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He is a despiser of mankind as he is of philosophy, and sees in the laws of the state only a violation of the order of nature, which intended that the stronger should govern the weaker (compare Republic).

.. POLUS: Why, did I not say that it was the noblest of arts?

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, but that was no answer to the question: nobody
asked what was the quality, but what was the nature, of the art, and by
what name we were to describe Gorgias. And I would still beg you briefly
and clearly, as you answered Chaerephon when he asked you at first, to say
what this art is, and what we ought to call Gorgias: Or rather, Gorgias,
let me turn to you, and ask the same question,–what are we to call you,
and what is the art which you profess?

GORGIAS: Rhetoric, Socrates, is my art.

SOCRATES: Then I am to call you a rhetorician?

.. SOCRATES: As to the arts generally, they are for the most part concerned
with doing, and require little or no speaking; in painting, and statuary,
and many other arts, the work may proceed in silence; and of such arts I
suppose you would say that they do not come within the province of
rhetoric.

.. GORGIAS: That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that
which gives to men freedom in their own persons, and to individuals the
power of ruling over others in their several states.

SOCRATES: And what would you consider this to be?

GORGIAS: What is there greater than the word which persuades the judges in
the courts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the
assembly, or at any other political meeting?–if you have the power of
uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the trainer
your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found to gather
treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak and to
persuade the multitude.

SOCRATES: Now I think, Gorgias, that you have very accurately explained
what you conceive to be the art of rhetoric; and you mean to say, if I am
not mistaken, that rhetoric is the artificer of persuasion, having this and
no other business, and that this is her crown and end. Do you know any
other effect of rhetoric over and above that of producing persuasion?

GORGIAS: No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates; for
persuasion is the chief end of rhetoric.

.. SOCRATES: Now I want to know about rhetoric in the same way;–is rhetoric
the only art which brings persuasion, or do other arts have the same
effect? I mean to say–Does he who teaches anything persuade men of that
which he teaches or not?

.. SOCRATES: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,–one which is the
source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge?

GORGIAS: By all means.

SOCRATES: And which sort of persuasion does rhetoric create in courts of
law and other assemblies about the just and unjust, the sort of persuasion
which gives belief without knowledge, or that which gives knowledge?

GORGIAS: Clearly, Socrates, that which only gives belief.

SOCRATES: Then rhetoric, as would appear, is the artificer of a persuasion
which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no instruction
about them?

.. SOCRATES: Such is the tradition, Gorgias, about Themistocles; and I myself
heard the speech of Pericles when he advised us about the middle wall.

GORGIAS: And you will observe, Socrates, that when a decision has to be
given in such matters the rhetoricians are the advisers; they are the men
who win their point.

.. And I say that if a rhetorician and a physician were to go to any city, and had there to argue
in the Ecclesia or any other assembly as to which of them should be elected
state-physician, the physician would have no chance; but he who could speak
would be chosen if he wished; and in a contest with a man of any other
profession the rhetorician more than any one would have the power of
getting himself chosen, for he can speak more persuasively to the multitude
than any of them, and on any subject.

..  I am one of those who are very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very willing to refute any one else who says what is not true, and quite as ready to be refuted as to refute; for I hold that this is the greater gain of the two, just as the gain is greater of being cured of a very great evil than of curing another. For I imagine that there is no evil which a man can endure
so great as an erroneous opinion about the matters of which we are speaking

.. SOCRATES: In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric is a
part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which
knows how to manage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word
‘flattery’; and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which is
cookery, which may seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an
experience or routine and not an art:–another part is rhetoric, and the
art of attiring and sophistry are two others: thus there are four
branches, and four different things answering to them. And Polus may ask,
if he likes, for he has not as yet been informed, what part of flattery is
rhetoric: he did not see that I had not yet answered him when he proceeded
to ask a further question: Whether I do not think rhetoric a fine thing?
But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, until I
have first answered, ‘What is rhetoric?’ For that would not be right,
Polus; but I shall be happy to answer, if you will ask me, What part of
flattery is rhetoric?

.. SOCRATES: Then he who is punished and suffers retribution, suffers justly?

POLUS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: And that which is just has been admitted to be honourable?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then the punisher does what is honourable, and the punished
suffers what is honourable?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And if what is honourable, then what is good, for the honourable
is either pleasant or useful?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then he who is punished suffers what is good?

POLUS: That is true.

SOCRATES: Then he is benefited?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Do I understand you to mean what I mean by the term ‘benefited’?
I mean, that if he be justly punished his soul is improved.

POLUS: Surely.

SOCRATES: Then he who is punished is delivered from the evil of his soul?

.. SOCRATES: Then rhetoric is of no use to us, Polus, in helping a man to
excuse his own injustice, that of his parents or friends, or children or
country; but may be of use to any one who holds that instead of excusing he
ought to accuse–himself above all, and in the next degree his family or
any of his friends who may be doing wrong; he should bring to light the
iniquity and not conceal it, that so the wrong-doer may suffer and be made
whole; and he should even force himself and others not to shrink, but with
closed eyes like brave men to let the physician operate with knife or
searing iron, not regarding the pain, in the hope of attaining the good and
the honourable; let him who has done things worthy of stripes, allow
himself to be scourged, if of bonds, to be bound, if of a fine, to be
fined, if of exile, to be exiled, if of death, to die, himself being the
first to accuse himself and his own relations, and using rhetoric to this
end, that his and their unjust actions may be made manifest, and that they
themselves may be delivered from injustice, which is the greatest evil.
Then, Polus, rhetoric would indeed be useful. Do you say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to
that?

.. SOCRATES: And from the opposite point of view, if indeed it be our duty to
harm another, whether an enemy or not–I except the case of self-defence–
then I have to be upon my guard–but if my enemy injures a third person,
then in every sort of way, by word as well as deed, I should try to prevent
his being punished, or appearing before the judge; and if he appears, I
should contrive that he should escape, and not suffer punishment: if he
has stolen a sum of money, let him keep what he has stolen and spend it on
him and his, regardless of religion and justice; and if he have done things
worthy of death, let him not die, but rather be immortal in his wickedness;
or, if this is not possible, let him at any rate be allowed to live as long
as he can. For such purposes, Polus, rhetoric may be useful, but is of
small if of any use to him who is not intending to commit injustice; at
least, there was no such use discovered by us in the previous discussion.

CALLICLES: Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates in earnest, or is he joking?

CHAEREPHON: I should say, Callicles, that he is in most profound earnest;
but you may well ask him.

CALLICLES: By the gods, and I will. Tell me, Socrates, are you in
earnest, or only in jest? For if you are in earnest, and what you say is
true, is not the whole of human life turned upside down; and are we not
doing, as would appear, in everything the opposite of what we ought to be
doing?

.. And this is true, as you may ascertain, if you will
leave philosophy and go on to higher things: for philosophy, Socrates, if
pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment,
but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life. Even if a man has good
parts, still, if he carries philosophy into later life, he is necessarily
ignorant of all those things which a gentleman and a person of honour ought
to know; he is inexperienced in the laws of the State, and in the language
which ought to be used in the dealings of man with man, whether private or
public, and utterly ignorant of the pleasures and desires of mankind and of
human character in general. And people of this sort, when they betake
themselves to politics or business, are as ridiculous as I imagine the
politicians to be, when they make their appearance in the arena of
philosophy. For, as Euripides says,

‘Every man shines in that and pursues that, and devotes the greatest
portion of the day to that in which he most excels,’ (Antiope, fragm. 20
(Dindorf).)

but anything in which he is inferior, he avoids and depreciates, and
praises the opposite from partiality to himself, and because he thinks that
he will thus praise himself. The true principle is to unite them.
Philosophy, as a part of education, is an excellent thing, and there is no
disgrace to a man while he is young in pursuing such a study; but when he
is more advanced in years, the thing becomes ridiculous, and I feel towards
philosophers as I do towards those who lisp and imitate children. For I
love to see a little child, who is not of an age to speak plainly, lisping
at his play; there is an appearance of grace and freedom in his utterance,
which is natural to his childish years. But when I hear some small
creature carefully articulating its words, I am offended; the sound is
disagreeable, and has to my ears the twang of slavery. So when I hear a
man lisping, or see him playing like a child, his behaviour appears to me
ridiculous and unmanly and worthy of stripes. And I have the same feeling
about students of philosophy; when I see a youth thus engaged,–the study
appears to me to be in character, and becoming a man of liberal education,
and him who neglects philosophy I regard as an inferior man, who will never
aspire to anything great or noble. But if I see him continuing the study
in later life, and not leaving off, I should like to beat him, Socrates;
for, as I was saying, such a one, even though he have good natural parts,
becomes effeminate. He flies from the busy centre and the market-place, in
which, as the poet says, men become distinguished; he creeps into a corner
for the rest of his life, and talks in a whisper with three or four
admiring youths, but never speaks out like a freeman in a satisfactory
manner. Now I, Socrates, am very well inclined towards you, and my feeling
may be compared with that of Zethus towards Amphion, in the play of
Euripides, whom I was mentioning just now: for I am disposed to say to you
much what Zethus said to his brother, that you, Socrates, are careless
about the things of which you ought to be careful; and that you

‘Who have a soul so noble, are remarkable for a puerile exterior;
Neither in a court of justice could you state a case, or give any reason or
proof,
Or offer valiant counsel on another’s behalf.’

And you must not be offended, my dear Socrates, for I am speaking out of
good-will towards you, if I ask whether you are not ashamed of being thus
defenceless; which I affirm to be the condition not of you only but of all
those who will carry the study of philosophy too far. For suppose that
some one were to take you, or any one of your sort, off to prison,
declaring that you had done wrong when you had done no wrong, you must
allow that you would not know what to do:–there you would stand giddy and
gaping, and not having a word to say; and when you went up before the
Court, even if the accuser were a poor creature and not good for much, you
would die if he were disposed to claim the penalty of death. And yet,
Socrates, what is the value of

‘An art which converts a man of sense into a fool,’

who is helpless, and has no power to save either himself or others, when he
is in the greatest danger and is going to be despoiled by his enemies of
all his goods, and has to live, simply deprived of his rights of
citizenship?–he being a man who, if I may use the expression, may be boxed
on the ears with impunity. Then, my good friend, take my advice, and
refute no more:

‘Learn the philosophy of business, and acquire the reputation of wisdom.
But leave to others these niceties,’

whether they are to be described as follies or absurdities:

‘For they will only
Give you poverty for the inmate of your dwelling.’

Cease, then, emulating these paltry splitters of words, and emulate only
the man of substance and honour, who is well to do.

.. SOCRATES: Because I am sure that if you agree with me in any of the
opinions which my soul forms, I have at last found the truth indeed. For I
consider that if a man is to make a complete trial of the good or evil of
the soul, he ought to have three qualities–knowledge, good-will,
outspokenness, which are all possessed by you. Many whom I meet are unable
to make trial of me, because they are not wise as you are; others are wise,
but they will not tell me the truth, because they have not the same
interest in me which you have;

.. Once more, then, tell me what
you and Pindar mean by natural justice: Do you not mean that the superior
should take the property of the inferior by force; that the better should
rule the worse, the noble have more than the mean? Am I not right in my
recollection?

CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I was saying, and so I still aver.

.. CALLICLES: I have already told you that I mean those who are wise and
courageous in the administration of a state–they ought to be the rulers of
their states, and justice consists in their having more than their
subjects.

.. For if a man had been originally the son of a king, or had
a nature capable of acquiring an empire or a tyranny or sovereignty, what
could be more truly base or evil than temperance–to a man like him, I say,
who might freely be enjoying every good, and has no one to stand in his
way, and yet has admitted custom and reason and the opinion of other men to
be lords over him?–must not he be in a miserable plight whom the
reputation of justice and temperance hinders from giving more to his
friends than to his enemies, even though he be a ruler in his city?

.. Nay,
Socrates, for you profess to be a votary of the truth, and the truth is
this:–that luxury and intemperance and licence, if they be provided with
means, are virtue and happiness–all the rest is a mere bauble, agreements
contrary to nature, foolish talk of men, nothing worth.

.. Tell me, then:–you say, do you not, that
in the rightly-developed man the passions ought not to be controlled, but
that we should let them grow to the utmost and somehow or other satisfy
them, and that this is virtue?

CALLICLES: Yes; I do.

SOCRATES: Then those who want nothing are not truly said to be happy?

CALLICLES: No indeed, for then stones and dead men would be the happiest
of all.

.. SOCRATES: Why, my friend, the inference is that the good is not the same
as the pleasant, or the evil the same as the painful; there is a cessation
of pleasure and pain at the same moment; but not of good and evil, for they
are different. How then can pleasure be the same as good, or pain as evil?
And I would have you look at the matter in another light, which could
hardly, I think, have been considered by you when you identified them: Are
not the good good because they have good present with them, as the
beautiful are those who have beauty present with them?

.. SOCRATES: Then are the foolish and the wise and the cowards and the brave
all pleased and pained, as you were saying, in nearly equal degree; but are
the cowards more pleased and pained than the brave?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: But surely the wise and brave are the good, and the foolish and
the cowardly are the bad?

.. SOCRATES: Then are the good and bad good and bad in a nearly equal degree,
or have the bad the advantage both in good and evil? (i.e. in having more
pleasure and more pain.)

.. SOCRATES: Have the wise man and the fool, the brave and the coward, joy
and pain in nearly equal degrees? or would you say that the coward has
more?

CALLICLES: I should say that he has.

.. SOCRATES: Then now we have discovered a sort of rhetoric which is
addressed to a crowd of men, women, and children, freemen and slaves. And
this is not much to our taste, for we have described it as having the
nature of flattery.

CALLICLES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: Very good. And what do you say of that other rhetoric which
addresses the Athenian assembly and the assemblies of freemen in other
states? Do the rhetoricians appear to you always to aim at what is best,
and do they seek to improve the citizens by their speeches, or are they
too, like the rest of mankind, bent upon giving them pleasure, forgetting
the public good in the thought of their own interest, playing with the
people as with children, and trying to amuse them, but never considering
whether they are better or worse for this?

CALLICLES: I must distinguish. There are some who have a real care of the
public in what they say, while others are such as you describe.

SOCRATES: I am contented with the admission that rhetoric is of two sorts;
one, which is mere flattery and disgraceful declamation; the other, which
is noble and aims at the training and improvement of the souls of the
citizens, and strives to say what is best, whether welcome or unwelcome, to
the audience; but have you ever known such a rhetoric; or if you have, and
can point out any rhetorician who is of this stamp, who is he?

CALLICLES: But, indeed, I am afraid that I cannot tell you of any such
among the orators who are at present living.

SOCRATES: Well, then, can you mention any one of a former generation, who
may be said to have improved the Athenians, who found them worse and made
them better, from the day that he began to make speeches? for, indeed, I do
not know of such a man.

.. SOCRATES: And will not the true rhetorician who is honest and understands
his art have his eye fixed upon these, in all the words which he addresses
to the souls of men, and in all his actions, both in what he gives and in
what he takes away? Will not his aim be to implant justice in the souls of
his citizens and take away injustice, to implant temperance and take away
intemperance, to implant every virtue and take away every vice? Do you not
agree?

.. But although you are a philosopher you
seem to me never to have observed that geometrical equality is mighty, both
among gods and men; you think that you ought to cultivate inequality or
excess, and do not care about geometry.

.. All the consequences
which I drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I was
in earnest when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his son and
his friend if he did anything wrong, and that to this end he should use his
rhetoric–all those consequences are true.

.. that, to do injustice,
if more disgraceful than to suffer, is in that degree worse; and the other
position, which, according to Polus, Gorgias admitted out of modesty, that
he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and have a knowledge
of justice, has also turned out to be true.

.. And now, these things being as we have said, let us proceed in the next
place to consider whether you are right in throwing in my teeth that I am
unable to help myself or any of my friends or kinsmen, or to save them in
the extremity of danger, and that I am in the power of another like an
outlaw to whom any one may do what he likes,–he may box my ears, which was
a brave saying of yours; or take away my goods or banish me, or even do his
worst and kill me; a condition which, as you say, is the height of
disgrace. My answer to you is one which has been already often repeated,
but may as well be repeated once more. I tell you, Callicles, that to be
boxed on the ears wrongfully is not the worst evil which can befall a man,
nor to have my purse or my body cut open, but that to smite and slay me and
mine wrongfully is far more disgraceful and more evil; aye, and to despoil
and enslave and pillage, or in any way at all to wrong me and mine, is far
more disgraceful and evil to the doer of the wrong than to me who am the
sufferer.

.. For my position has always been, that I myself am ignorant how
these things are, but that I have never met any one who could say
otherwise, any more than you can, and not appear ridiculous.

.. SOCRATES: But when the tyrant is rude and uneducated, he may be expected
to fear any one who is his superior in virtue, and will never be able to be
perfectly friendly with him.

.. SOCRATES: And by the imitation of his master and by the power which he
thus acquires will not his soul become bad and corrupted, and will not this
be the greatest evil to him?

CALLICLES: You always contrive somehow or other, Socrates, to invert
everything: do you not know that he who imitates the tyrant will, if he
has a mind, kill him who does not imitate him and take away his goods?

.. and he who is the
master of the art, and has done all this, gets out and walks about on the
sea-shore by his ship in an unassuming way. For he is able to reflect and
is aware that he cannot tell which of his fellow-passengers he has
benefited, and which of them he has injured in not allowing them to be
drowned.

.. He knows that they are just the same when he has disembarked them
as when they embarked, and not a whit better either in their bodies or in
their souls; and he considers that if a man who is afflicted by great and
incurable bodily diseases is only to be pitied for having escaped, and is
in no way benefited by him in having been saved from drowning, much less he
who has great and incurable diseases, not of the body, but of the soul,
which is the more valuable part of him; neither is life worth having nor of
any profit to the bad man, whether he be delivered from the sea, or the
law-courts, or any other devourer;–and so he reflects that such a one had
better not live, for he cannot live well.

.. O my friend! I want you to
see that the noble and the good may possibly be something different from
saving and being saved:–May not he who is truly a man cease to care about
living a certain time?–he knows, as women say, that no man can escape
fate, and therefore he is not fond of life; he leaves all that with God,
and considers in what way he can best spend his appointed term ..

.. SOCRATES: And was not Pericles a shepherd of men?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if he was a good political shepherd, ought not the animals
who were his subjects, as we were just now acknowledging, to have become
more just, and not more unjust?

.. You praise the men who feasted the citizens and
satisfied their desires, and people say that they have made the city great,
not seeing that the swollen and ulcerated condition of the State is to be
attributed to these elder statesmen; for they have filled the city full of
harbours and docks and walls and revenues and all that, and have left no
room for justice and temperance. And when the crisis of the disorder
comes, the people will blame the advisers of the hour, and applaud
Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, who are the real authors of their
calamities;

.. But the cry
is all a lie; for no statesman ever could be unjustly put to death by the
city of which he is the head. The case of the professed statesman is, I
believe, very much like that of the professed sophist; for the sophists,
although they are wise men, are nevertheless guilty of a strange piece of
folly; professing to be teachers of virtue, they will often accuse their
disciples of wronging them, and defrauding them of their pay, and showing
no gratitude for their services. Yet what can be more absurd than that men
who have become just and good, and whose injustice has been taken away from
them, and who have had justice implanted in them by their teachers, should
act unjustly by reason of the injustice which is not in them?

.. SOCRATES: I think that I am the only or almost the only Athenian living
who practises the true art of politics; I am the only politician of my
time. Now, seeing that when I speak my words are not uttered with any view
of gaining favour, and that I look to what is best and not to what is most
pleasant, having no mind to use those arts and graces which you recommend,
I shall have nothing to say in the justice court. And you might argue with
me, as I was arguing with Polus:–I shall be tried just as a physician
would be tried in a court of little boys at the indictment of the cook.
What would he reply under such circumstances, if some one were to accuse
him, saying, ‘O my boys, many evil things has this man done to you: he is
the death of you, especially of the younger ones among you, cutting and
burning and starving and suffocating you, until you know not what to do; he
gives you the bitterest potions, and compels you to hunger and thirst. How
unlike the variety of meats and sweets on which I feasted you!’ What do
you suppose that the physician would be able to reply when he found himself
in such a predicament? If he told the truth he could only say, ‘All these
evil things, my boys, I did for your health,’ and then would there not just
be a clamour among a jury like that? How they would cry out!

.. And if any one says that I
corrupt young men, and perplex their minds, or that I speak evil of old
men, and use bitter words towards them, whether in private or public, it is
useless for me to reply, as I truly might:–‘All this I do for the sake of
justice, and with a view to your interest, my judges, and to nothing else.’
And therefore there is no saying what may happen to me.

.. But if I died because I have no powers of
flattery or rhetoric, I am very sure that you would not find me repining at
death. For no man who is not an utter fool and coward is afraid of death
itself, but he is afraid of doing wrong. For to go to the world below
having one’s soul full of injustice is the last and worst of all evils.
And in proof of what I say, if you have no objection, I should like to tell
you a story.

.. Now in the days of Cronos there existed a law
respecting the destiny of man, which has always been, and still continues
to be in Heaven,–that he who has lived all his life in justice and
holiness shall go, when he is dead, to the Islands of the Blessed, and
dwell there in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil; but that he who
has lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the house of vengeance and
punishment, which is called Tartarus.

.. From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the
following inferences:–Death, if I am right, is in the first place the
separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else.
And after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in life;
the body keeps the same habit, and the results of treatment or accident are
distinctly visible in it: for example, he who by nature or training or
both, was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he was, after he is
dead; and the fat man will remain fat; and so on; and the dead man, who in
life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he
was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or of wounds in
him when he was alive, you might see the same in the dead body; and if his
limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive, the same appearance would
be visible in the dead. And in a word, whatever was the habit of the body
during life would be distinguishable after death, either perfectly, or in a
great measure and for a certain time. And I should imagine that this is
equally true of the soul, Callicles; when a man is stripped of the body,
all the natural or acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view.–
And when they come to the judge, as those from Asia come to Rhadamanthus,
he places them near him and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing
whose the soul is: perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the great king,
or of some other king or potentate, who has no soundness in him, but his
soul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of
perjuries and crimes with which each action has stained him, and he is all
crooked with falsehood and imposture, and has no straightness, because he
has lived without truth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of all deformity
and disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury and insolence and
incontinence, and despatches him ignominiously to his prison, and there he
undergoes the punishment which he deserves.

Now the proper office of punishment is twofold: he who is rightly punished
ought either to become better and profit by it, or he ought to be made an
example to his fellows, that they may see what he suffers, and fear and
become better. Those who are improved when they are punished by gods and
men, are those whose sins are curable; and they are improved, as in this
world so also in another, by pain and suffering; for there is no other way
in which they can be delivered from their evil. But they who have been
guilty of the worst crimes, and are incurable by reason of their crimes,
are made examples; for, as they are incurable, the time has passed at which
they can receive any benefit. They get no good themselves, but others get
good when they behold them enduring for ever the most terrible and painful
and fearful sufferings as the penalty of their sins–there they are,
hanging up as examples, in the prison-house of the world below, a spectacle
and a warning to all unrighteous men who come thither.

.. Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul of the bad kind, knows
nothing about him, neither who he is, nor who his parents are; he knows
only that he has got hold of a villain; and seeing this, he stamps him as
curable or incurable, and sends him away to Tartarus, whither he goes and
receives his proper recompense.

.. Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, I desire only to know
the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as
I can. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the
same. And, in return for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take
part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than
every other earthly conflict. And I retort your reproach of me, and say,
that you will not be able to help yourself when the day of trial and
judgment, of which I was speaking, comes upon you

.. Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will be happy in life and
after death, as the argument shows. And never mind if some one despises
you as a fool, and insults you, if he has a mind; let him strike you, by
Zeus, and do you be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow, for
you will never come to any harm in the practice of virtue, if you are a
really good and true man. When we have practised virtue together, we will
apply ourselves to politics, if that seems desirable, or we will advise
about whatever else may seem good to us, for we shall be better able to
judge then. In our present condition we ought not to give ourselves airs,
for even on the most important subjects we are always changing our minds;
so utterly stupid are we! Let us, then, take the argument as our guide,
which has revealed to us that the best way of life is to practise justice
and every virtue in life and death.