepared. " Marsyas (mir'sy-as) : a minor divinity who found the flute discarded by the ffoddess Athene and who became $o skilful with it that he challenged AdoTIo, patron god of the lyre, to a contest. The Muses decided in ^vpr Qt Apollo, who tnen flayed Marsyas alive,
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