Protagoras

Soc.

And that one thing has but one opposite? Yes. Then which, Protagoras, of our propositions are we to reject—the statement that one thing has but one opposite; or the other, that wisdom is different from temperance, and each is a part of virtue, and moreover, a different part, and that the two are as unlike, both in themselves and in their faculties, as the parts of the face? Which are we to upset? The two of them together are not quite in tune; they do not chime in harmony. How could they, if one thing must needs have but one opposite and no more, while wisdom, and temperance likewise, appear both to be opposite to folly, which is a single thing? Such is the position, Protagoras, I said or is it otherwise? He admitted it was so, much against his will. Then temperance and wisdom must be one thing? And indeed we found before that justice and holiness were almost the same thing. Come, Protagoras, I said, let us not falter, but carry out our inquiry to the end. Tell me, does a man who acts unjustly seem to you to be temperate in so acting? I should be ashamed, Socrates, he replied, to admit that, in spite of what many people say. Then shall I address my argument to them, I asked, or to you? If you please, he answered, debate first against that popular theory. It is all the same to me, I said, so long as you make answer, whether it be your own opinion or not. For although my first object is to test the argument, the result perhaps will be that both I, the questioner, and my respondent are brought to the test. At first Protagoras appeared to be coy, alleging that the argument was too disconcerting: however he consented at length to make answer. Well now, I said, begin at the beginning, and tell me, do you consider people to be temperate when they are unjust? Let us suppose so, he said. And by being temperate you mean being sensible? Yes. And being sensible is being well-advised in their injustice? Let us grant it, he said. Does this mean, I asked, if they fare well by their injustice, or if they fare ill? If they fare well. Now do you say there are things that are good? I do. Then, I asked, are those things good which are profitable to men? Oh yes, to be sure, he replied, and also when they are not profitable to men I call them good. Here Protagoras seemed to me to be in a thoroughly provoked and harassed state, and to have set his face against answering: so when I saw him in this mood I grew wary and went gently with my questions.

Soc.

Do you mean, Protagoras, I asked, things that are profitable to no human being, or things not profitable in any way at all? Can you call such things as these good? By no means, he replied; but I know a number of things that are unprofitable to men, namely, foods, drinks, drugs, and countless others, and some that are profitable; some that are neither one nor the other to men, but are one or the other to horses; and some that are profitable only to cattle, or again to dogs; some also that are not profitable to any of those, but are to trees; and some that are good for the roots of a tree, but bad for its shoots—such as dung, which is a good thing when applied to the roots of all plants, whereas if you chose to cast it on the young twigs and branches, it will ruin all. And oil too is utterly bad for all plants, and most deadly for the hair of all animals save that of man, while to the hair of man it is helpful, as also to the rest of his body. The good is such an elusive and diverse thing that in this instance it is good for the outward parts of man’s body, but at the same time as bad as can be for the inward; and for this reason all doctors forbid the sick to take oil, except the smallest possible quantity, in what one is going to eat—just enough to quench the loathing that arises in the sensations of one’s nostrils from food and its dressings.[*](Probably such oil had a specially appetizing flavor or scent.) When he had thus spoken, the company acclaimed it as an excellent answer; and then I remarked: Protagoras, I find I am a forgetful sort of person, and if someone addresses me at any length I forget the subject on which he is talking. So, just as you, in entering on a discussion with me, would think fit to speak louder to me than to others if I happened to be hard of hearing, please bear in mind now that you have to deal with a forgetful person, and therefore cut up your answers into shorter pieces, that I may be able to follow you. Well, what do you mean by short answers? he asked: do you want me to make them shorter than they should be? Not at all, I said. As long as they should be? he asked. Yes, I said. Then are my answers to be as long as I think they should be, or as you think they should be?

Soc.

Well, for instance, I have heard, I said, that you yourself are able, in treating one and the same subject, not only to instruct another person in it but to speak on it at length, if you choose, without ever being at a loss for matter; or again briefly, so as to yield to no one in brevity of expression. So, if you are going to argue with me, employ with me the latter method, that of brevity. Socrates, he said, I have undertaken in my time many contests of speech, and if I were to do what you demand, and argue just in the way that my opponent demanded, I should not be held superior to anyone nor would Protagoras have made a name among the Greeks. Then, as I saw that he had not been quite satisfied with himself in making his former answers, and that he would not readily accept the part of answerer in debate, I considered it was not my business to attend his meetings further, and remarked: But you know, Protagoras, I too feel uncomfortable about our having this discussion against your inclination; but when you agree to argue in such a way that I can follow, then I will argue with you. For you—as people relate of you, and you yourself assert—are able to hold a discussion in the form of either long or short speeches; you are a man of knowledge: but I have no ability for these long speeches, though I could wish that I had it. Surely you, who are proficient in both ways, ought to have made us this concession, that so we might have had our debate. But now that you refuse, and I am somewhat pressed for time and could not stay to hear you expatiate at any length—for I have an appointment—I will be off; though I daresay I should be happy enough to hear your views. With these words I rose as if to go away; but, as I was getting up, Callias laid hold of my arm with his right hand, and grasped this cloak of mine with his left, and said: We will not let you go, Socrates; for if you leave us our discussions will not go so well. I beg you therefore to stay with us, for there is nothing I would rather hear than an argument between you and Protagoras. Come, you must oblige us all. Then I said (I was now standing up as though to go out): Son of Hipponicus, I always admire your love of knowledge, but especially do I commend and love it now, so that I should be very glad to oblige you if you asked of me something that I could do:

Soc.

but I am afraid it is as though you asked me to keep pace with Criso the runner of Himera in his prime, or to keep up in a match with one of the long-distance[*](See Plat. Prot. 329b, note.) or day-course[*](cf. Pheidippides in Hdt. 6.105.) racers, and I could only tell you that I wish that of myself, without your asking, I could keep pace with such runners, but of course I cannot. If you want to have the spectacle of Criso and me running together, you must ask him to adapt his pace; for whereas I cannot run fast, he can run slowly. So if you desire to hear Protagoras and me, ask him to resume the method of answering which he used at first—in short sentences and keeping to the point raised. Otherwise what is to be our mode of discussion? For I thought that to hold a joint discussion and to make a harangue were two distinct things. Ah, but you see, Socrates, he said, Protagoras thinks it only fair to claim that he be allowed to discuss in his chosen style, in return for your claim that it should be in yours. At this Alcibiades intervened, saying: You do not state it quite philosophically, Callias,[*](The translation attempts to follow the jingle of καλῶς . . . Καλλία ) for Socrates here confesses he is no hand at long discourses, and yields therein to Protagoras; but I should be surprised if he yields to any man in ability to argue, or in understanding the interchange of reason. Now if Protagoras confesses himself inferior to Socrates in argumentation, Socrates has no more to ask: but if he challenges him, let him discuss by question and answer; not spinning out a lecture on each question—beating off the arguments, refusing to give a reason, and so dilating until most of his hearers have forgotten the point at issue. For Socrates, I warrant you, will not forget, despite his jesting way of calling himself forgetful. Now I think Socrates’ proposal is the more equitable—for each of us should declare his personal opinion. After Alcibiades, the next, I believe, to speak was Critias: Prodicus and Hippias, he said, it seems to me that Callias is all for supporting Protagoras, while Alcibiades is always for a contest in anything he takes up. It is not for us to contend on either side for Socrates or for Protagoras, but jointly to request them both not to break off our conference unconcluded.

Soc.

When he had said this, Prodicus[*](Prodicus was specially expert in nice verbal distinctions) remarked: I think you are right, Critias: those who attend this sort of discussion ought to be joint, but not equal, hearers of both disputants. For there is a difference: we should listen jointly to them both, yet not give equal heed to each, but more to the wiser and less to the less intelligent. I on my part also, Protagoras and Socrates, call upon you to accede to our request, and to dispute, but not wrangle, with each other over your arguments: for friends dispute with friends, just from good feeling; whereas wrangling is between those who are at variance and enmity with one another. In this way our meeting will have highest success, since you the speakers will thus earn the greatest measure of good repute, not praise, from us who hear you. For good repute is present in the hearers’ souls without deception, but praise is too often in the words of liars who hide what they really think. Again, we listeners would thus be most comforted, not pleased; for he is comforted who learns something and gets a share of good sense in his mind alone, whereas he is pleased who eats something or has some other pleasant sensation only in his body. When Prodicus had thus spoken, quite a number of the company showed their approval then after Prodicus the learned Hippias[*](Hippias professed to teach a great variety of subjects. His frequent metaphors were evidently designed to display his wide range of knowledge.) spoke: Gentlemen, he said, who are here present, I regard you all as kinsmen and intimates and fellow-citizens by nature, not by law: for like is akin to like by nature, whereas law, despot of mankind, often constrains us against nature. Hence it would be shameful if we, while knowing the nature of things, should yet—being the wisest of the Greeks, and having met together for the very purpose in the very sanctuary of the wisdom of Greece, and in this the greatest and most auspicious house of the city of cities—display no worthy sign of this dignity, but should quarrel with each other like low churls.

Soc.

Now let me beg and advise you, Protagoras and Socrates, to come to terms arranged, as it were, under our arbitration: you, Socrates, must, not require that precise form of discussion with its extreme brevity, if it is disagreeable to Protagoras, but let the speeches have their head with a loose rein, that they may give us a more splendid and elegant impression; nor must you, Protagoras, let out full sail, as you run before the breeze, and so escape into the ocean of speech leaving the land nowhere in sight; rather, both of you must take a middle course. So you shall do as I say, and I strongly urge you to choose an umpire or supervisor or chairman who will keep watch for you over the due measure of either’s speeches.His proposal was approved by the company, and they all applauded it: Callias said he would not let me go, and they requested me to choose a supervisor. To this I replied that it would be a shame to choose an arbiter for our discussion; for if he who is chosen, said I, is to be our inferior, it would not be right to have the inferior overseeing the superior; while if he is our equal, that will be just as wrong, for our equal will only do very much as we do, and it will be superfluous to choose him. You may say you will choose one who is our superior. This, in very truth, I hold to be impossible—to choose someone who is wiser than our friend Protagoras; and if you choose one who is not his superior, though you may say he is, that again would cast a slur on him, as if he were some paltry fellow requiring a supervisor; for, as far as I am concerned, the matter is indifferent. But let me tell you how I would have the thing done, so that your eagerness for a conference and a discussion may be satisfied. If Protagoras does not wish to answer, let him ask questions, and I will answer: at the same time I will try to show him how the answerer, in my view, ought to answer; and when I have answered all the questions that he wishes to ask, in his turn he shall render account in like manner to me. So if he does not seem very ready to answer the particular question put to him, you and I will join in beseeching him, as you have besought me, not to upset our conference. And for this plan there is no need to have one man as supervisor; you will all supervise it together. They all resolved that it should be done in this way: Protagoras, though very unwilling, was obliged after all to agree to ask questions and then, when he had asked a sufficient number, to take his turn at making due response in short answers.

Soc.

And so he began to put questions in this sort of way: I consider, Socrates, that the greatest part of a man’s education is to be skilled in the matter of verses; that is, to be able to apprehend, in the utterances of the poets, what has been rightly and what wrongly composed, and to know how to distinguish them and account for them when questioned. Accordingly my question now will be on the same subject that you and I are now debating, namely virtue, but taken in connexion with poetry: that will be the only difference. Now, Simonides, I think, somewhere remarks to Scopas, the son of Creon of Thessaly—

1. For a man, indeed, to become good truly is hard,
2. In hands and feet and mind foursquare,
3. Fashioned without reproach.

Simonides Fr. 37.1 Do you know the ode, or shall I recite the whole?To this I replied: There is no need, for I know it it happens that I have especially studied that ode. I am glad to hear it, he said. Now do you regard it as finely and correctly composed or not? Very finely and correctly, I replied. And do you regard it as finely composed, if the poet contradicts himself? No, I replied. Then observe it more closely, he said. >My good sir, I have given it ample attention. Are you aware, then, he asked, that as the ode proceeds he says at one point—

1. Nor ringeth true to me
2. That word of Pittacus—[*](Pittacus, ruler of Mytilene, despaired of rilling well on the ground here stated.)
3. And yet ’twas a sage who spake—Hard, quoth he, to be good.

Simonides Fr. 37.1.11 Do you note that this and the former are statements of the same person? I know that, I said. Then do you think the second agrees with the first? So far as I can see, it does, I replied (at the same time, though, I was afraid there was something in what he said). Why, I asked, does it not seem so to you? How can anyone, he replied, be thought consistent, who says both of these things? First he laid it down himself that it is hard for a man to become good in truth, and then a little further on in his poem he forgot, and he proceeds to blame Pittacus for saying the same as he did—that it is hard to be good, and refuses to accept from him the same statement that he made himself. Yet, as often as he blames the man for saying the same as himself he obviously blames himself too, so that in either the former or the latter place his statement is wrong. This speech of his won a clamorous approval from many of his hearers; and at first I felt as though I had been struck by a skilful boxer, and was quite blind and dizzy with the effect of his words and the noise of their applause. Then—to tell you the honest truth—in order to gain time for considering the poet’s meaning, I turned to Prodicus and calling him—Prodicus, I said, surely Simonides was your townsman: it behoves you to come to the man’s rescue.

Soc.

Accordingly I allow myself to call for your assistance— just as Scamander, in Homer, when besieged by Achilles, called Simois to his aid, saying—

1. Dear brother, let us both together stay this warriors might.

Hom. Il. 21.308 In the same way I call upon you, lest Protagoras lay Simonides in ruins. For indeed to rehabilitate Simonides requires your artistry, by which you can discriminate between wishing and desiring as two distinct things in the fine and ample manner of your statement just now. So please consider if you agree with my view. For it is not clear that Simonides does contradict himself. Now you, Prodicus, shall declare your verdict first: do you consider becoming and being to be the same or different? Different, to be sure, said Prodicus. Now in the first passage, I said, Simonides gave it as his own opinion that it is hard for a man to become good in truth. Quite true, said Prodicus. And he blames Pittacus, I went on, for saying not, as Protagoras holds, the same as himself, but something different. For what Pittacus said was not, as Simonides said, that it is hard to become but to be good. Now being and becoming, Protagoras, as our friend Prodicus says, are not the same thing; and if being and becoming are not the same thing, Simonides does not contradict himself. Perhaps Prodicus and many others might say with Hesiod that to become good is hard,

for Heaven hath set hard travail on the way to virtue; and when one reacheth the summit thereof, ’tis an easy thing to possess, though hard before.

Hes. WD 289 When Prodicus heard this he gave me his approval: but Protagoras observed: Your correction, Socrates, contains an error greater than that which you are correcting. To which I answered: then it is a bad piece of work I have done, it would seem, Protagoras, and I am an absurd sort of physician; my treatment increases the malady. Just so, he said. How is that? I asked. Great, he replied, would be the ignorance of the poet, if he calls it such a slight matter to possess virtue, which is the hardest thing in the world, as all men agree.

Soc.

Then I remarked: Upon my word, how opportunely it has happened that Prodicus is here to join in our discussion! For it is very likely, Protagoras, that Prodicus’ wisdom is a gift of long ago from heaven, beginning either in the time of Simonides or even earlier. But you, so skilled in many other things, appear to be unskilled in this, and lack the skill that I can boast because I am a disciple of the great Prodicus; and so now I find you do not understand that perhaps Simonides did not conceive hard in the way that you conceive it—just as, in the case of awful, Prodicus here corrects me each time I use the word in praising you or someone else; when I say, for instance, that Protagoras is an awfully wise man, he asks if I am not ashamed to call good things awful. For awful, he says, is bad; thus no one on this or that occasion speaks of awful wealth or awful peace or awful health, but we say awful disease, awful war or awful poverty, taking awful to be bad. So perhaps hard also was intended by the Ceans and Simonides as either bad or something else that you do not understand: let us therefore ask Prodicus, for it is fair to question him on the dialect of Simonides. What did Simonides mean, Prodicus, by hard? Bad, he replied. Then it is on this account, Prodicus, I said, that he blames Pittacus for saying it is hard to be good, just as though he heard him say it is bad to be good. Well, Socrates, he said, what else do you think Simonides meant? Was he not reproaching Pittacus for not knowing how to distinguish words correctly, Lesbian as he was, and nurtured in a foreign tongue? You hear, Protagoras, I said, what Prodicus here suggests: have you anything to say upon it? The case, said Protagoras, is far otherwise, Prodicus: I am quite sure that Simonides meant by hard the same as we generally do—not bad, but whatever is not easy and involves a great amount of trouble. Ah, I agree with you, Protagoras, I said, that this is Simonides’ meaning, and that our friend Prodicus knows it, but is joking and chooses to experiment on you to see if you will be able to support your own statement. For that Simonides does not mean that hard is bad we have clear proof forthwith in the next phrase, where he says—

1. God alone can have this privilege.

Simonides Fr. 37.1.14Surely he cannot mean that it is bad to be good, if he proceeds here to say that God alone can have this thing, and attributes this privilege to God only; otherwise Prodicus would call Simonides a rake, and no true Cean.

Soc.

But I should like to tell you what I take to be Simonides’ intention in this ode, if you care to test my powers, as you put it,[*](cf. Plat. Prot. 339a above.) in the matter of verses; though if you would rather, I will hear your account. When Protagoras heard me say this—As you please, Socrates, he said; then Prodicus and Hippias strongly urged me, and the rest of them also. Well then, I said, I will try to explain to you my own feeling about this poem. Now philosophy is of more ancient and abundant growth in Crete and Lacedaemon than in any other part of Greece, and sophists are more numerous in those regions: but the people there deny it and make pretence of ignorance, in order to prevent the discovery that it is by wisdom that they have ascendancy over the rest of the Greeks, like those sophists of whom Protagoras was speaking[*](cf. Plat. Prot. 316d. This whole passage is a mocking answer to Protagoras’ eulogy of sophistry.); they prefer it to be thought that they owe their superiority to fighting and valor, conceiving that the revelation of its real cause would lead everyone to practise this wisdom. So well have they kept their secret that they have deceived the followers of the Spartan cult in our cities, with the result that some get broken ears by imitating them, bind their knuckles with thongs, go in for muscular exercises, and wear dashing little cloaks,[*](Short cloaks or capes worn in a fashion imitated from the Spartans.) as though it were by these means that the Spartans were the masters of Greece. And when the Spartans wish to converse unrestrainedly with their sophists, and begin to chafe at the secrecy of their meetings, they pass alien acts against the laconizing set[*](i.e., people who have come to acquire the Spartan way of life, in order to spread it in other cities.) and any other strangers within their gates, and have meetings with the sophists unknown to the foreigners; while on their part they do not permit any of their young men to travel abroad to the other cities—in this rule they resemble the Cretans—lest they unlearn what they are taught at home. In those two states there are not only men but women also who pride themselves on their education; and you can tell that what I say is true and that the Spartans have the best education in philosophy and argument by this: if you choose to consort with the meanest of Spartans, at first you will find him making a poor show in the conversation; but soon, at some point or other in the discussion, he gets home with a notable remark, short and compressed—a deadly shot that makes his interlocutor seem like a helpless child.

Soc.

Hence this very truth has been observed by certain persons both in our day and in former times—that the Spartan cult is much more the pursuit of wisdom than of athletics; for they know that a man’s ability to utter such remarks is to be ascribed to his perfect education. Such men were Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, Solon of our city, Cleobulus of Lindus, Myson of Chen, and, last of the traditional seven, Chilon of Sparta. All these were enthusiasts, lovers and disciples of the Spartan culture; and you can recognize that character in their wisdom by the short, memorable sayings that fell from each of them they assembled together and dedicated these as the first-fruits of their lore to Apollo in his Delphic temple, inscribing there those maxims which are on every tongue—Know thyself and Nothing overmuch. To what intent do I say this? To show how the ancient philosophy had this style of laconic brevity; and so it was that the saying of Pittacus was privately handed about with high approbation among the sages—that it is hard to be good. Then Simonides, ambitious to get a name for wisdom, perceived that if he could overthrow this saying, as one might some famous athlete, and become its conqueror, he would win fame himself amongst men of that day. Accordingly it was against this saying, and with this aim, that he composed the whole poem as a means of covertly assailing and abasing this maxim, as it seems to me.[*](In this view of the purpose of the poem (which is to show that there is no lasting perfection in human life), and in the detailed commentary that follows, Socrates is aping the disquisitions of the more literary sophists (e.g., Hippias, who warmly approves, Plat. Prot. 347a).) Now let us all combine in considering whether my account is really true. The opening of the ode must at once appear crazy if, while intending to say that it is hard for a man to become good, he inserted indeed. There is no sort of sense, I imagine, in this insertion, unless we suppose that Simonides is addressing himself to the saying of Pittacus as a disputant: Pittacus says—It is hard to be good; and the poet controverts this by observing—No, but to become good, indeed, is hard for a man, Pittacus, truly—not truly good; he does not mention truth in this connexion, or imply that some things are truly good, while others are good but not truly so: this would seem silly and unlike Simonides.

Soc.

We must rather take the truly as a poetical transposition, and first quote the saying of Pittacus in some such way as this: let us suppose Pittacus himself to be speaking and Simonides replying, as thus—Good people, he says, it is hard to be good; and the poet answers—Pittacus, what you say is not true, for it is not being but becoming good, indeed—in hands and feet and mind foursquare, fashioned without reproach—that is truly hard. In this way we see a purpose in the insertion of indeed, and that the truly is correctly placed at the end; and all that comes after corroborates this view of his meaning. There are many points in the various expressions of the poem which might be instanced to show its fine composition, for it is a work of very elegant and elaborate art; but it would take too long to detail all its beauties. However, let us go over its general outline and intention, which is assuredly to refute Pittacus’ saying, throughout the ode. Proceeding a little way on from our passage, just as though he were making a speech, he says to become, indeed, a good man is truly hard (not but what it is possible for a certain space of time); but to continue in this state of what one has become, and to be a good man is, as you say, Pittacus, impossible, superhuman: God alone can have this privilege—

1. For that man cannot help but be bad
2. Whom irresistible mischance has overthrown.

Simonides 37.1.14-16 Now who is it that an irresistible mischance overthrows in the command of a ship? Clearly not the ordinary man, for he may be overcome at any time; just as you cannot knock over one who is lying down, but one who is standing; you might knock over a standing man so as to make him lie down, not one who is lying down already. So it is a man apt to resist that an irresistible mischance would overthrow, and not one who could never resist anything. A great storm breaking over a steersman will render him helpless, and a severe season will leave a farmer helpless, and a doctor will be in the same case. For the good has the capacity of becoming bad, as we have witness in another poet[*](Unknown.) who said—

1. Nay more, the virtuous man is at one time bad, at another good.

unknownwhereas the bad man has no capacity for becoming, but must ever be, what he is; so that when an irresistible mischance overthrows him who is resourceful, wise, and good, he cannot but be bad; and you say, Pittacus, that it is hard to be good—that is, to become good, indeed, is hard, though possible, but to be good is impossible: for—[*](The quotation of Simonides’ poem is resumed (from Plat. Prot. 344c).)

1. If he hath fared well, every man is good;
2. Bad, if ill.

Simonides Fr. 37.1.17