Phaedrus — Plato
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p. 90neither answer nor ask ; and if any one challenges the least particular of their speech, they go ringing on in a long harangue, like brazen pots, which when they are struck continue to sound unless some one puts his hand upon them ; whereas our friend Protagoras can not only make a good speech, as he has already shown, but when he is asked a question he can answer briefly ; and when he asks he will wait and hear the answer ; and this is a very rare gift.
Now I, Protagoras, have a little question that I want to ask of you, and if you will only answer me that, I shall be quite satisfied. You were saying that virtue can be taught ; that I will take upon your authority, and there is no one to whom I am more ready to trust. But I marvel at one thing about which I should like to have my mind set at rest.
You were speaking of Zeus sending justice and reverence to men ; and several times while you were speaking, justice and temperance and holiness, and all these qualities, were described by you as if together they made up virtue.
Now I want you to tell me truly whether virtue is one whole, of which justice and temperance and holiness are parts ; or whether all these are only the names of one and the same thing : that is the doubt which still lingers in my mind. [Protagoras replies that the qualities which Socrates mentions are not different names for one and the same thing, but are parts of a whole, just as the features are parts of a face, each entirely diff*erent from all the others and having its own function.
Socrates proceeds by a cross-examination of Protagoras to test the truth of this theory. First he shows that if the parts of virtue are unlike, if, for example, justice is not of the nature of holiness, nor holiness of the nature of justice, then justice is unholy. Protagoras cannot agree to this. He admits that justice bears a resemblance to holiness, but denies that they are identical. He prefers to say simply that they are different.
The most unlike things, he claims, can be shown to be alike from some point of view. Socrates continues his questioning and draws Protagoras into making statements which contradict his own theory that the virtues are many and unlike. Protagoras asserts at one time that folly is opposed to wisdom, and at another time that folly is opposed to temperance ; but he has also been led to affirm that everything has one opposite and only one. It becomes
p. 91 clear that he must renounce one of these statements or admit that wisdom and temperance are the same. Having obtained the reluctant consent of Protagoras to this and reminding him that justice and holiness have been shown to be nearly the same, Socrates begins a third attack which Protagoras foresees must lead him to the admission that temperance and justice are one and the same.
To evade this conclusion, Protagoras takes refuge in a long speech, which sounds well but is not much to the point.] When he had given this answer, the company cheered him. And I said : Protagoras, I have a wretched memory, and when any one makes a long speech to me I never remember what he is talking about.
As then, if I had been deaf, and you were going to converse with me, you would have had to raise your voice ; so now, having such a bad memory, I will ask you to cut your answers shorter, if you would take me with you. What do you mean ? he said : how am I to shorten my answers ? shall I make them too short ? Certainly not, I said. But short enough ? he said. Yes, I said.
Shall I answer what appears to me to be short enough, or what appears to you to be short enough ? I have heard, I said, that you can speak and teach others to speak about the same things at such length that words never seemed to fail, or with such brevity that no one could use fewer of them. Please therefore, if you talk with me, to adopt the latter or more compendious method.
Socrates, he replied, many a battle of words have I fought, and if I had followed the method of disputation which my adversaries desired, as you want me to do, I should have been no better than another, and the name of Protagoras would have been nowhere.
I saw that he was not satisfied with his previous answers, and that he would not play the part of answerer any more if he could help ; and I considered that there was no call upon me to continue the conversation ; so I said : Protagoras, I don't wish to force the conversation upon you if you had rather not, but when you are willing to argue with me in such p. 92a way that I can follow you, then I will argiie with you. Now you, as is said of you by others and as you say of yourself, are able to have discussions in shorter forms of speech as well as in longer, for you are a master of wisdom ; but I cannot manage these long speeches : I only wish that I could. You, on the other hand, who are capable of either, ought to speak shorter as I beg you, and then we might conyerse.
But I see that you are disinclined, and as I have an engagement which will prevent my staying to hear you at length (for I have to be in another place), I will depart ; although I should have liked to have heard you. Thus I spoke, and was rising from my seat, when Callias seized me by the hand, and in his left hand caught hold of this old cloak of mine.
He said : We cannot let you go, Socrates, for if you leave us there will be an end of our discussions : I must therefore beg you to remain, as there is nothing in the world that I should like better than to hear you and Protagoras discourse. Do not deny the company this pleasure. Now I had got up, and was in the act of departure.
Son of Hipponicus, I replied, I have always admired, and do now heartily applaud and love your philosophical spirit, and I would gladly comply with your request, if I could. But the . truth is that I cannot.
And what you ask is as great an ^^ impossibility to me, as if you bade me run a race with Crison of Himera^ when in his prime, or with some one of the long or day course runners.* To that I should reply, that I humbly make the same request to my own legs ; and they can* t comply. And therefore if you want to see Crison and me in the same stadium, ^^ you must bid him slacken his speed to mine, for I cannot run quickly, and he can run slowly.
And in like manner if you want to hear me and Protagoras discoursing, you must ask him to shorten his answers, and keep to the point, as he did at first ; if not, how can there be any discussion ?
For discussion is one thing, and 4» Crison (krl'son) ; Himera (hfm'e-ra) : a Greek city on the north coast of Sicily. *« It is interesting to note in this connection that in the revived Olympian Games which took place at Athens in the summer of 1896, while American, German, and other foreign athletes won most of the prizes, a Greek peasant won the long race from Marathon to Athens, a distance of over twenty miles. »i Stadium (sta'df-iim) : Greek name for the foot-race course.
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