The Conversation with Callicles

Callicles Interrupts: Nature Against Convention

Callicles

Tell me, Chaerephon — is Socrates serious about this, or is he joking?

Chaerephon

To me, Callicles, he seems to be in dead earnest — but there's nothing like asking him yourself.

Callicles

By the gods, I do want to. Tell me, Socrates, should we take you right now to be serious, or joking? Because if you're serious, and what you're saying happens to be true, wouldn't human life be turned upside down, and aren't we doing, it seems, the exact opposite of everything we ought to?

Socrates

Callicles, if human beings didn't all share some feeling — one thing for some, another thing [or] the same for others — but each of us instead felt something private, unlike what anyone else feels, it wouldn't be easy to point out to another person one's own feeling. I say this because it occurs to me that you and I happen to be in the same condition right now — each of us in love with two things at once: I with Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, and with philosophy, you with two loves, the Athenian people and the son of Pyrilampes. So I notice that every time, clever as you are, whatever your darling says, and however he says things stand, you're unable to contradict him — you keep flipping this way and that; in the assembly, if you say something and the Athenian people deny that's how it is, you change your position and say what they want, and you go through the same thing with that handsome young son of Pyrilampes. You're incapable of opposing your darlings' wishes and words, so that if someone, hearing you say the things you say because of them, were amazed at how strange they are, you might tell him, if you wanted to speak the truth, that unless somebody stops your darlings from this kind of talk, you'll never stop saying it yourself either. So you should expect to hear the same sort of thing from me too, and don't be surprised that I say these things — instead, stop philosophy, my darling, from saying them. Because it's philosophy, my dear friend, that's saying what you're hearing from me now, and she's far less fickle than my other darling; that son of Cleinias says different things at different times, while philosophy always says the same, and what she's saying is exactly what you find so surprising — and you were there yourself when it was said. So either refute her — as I was just saying — and show that doing wrong, and doing wrong without paying the penalty for it, isn't the worst of all evils; or, if you leave that unrefuted, then by the dog, the god of the Egyptians, Callicles will not agree with Callicles, but will be out of tune with himself his whole life long. And yet, my excellent friend, I think it better for my own lyre to be out of tune and off pitch, and for a chorus I might direct — and for the vast majority of people to disagree with me and say the opposite — than for me, one single man, to be out of harmony with myself and contradict myself.

Callicles

Socrates, you seem to me to be showing off in argument like a true crowd-pleaser; and right now you're playing to the crowd because Polus suffered the very thing he accused Gorgias of suffering at your hands. He said, I gather, that when Gorgias was asked by you whether, if someone who wanted to learn rhetoric came to him not already knowing what's just, Gorgias would teach him, Gorgias grew ashamed and said he would teach him, because of people's custom of getting angry if you say no — that because of this admission he was forced to contradict himself, and that you were delighted with exactly that — and that he made fun of you, rightly, as it seemed to me at the time; but now Polus himself has suffered this very same thing all over again. And for that very reason I don't admire Polus, for conceding to you that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering wrong; because it was that very admission that got him tangled up by you in the argument and left with his mouth shut, too ashamed to say what he actually thought. Because in truth, Socrates, you lead people into this crude, crowd-pleasing stuff, all while claiming to be chasing the truth — things that aren't fine by nature at all, only by convention. And for the most part nature and convention are opposed to each other; so if a person feels ashamed and doesn't dare say what he actually thinks, he's forced to contradict himself. You've caught on to this clever trick, and you use it to cheat in argument: if someone speaks by convention, you press him with questions about nature, and if he speaks about nature, you switch to convention. Take, for instance, this business of doing wrong and suffering wrong — when Polus was speaking of what's more shameful by convention, you chased the argument down the line of nature. Because by nature, whatever is worse is also more shameful, and that's suffering wrong, while by convention it's doing wrong. For this experience — suffering wrong — isn't even something that happens to a real man; it happens to some slave, for whom it would be better to die than to live, since when he's wronged and trampled on he's unable to defend himself, or anyone else he cares about. No, I think the ones who make the laws are the weak and the many. So they make their laws with themselves and their own advantage in mind, and that's how they hand out their praise and their blame; they scare the stronger sort of men, the ones capable of getting more, so that these men won't get more than they do, and they say that getting more than one's share is shameful and unjust, and that this is what doing wrong means — seeking to have more than others; because, I think, being the lesser men themselves, they're content if they get an equal share. That's exactly why seeking to have more than the many is called unjust and shameful by convention, and they call it doing wrong; but nature herself, I think, reveals the opposite — that it's just for the better man to have more than the worse, and the more capable more than the less capable. This is shown to be so in many places — among the other animals, and among whole cities and races of men, where justice has been decided on exactly these terms: that the stronger should rule the weaker and have more. For by what justice did Xerxes march against Greece, or his father against the Scythians? Or one could mention countless other cases just like these. No, I think these men act according to the nature of what's just — yes, by god, according to the law of nature — though perhaps not according to the one we lay down among ourselves; we mold the best and strongest of our own kind, taking them while they're still young, like lion cubs, and by chanting spells and casting charms over them we enslave them, telling them they must have an equal share and that this is what's fine and just. But if, I think, a man is born with a nature strong enough for it, he shakes all this off, breaks through it, escapes it — he tramples our writings and our tricks and our incantations and all our laws that go against nature, rises up, and stands revealed as our master, the slave turned ruler, and right there the justice of nature bursts into the light. It seems to me that Pindar too shows exactly what I'm saying, in the song where he says—

and this, he says—

that's roughly how it goes — I don't know the song by heart — but it says that he drove off Geryon's cattle neither by paying for them nor by their owner giving them, on the ground that this is what's just by nature, and that cattle and all other possessions belong, by right, to the better and stronger man, and not to the worse and weaker.

So that's how the truth stands, and you'll come to know it if you finally leave philosophy behind and move on to greater things. Because philosophy, Socrates, is a charming thing if a person takes it up in moderation at the right age; but if he lingers in it longer than he should, it's the ruin of a man. Because even if someone is extremely gifted by nature, if he keeps doing philosophy well past the right age, he inevitably ends up without experience of everything a man needs experience of if he's going to turn out fine, good, and well regarded. Such men end up with no experience of the laws that govern the city, none of the language they need to deal with people in their private and public dealings, none of human pleasures and desires — in short, no experience of character at all. So whenever they enter into some private or public business, they become ridiculous — just as, I think, politicians become ridiculous whenever they turn to your kind of discussions and arguments. For what Euripides says turns out to be true — every man shines brightest in the thing he's good at, and hurries toward that,

but wherever he's weak, he runs from that and abuses it, while he praises the other, out of goodwill toward himself, thinking that in this way he's praising himself. No, I think the best course is to share in both. It's fine to take part in philosophy for the sake of education, up to a point, and there's nothing shameful in a young boy doing philosophy; but once a man is already older and still philosophizing, the whole business becomes ridiculous, Socrates, and I, for one, react to men who philosophize exactly the way I react to men who lisp and play childish games. Because when I see a small child, one for whom that kind of talk is still appropriate, lisping and playing, I'm delighted — it seems charming to me, free and fitting for the child's age; but when I hear a little boy speaking clearly and carefully, it strikes me as a harsh thing, it grates on my ears, and it seems to me somehow fit for a slave; and whenever someone hears a grown man lisp, or sees him playing games, it looks ridiculous, unmanly, and deserving of a beating. Well, I feel this exact same thing toward men who philosophize. When I see philosophy in a young boy, I admire it — it seems fitting to me, and I take that person to be a free man, while the one who doesn't philosophize is unfree and will never think himself worthy of anything fine or noble; but when I see an older man still doing philosophy, not putting it aside, that man, Socrates, already seems to me to need a beating. As I was just saying, this is what happens to such a man — even if he's remarkably gifted, he becomes unmanly, fleeing the center of the city and the marketplaces, where the poet says men become distinguished, and instead he ends up burrowing away, living out the rest of his life whispering in a corner with three or four boys, never once uttering anything free, grand, or worthwhile. Now, Socrates, I'm fairly well disposed toward you — I'm probably in the same position right now as Euripides' Zethus was toward Amphion, whom I mentioned a moment ago. Because things like this occur to me to say to you, just as they occurred to him to say to his brother — that you're neglecting, Socrates, what you ought to be taking care of, and that you're twisting a nature of soul as noble as yours into some boyish shape, and that you'd be unable to bring a properly framed argument to a courtroom debate, or grasp anything plausible and persuasive, or come up with a bold plan on someone else's behalf. And yet, my dear Socrates — and don't be annoyed with me over this; I'll speak out of goodwill toward you — don't you think it's a shameful condition to be in, the one I think you're in, and the one all the others are in who keep pushing on further and further into philosophy? Because right now, if someone grabbed hold of you, or of any other man of your sort, and dragged you off to prison, claiming you'd done wrong when you'd done no wrong, you know perfectly well you wouldn't have any idea what to do with yourself — you'd get dizzy and stand there gaping, with nothing to say, and if you went up before the court and happened to draw some thoroughly worthless and vicious prosecutor, you'd be put to death, if he wanted to press for the death penalty. And yet how is this wisdom, Socrates, when a craft takes a naturally gifted man and makes him worse — unable to help himself, unable to save himself or anyone else from the gravest dangers, stripped of his entire property by his enemies, and living in his own city, quite literally, without any honor at all? A man like that — if I may put it a bit crudely — can be slapped across the face and the one who hits him pays no penalty for it. So take my advice, my good man — give up your refutations, practice the fine art of practical affairs, and practice whatever will get you a reputation for good sense, leaving these clever little exercises to other people, whether we should call them nonsense or drivel, the kind of thing that will leave you living in an empty house; and stop admiring men who spend their time on these petty refutations, and admire instead the men who have a good life, a good reputation, and plenty of other good things.

The Many Prove Collectively Stronger Than the One

Socrates

If I happened to have a golden soul, Callicles, don't you think I'd be glad to find one of those touchstones people test gold with — the very best one — so that I could bring my soul up against it, and if it agreed that my soul had been properly cared for, I'd know for certain that I was in good shape and needed no other test?

Callicles

Why are you even asking that, Socrates?

Socrates

I'll tell you — I think that in running into you just now I've run into exactly that kind of stroke of luck.

Callicles

How so?

Socrates

I know perfectly well that if you agree with me about the things my soul holds an opinion on, those things are already the truth itself. Because I realize that anyone who's going to test properly whether a soul is living rightly or not needs three things, all of which you happen to have: knowledge, goodwill, and frankness. I run into plenty of people who aren't able to test me because they're not wise the way you are; others are wise, but they're unwilling to tell me the truth because they don't care about me the way you do; but these two strangers here, Gorgias and Polus, are wise and they're my friends, but they're rather short on frankness and more prone to embarrassment than they ought to be — how could they not be? Both of them have reached such a pitch of embarrassment that, out of sheer embarrassment, each of them dares to contradict himself in front of a great many people, and about the most important matters at that. But you have all these things that the others lack — you've been well enough educated, as plenty of Athenians would say, and you're well disposed toward me. What evidence am I using? I'll tell you. I know that the four of you, Callicles, have become partners in wisdom — you, Teisander of Aphidnae, Andron son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of Cholarges; and I once overheard you deliberating about how far one ought to pursue wisdom, and I know that the view that won out among you was not to be eager to philosophize down to the last precision, and you urged one another to be careful not to become wiser than you needed to be and ruin yourselves without noticing it. So when I hear you giving me the same advice you gave your closest companions, that's sufficient evidence to me that you're truly well disposed toward me. And as for being the kind of man who speaks frankly and isn't embarrassed, you say so yourself, and the speech you gave a little while ago backs you up on it. So this is clearly how things stand right now regarding these matters — if you agree with me on something in the argument, it will already have been sufficiently tested by both of us, and there will be no need to bring it before any further test. Because you'd never concede it either from lack of wisdom or from excess of embarrassment, and you wouldn't concede it to deceive me either — you're my friend, as you say yourself. So in truth, any agreement between you and me will already have reached the very end of the truth. And the finest inquiry of all, Callicles, concerns exactly what you criticized me over — what kind of man one ought to be, and what one ought to pursue, and up to what point, both as an older man and as a younger one. As for me, if I'm doing something wrong in my own life, you should know well that I'm not erring on purpose, but out of my own ignorance; so, since you've already begun to admonish me, don't stop now — show me clearly what it is I ought to be pursuing, and how I might acquire it, and if you ever catch me agreeing with you now, and then, later on, not doing the same things I agreed to, consider me a complete fool and never bother admonishing me again afterward, as being worth nothing at all. So tell me again, from the beginning — how do you and Pindar say the just thing stands, according to nature? That the stronger should take by force what belongs to the weaker, the better man should rule the worse, and the superior man should have more than the inferior one? Is that anything different from what you say justice is, or am I remembering correctly?

Callicles

Well, that's what I was saying then, and that's what I'm saying now.

Socrates

Do you call the same man better and stronger? Because even then I wasn't able to figure out what exactly you meant. Do you call the stronger men the better ones, and say the weaker must obey the stronger — which is what you seemed to me to be showing earlier too, when you said that big cities attack small ones according to what's just by nature, because they're stronger and more powerful, on the assumption that the stronger, the more powerful, and the better are the same thing — or can someone be better while also weaker and less powerful, and stronger while also more corrupt, or is the definition of the better and of the stronger one and the same? Just make this itself clear to me — are the stronger, the better, and the more powerful the same thing, or different?

Callicles

I'm telling you clearly — they're the same thing.

Socrates

So then the many are stronger than the one by nature? And it's the many who make the laws against the one, just as you were saying a moment ago.

Callicles

How could they not be?

Socrates

So the conventions of the many are the conventions of the stronger.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And so the conventions of the better men too? Because the stronger are far better, according to your account.

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So then their conventions are fine by nature, since they belong to the stronger?

Callicles

I say so.

Socrates

So then, do the many believe this — just as you were saying a moment ago — that it's just to have an equal share, and more shameful to do wrong than to suffer it? Is that so, or not? And mind you don't get caught out being embarrassed here yourself. Do the many believe, or not, that it's just to have an equal share rather than more, and that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it? Don't grudge me an answer to this, Callicles, so that if you agree with me, I can already treat it as settled, coming as it does from a man competent to judge.

Callicles

Well, the many do believe that.

Socrates

So it's not only by convention that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it, and that having an equal share is just — it's by nature too; which means you run the risk of not having spoken the truth earlier, and of accusing me wrongly when you said that convention and nature are opposed, something I supposedly know and exploit to cheat in argument, dragging anyone who speaks by nature over to convention, and anyone who speaks by convention over to nature.

Callicles

This man will never stop talking nonsense. Tell me, Socrates — aren't you embarrassed, at your age, to go hunting for words, and to treat it as a windfall whenever someone makes a slip of the tongue? Do you really think I mean anything different by "the stronger" than "the better"? Haven't I been telling you for a while now that I say the better and the stronger are the same thing? Or do you think I mean that if a mob of slaves and every sort of worthless person gets together — worth nothing except perhaps for physical strength — and they say something, that's automatically a valid convention?

Socrates

All right, wisest of men, Callicles — is that what you're saying?

Callicles

That's exactly it.

Socrates

Well, my good man, I myself have suspected for a while now that this is roughly what you mean by "the stronger," and I've been asking because I'm eager to know clearly what you mean. Because surely you don't think two men are better than one, or that your own slaves are better than you, just because they're physically stronger than you. So tell me again, from the beginning, who you mean by "the better," since it's not the stronger? And, my extraordinary friend, teach me a bit more gently, so I don't run off and leave your school.

Callicles

You're being sarcastic, Socrates.

Socrates

By Zethus, Callicles — the very character you used a moment ago to poke fun at me — no, come on, tell me: who do you mean by "the better"?

Callicles

The superior men, that's who.

Socrates

Do you see, then, that you're just uttering words yourself and explaining nothing? Won't you tell me whether by "the better and the stronger" you mean the more intelligent, or some other people?

Callicles

Yes, by god, that's exactly who I mean, and emphatically so.

Socrates

So then, on your account, one intelligent man is often stronger than ten thousand unintelligent ones, and he ought to rule while they're ruled, and the ruler ought to have more than the ruled; this seems to me to be what you mean to say — and I'm not hunting for a slip of the tongue — if the one man is stronger than the ten thousand.

Callicles

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Because I think this is what's just by nature — that the man who is better and more intelligent should both rule and have more than his inferiors.

Socrates

Hold on right there. What exactly are you saying now? If we were all together in one place, as we are now, a whole crowd of us, and we had plenty of food and drink in common, and we were all sorts — some strong, some weak — and one of us, being a doctor, were more knowledgeable than the rest about these things, and were, as is likely, stronger than some of us and weaker than others, wouldn't this man, being more intelligent than we are, turn out to be better and stronger than us in this area?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So should he then have a greater share of this food than the rest of us, because he's better — or should the distribution all be up to him as ruler, while when it comes to using it up and consuming it for his own body he shouldn't get more than his share, unless he means to suffer for it, but should get more of some things and less of others — and if he happens to be the weakest of all, should the best man get the least of all, Callicles? Isn't that how it is, my good man?

Callicles

You're talking about food and drink and doctors and nonsense; that's not what I mean at all.

Socrates

Don't you mean the more intelligent man by "the better"? Say yes or no.

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

And shouldn't the better man have more?

Callicles

Not of food or drink, no.

Socrates

I see — clothes then, perhaps, and the best weaver ought to have the biggest cloak and go around wearing the most and the finest clothes?

Callicles

What clothes are you even talking about?

Socrates

All right, shoes then — clearly the man who is most intelligent and best at this ought to get more than his share. The shoemaker, perhaps, ought to walk around wearing the biggest and the most shoes.

Callicles

What shoes? You won't stop talking nonsense.

Socrates

Well, if you don't mean things like that, maybe you mean something like this — say, a man who's skilled, fine, and good when it comes to farming; perhaps he ought to get more seed than his share, and use as much seed as possible on his own land.

Callicles

You keep saying the same things over and over, Socrates.

Socrates

Not only that, Callicles — I also keep saying them about the same things.

Callicles

By the gods, you literally never stop talking about shoemakers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if our discussion were about them.

Socrates

Then won't you tell me in what area the stronger and more intelligent man justly gets more than his share by having more? Or will you neither put up with my suggestions nor tell me yourself?

Callicles

I've been telling you for a while now. First of all, by "the stronger" I don't mean shoemakers or cooks, but the men who are intelligent about the business of the city, about how it should best be run — and not only intelligent, but also courageous, capable of carrying out whatever they've thought through, and not the sort to give up out of softness of soul.

Socrates

Do you see, my excellent Callicles, that your accusation against me and my accusation against you aren't the same? You say I always say the same things, and you find fault with me for it; but I find fault with you for the opposite reason — that you never say the same thing twice about the same subject, but first you defined the better and the stronger as the physically stronger, then as the more intelligent, and now you've come around with something else again — now you say the braver men are the stronger and the better. So, my good man, just tell me plainly, once and for all, who exactly you mean by the better and the stronger, and in what respect, and be done with it.

Callicles

I already told you — the men who are intelligent about the business of the city, and courageous. Because it's fitting for these men to rule the cities, and this is what justice is — for these men, the rulers, to have more than the others, the ruled.

Socrates

And what about this? What about themselves, my friend? Are they rulers of themselves, or ruled?

Callicles

What do you mean?

Socrates

I mean each man ruling himself; or is there no need at all for a man to rule himself, only to rule others?

Callicles

What do you mean by ruling himself?

Socrates

Nothing complicated — just what most people mean: being moderate and in control of oneself, ruling over the pleasures and desires within oneself.

Hedonism Declared, and the Coward's Equal Pleasure

Callicles

How sweet you are — you call the moderate ones fools.

Socrates

How could it [not]? There's no one who wouldn't know that isn't what I mean.

Callicles

Yes, very much so, Socrates. How could a man ever be happy while he's a slave to anything? But this is what's fine and just by nature — I'll say it to you now, speaking frankly — that the man who's going to live rightly should let his own appetites grow as large as possible and not restrain them, and when they're as large as possible, be capable of serving them through courage and intelligence, and satisfy them with whatever he happens to desire at any time. But most people, I think, can't do this — that's why they criticize men like that out of shame, hiding their own inability, and call lack of restraint shameful, exactly what I said before, enslaving the men who are naturally superior; and because they themselves can't secure enough to fill their pleasures, they praise moderation and justice, out of their own lack of manhood. Since for those who from the start happened to be sons of kings, or were naturally capable of securing some rule or tyranny or domination for themselves, ⟨what⟩ could truly be more shameful and worse than moderation and justice for men like this — men who could enjoy good things with nothing standing in their way, and yet bring upon themselves as master the law and the talk and the blame of the common crowd? Or how would they not turn out wretched, brought low by the so-called fineness of justice and moderation, giving no more to their own friends than to their enemies — and that while ruling their own city? No, the truth, Socrates — the very thing you claim to be pursuing — is this: luxury and lack of restraint and freedom, when they have support behind them, that is virtue and happiness; everything else, all this finery, is just conventions men have agreed on, against nature, nonsense and worth nothing.

Socrates

That's no cowardly way to pursue the argument, Callicles, speaking as frankly as you do — you're plainly saying now what everyone else thinks but isn't willing to say. So I ask you not to let up in any way, so that it can really become clear how one ought to live. Now tell me: you say the appetites shouldn't be restrained, if a person is going to be what he should be, but that he should let them grow as large as possible and provide them fulfillment from wherever he can, and that this is virtue?

Callicles

Yes, that's what I say.

Socrates

Then it's not right to say that those who need nothing are happy.

Callicles

Because on that view stones and corpses would be the happiest of all.

Socrates

Well, on your account life is a strange thing indeed. I wouldn't be surprised if Euripides is telling the truth in these lines, where he says—

And it may be that we really are dead — I have in fact heard from the wise that we are dead right now, that the body is a tomb for us, and that the part of the soul in which our appetites live happens to be the kind of thing that can be talked around and flipped upside down, and that some clever storyteller — a Sicilian, perhaps, or an Italian — twisting the name for the sake of the pun, called it, because it is so persuadable and so easily swayed, a jar, and called the mindless the uninitiated — and that in the mindless, this same part of the soul where the appetites are, its unrestrained and leaky part, he compared, on account of its greed, to a jar full of holes. This man, then, is showing you the opposite, Callicles — that among those in Hades, playing on the "unseen" in the name, the most wretched would be exactly these uninitiated ones, and that they would carry water into that leaky jar using another vessel just as full of holes, a sieve. The sieve, so the man who told me this said, stands for the soul — he likened the soul of the mindless to a sieve because it's full of holes, since it can't hold anything, thanks to its faithlessness and forgetfulness. This is all admittedly rather strange, but it shows what I want to point out to you, in case I can somehow persuade you to change your mind and choose, instead of the insatiable and unrestrained life, the orderly life, one content and satisfied with whatever is at hand each time. So, am I persuading you at all, and getting you to change your mind that the orderly are happier than the unrestrained, or would you not shift your position even if I told many more such tales?

Callicles

That's truer, Socrates.

Socrates

Come now, let me give you another image, from the same school as the one just now. Consider whether this is what you mean about each life, the moderate one and the unrestrained one: suppose two men each had many jars — one man's healthy and full, one of wine, one of honey, one of milk, and many others full of many things, but the streams feeding each of these were scarce and hard to come by, procured only with much painful effort; so this first man, once he'd filled his jars, would draw no more from them and give them no further thought, but would be at ease on their account; while the other man, though he too could get the streams, with just as much difficulty, had jars that were cracked and full of holes, and was forced to keep filling them, night and day, or else suffer the worst pains — given that each life is like this, do you say the unrestrained man's life is happier than the orderly man's? Am I persuading you at all by saying this, to agree that the orderly life is better than the unrestrained one, or am I not persuading you?

Callicles

You're not persuading me, Socrates. Because that man who's filled his jars has no more pleasure left at all — that's exactly what I was saying just now, living like a stone once he's filled up, feeling neither joy nor pain any longer. No, living pleasantly consists in having as much as possible flowing in.

Socrates

Then isn't it necessary, if a lot is flowing in, that a lot is also flowing out, and that the holes for the outflow are pretty big?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So now you're describing the life of some stone-curlew, not a corpse's or a stone's. Now tell me: do you mean something like this — being hungry, and eating while hungry?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And being thirsty, and drinking while thirsty?

Callicles

Yes, and having all the other appetites too, and being able to satisfy them, and enjoying it — that's living happily.

Socrates

Well said, my excellent fellow — keep going the way you started, and don't get embarrassed. And it seems I mustn't get embarrassed either. So first tell me: is it possible to live happily by scratching, if one is scabby and itchy and has plenty to scratch with, spending one's whole life scratching?

Callicles

What a strange man you are, Socrates, and simply a crowd-pleaser.

Socrates

That's exactly why, Callicles, I managed to shock Polus and Gorgias and make them embarrassed, but you won't be shocked or embarrassed, because you're a brave man. Just answer, that's all.

Callicles

Well then, I say that even the man who scratches would live pleasantly.

Socrates

Then if pleasantly, also happily?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

What if it's only his head he itches — or why do I even keep asking you this? Watch what you'll answer, Callicles, if someone asks you everything that follows from this, one thing after another. And, taking all such things to their conclusion, isn't the life of catamites terrible and shameful and wretched? Or will you dare to say that they're happy, as long as they have plenty of what they need?

Callicles

Aren't you ashamed, Socrates, to drag the discussion into things like this?

Socrates

Am I the one dragging it there, my noble friend, or is it whoever claims, without qualification, that those who feel pleasure — however they feel it — are happy, and refuses to distinguish which pleasures are good and which are bad? But even now, tell me: do you say the pleasant and the good are the same thing, or is there some pleasant thing that isn't good?

Callicles

So as not to contradict myself, in case I'd have to say they're different, I say they're the same.

Socrates

You're ruining our earlier agreements, Callicles, and you won't be able to examine the truth properly with me any longer, if you're going to speak against what you actually believe.

Callicles

So do you, Socrates.

Socrates

Well then, neither of us is doing right, if I'm doing that, nor are you. But, my good man, consider whether the good might not simply be feeling pleasure in every case — because many shameful things clearly follow from what was just hinted at, if that's really so, and many other absurdities besides.

Callicles

So you think, Socrates.

Socrates

But do you really maintain this, Callicles?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

Then shall we take up the argument on the assumption that you're serious?

Callicles

Yes, very much so.

Socrates

Come then, since that's how it seems to you, distinguish these things for me — you do call something knowledge, don't you?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

And didn't you just say a moment ago that there's such a thing as courage, along with knowledge?

Callicles

Yes, I did.

Socrates

So weren't you speaking of these as two different things, courage as distinct from knowledge?

Callicles

Very much so.

Socrates

What about this? Are pleasure and knowledge the same, or different?

Callicles

Different, surely, wisest of men.

Socrates

And is courage also different from pleasure?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

Come then, let's remember this: that Callicles of Acharnae said the pleasant and the good are the same, but knowledge and courage are different both from each other and from the good.

Callicles

And Socrates of Alopece doesn't agree with this. Or does he?

Socrates

He doesn't agree — and I don't think Callicles does either, once he looks at himself properly. Tell me: don't you think those who fare well have had the opposite experience from those who fare badly?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So if these are opposite to each other, must things stand with them the way they stand with health and disease? Because a person surely isn't healthy and sick at the same time, and doesn't get rid of health and disease at the same time either.

Callicles

What do you mean?

Socrates

Take, for instance, whatever part of the body you like and examine it. A person gets sick in the eyes, something called ophthalmia, right?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

He's surely not healthy in those same eyes at the same time, is he?

Callicles

Not in the least.

Socrates

But what about when he gets rid of the ophthalmia? Does he then also get rid of the health of his eyes, and end up rid of both at once?

Callicles

Not at all.

Socrates

That would be strange, I think, and unreasonable — wouldn't it?

Callicles

Very much so.

Socrates

So I think he gets and loses each of the two in turn?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And the same goes for strength and weakness?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And speed and slowness?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And does he also get good things and happiness, and their opposites, bad things and misery, in turn, getting rid of each in turn as well?

Callicles

Surely, in every case.

Socrates

So if we find some things a person gets rid of and has at the same time, clearly those things can't be the good and the bad. Do we agree on this? Think it over carefully and answer.

Callicles

I agree, extraordinarily so.

Socrates

Let's go back to what we agreed on earlier. Did you say being hungry is pleasant or painful? I mean hunger itself.

Callicles

Painful, I'd say — though eating while hungry, I say, is pleasant .

Socrates

I understand — but hunger itself is painful, at any rate. Or isn't it?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And thirst too?

Callicles

Very much.

Socrates

Shall I keep asking more of these, or do you agree that every lack and every appetite is painful?

Callicles

I agree — just stop asking.

Socrates

Very well — and do you say that drinking while thirsty is anything other than pleasant?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So in what you're describing, the thirsty part is surely in pain?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And the drinking is a filling of the lack, and a pleasure?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So you're saying the enjoyment is in the drinking?

Callicles

Exactly.

Socrates

While thirsty, that is.

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

While in pain?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

Do you see what follows, that you're saying he's enjoying himself while in pain at the same time, when you say he drinks while thirsty? Or doesn't this happen at the same place and the same time, whether you mean the soul or the body? Because I don't think it makes any difference. Is this so, or not?

Callicles

It is.

Socrates

But you say it's impossible to fare well and fare badly at the same time.

Callicles

Yes, I do.

Socrates

But you've agreed that it's possible to feel pleasure while in distress.

Callicles

So it seems.

Socrates

So feeling pleasure isn't the same as faring well, nor is being in distress the same as faring badly — which means the pleasant turns out to be different from the good.

Callicles

I don't know what sophistries you're up to, Socrates.

Socrates

You do know it, but you're playing innocent, Callicles — go on a bit further still [since you're knowingly talking nonsense], so you can see how wise you sound, lecturing me. Doesn't each of us stop being thirsty and start feeling pleasure through drinking, at the same time?

Callicles

I don't know what you mean.

Gorgias

Don't say that, Callicles — answer, if only for our sake, so the discussion can be brought to a conclusion.

Callicles

But Socrates is always like this, Gorgias — he keeps asking about petty, worthless things and refuting people over them.

Gorgias

But what difference does that make to you? It's not your reputation at stake here anyway, Callicles — so submit yourself to Socrates, and let him refute you however he wants.

The Choice of Lives: Philosophy or Flattery of the Crowd

Callicles

Go on and ask your petty little questions, then, since that's how Gorgias wants it.

Socrates

You're a happy man, Callicles, to have been initiated into the great mysteries before the small ones — I didn't think that was allowed. So answer from where you left off: doesn't each of us stop being thirsty and feeling pleasure at the same time?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And doesn't he stop being hungry, and stop with the other appetites and pleasures, at the same time as well?

Callicles

That's so.

Socrates

And doesn't he stop feeling the pains and the pleasures at the same time too?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

But you're not stopping with the good and bad things at the same time, as you agreed — or do you not agree with that now?

Callicles

I do — so what of it?

Socrates

It's because the good and the pleasant don't turn out to be the same thing, my friend, and neither do the bad and the painful. Because he stops with some of these at the same time, but not with others, since they're different — so how could the pleasant be the same as the good, or the painful the same as the bad? But if you like, look at it this way too — I don't think you'll agree with me on this one either ; think it over — you call good men good by the presence of good things in them, don't you, just as you call fine men fine when fineness is present in them?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

What about this? Do you call foolish and cowardly men good? No, not just now — you spoke of the courageous and intelligent ones; or don't you call these men good?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

What about this? Have you ever seen a mindless child feeling pleasure?

Callicles

I have.

Socrates

And have you never seen a mindless man feeling pleasure?

Callicles

I think I have — but what of it?

Socrates

Nothing — just answer.

Callicles

I've seen it.

Socrates

What about this? A sensible man, feeling pain and feeling pleasure?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

Which of the two feel pleasure and pain more, the intelligent or the foolish?

Callicles

I think there isn't much difference.

Socrates

Well, even that's enough. Have you ever seen a cowardly man in war?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

Well then? When the enemy retreats, which men seemed to you to feel more pleasure, the cowards or the brave?

Callicles

Both, I'd say, [more so] — or if not, at least about equally.

Socrates

It makes no difference. So the cowards feel pleasure too?

Callicles

Very much so.

Socrates

And the foolish too, it seems.

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

But when the enemy advances, do only the cowards feel pain, or the brave as well?

Callicles

Both.

Socrates

Equally?

Callicles

The cowards more, perhaps.

Socrates

And when the enemy retreats, don't they feel more pleasure?

Callicles

Perhaps.

Socrates

So both the foolish and the intelligent, both the cowardly and the brave, feel pain and pleasure about equally, as you say — only the cowards more than the brave?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

But surely the intelligent and the brave are good, and the cowardly and foolish are bad?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So the good and the bad feel pleasure and pain about equally?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So are the good and the bad about equally good and bad? Or are the bad even more good?

Callicles

By Zeus, I don't know what you're saying.

Socrates

Don't you know you're saying that good men are good by the presence of good things, and bad men bad by the presence of bad things? And that the good things are the pleasures, and the bad things the pains?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So the good things, the pleasures, are present in those who feel pleasure, since they're feeling pleasure?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

So, with good things present, those who feel pleasure are good?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

What about this? Aren't the bad things, the pains, present in those who feel pain?

Callicles

They're present.

Socrates

And you say the bad are bad by the presence of bad things — or do you no longer say that?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So those who feel pleasure are good, and those who feel pain are bad?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

The more so, the more good or bad; the less so, the less; and those about equally, about equally good or bad?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So you're saying the intelligent and the foolish, and the cowardly and the brave, feel pleasure and pain about equally — or even the cowards a bit more?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

Now reason it out together with me, what follows for us from what we've agreed — since they say it's fine to state and examine fine things even twice and three times over. We say the intelligent and brave man is good. Isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And the foolish and cowardly man is bad?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And again, the one feeling pleasure is good?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And the one feeling pain is bad?

Callicles

That must be so.

Socrates

And the good man and the bad man feel pain and pleasure alike — perhaps even the bad man more?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So doesn't the bad man turn out just as good as the good man — or even more good than him? Isn't this exactly what followed before too, if someone says the pleasant and the good are the same thing? Isn't this necessary, Callicles?

Callicles

I've been listening to you agree along for a while now, Socrates, thinking to myself that whenever someone concedes you anything, even in play, you grab onto it gladly, like the boys do. As if you really think I, or anyone else alive, don't believe some pleasures are better and others worse.

Socrates

Well, well, Callicles, what a schemer you are — you're treating me like a child, first claiming things are one way, then another, deceiving me. And yet I didn't think at the start I'd be willingly deceived by you, since I took you for a friend — but now I've been proven wrong, and it seems, as the old saying goes, I must make the best of what's here and accept this gift you're now offering. So what you're now saying, it seems, is that some pleasures are good and others bad — isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So the beneficial ones are good, and the harmful ones bad?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And the beneficial ones are the ones that produce something good, and the harmful ones produce something bad?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

Do you mean something like this: take the bodily pleasures we were just talking about, in eating and drinking — of these, whichever produce health in the body, or strength, or some other excellence of the body, those are good, and their opposites bad?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And likewise with pains, some are good and some are bad?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

So the good pleasures and pains are the ones to be chosen and acted on?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

But not the bad ones?

Callicles

Clearly not.

Socrates

Because, if you remember, it seemed to Polus and me that everything must be done for the sake of the good. Do you agree with this too, that the good is the goal of all our actions, and that everything else must be done for its sake, and not it for the sake of the other things? Will you make it unanimous with us, as the third vote?

Callicles

I will.

Socrates

So it's for the sake of good things that we must do the other things, including the pleasant ones, and not the good things for the sake of the pleasant ones.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So is it within any man's power to pick out which of the pleasant things are good and which are bad, or is a skilled person needed for each case?

Callicles

A skilled person.

Socrates

Let's remember what I happened to be saying to Polus and Gorgias. I was saying, if you recall, that there are some preparations that go only as far as pleasure, providing just that and nothing more, ignorant of what's better and what's worse, and others that know what's good and what's bad; and I put cookery among those concerned with pleasure — a knack, not a craft — and medicine among those concerned with the good, a craft. And by Philia's god, Callicles, don't you go thinking you need to joke around with me, answering whatever comes to mind against what you actually believe, and don't take what I say as a joke either — because you see that our discussion concerns the very thing a person with even a little sense would take most seriously: how one ought to live — whether following the way you're urging me toward, doing the things a real man does, speaking before the assembly and practicing rhetoric and engaging in politics the way you people do now, or living this life spent in philosophy, and what it is that makes this one different from that one. So perhaps it's best, as I just tried to do, to make a distinction, and once we've distinguished the two and agreed with each other whether there really are these two different lives, to examine how they differ from each other and which of the two is worth living. Perhaps you don't yet know what I mean.

Callicles

No, I don't.

Socrates

But I'll tell you more clearly. Since you and I have agreed that there's such a thing as the good, and such a thing as the pleasant, and that the pleasant is different from the good, and that each of the two has its own practice and pursuit for acquiring it, one the hunt for the pleasant, the other the hunt for the good — this very point, first, either agree with me on it or not. Do you agree?

Callicles

Yes, that's what I say.

Socrates

Come then, agree with me on the things I was saying earlier to Polus and Gorgias — whether I seemed to you to be speaking the truth then. I was saying, I believe, that cookery doesn't seem to me to be a craft but a knack, while medicine is a craft — because medicine has examined the nature of what it treats and the cause of what it does, and can give an account of each of these; while the other one, aiming entirely at pleasure, which is the whole of its business, goes at it in a completely unskilled way, having examined neither the nature of pleasure nor its cause, having reckoned nothing at all, so to speak, in any rational way, preserving through mere routine and knack only a memory of what usually happens, which is also how it supplies its pleasures. So first consider whether this seems to you to be said well enough, and whether there are, in the case of the soul too, other such pursuits — some of them skilled, taking some forethought for what's best for the soul, and others that neglect this, and instead, just as in the body's case, have looked only at the soul's pleasure, at how it might come about, without examining at all which pleasures are better and which worse, caring about nothing except gratifying it, whether for better or worse. Because to me, Callicles, it seems there are such pursuits, and I say that this sort of thing is flattery, whether it concerns the body, or the soul, or anything else — whenever someone attends to pleasure with no thought at all for what's better and what's worse; but you — do you agree with us on this, holding the same opinion, or do you disagree?

Callicles

I don't disagree — I concede it, so your argument can reach its conclusion, and so I can do Gorgias here a favor.

What a Soul-Improving Statesman Would Look Like

Socrates

Now does this hold for just one soul, but not for two or many?

Callicles

No, it holds for two and for many as well.

Socrates

So it's possible to gratify a whole group at once, without any regard for what's best?

Callicles

I think so.

Socrates

Can you tell me, then, what practices do this? Or rather, if you like, as I ask about each one, say yes if it seems to you to be one of these, and no if it doesn't. Let's first consider flute-playing. Doesn't it seem to you to be the sort of thing, Callicles, that pursues only our pleasure and cares about nothing else?

Callicles

It seems so to me.

Socrates

And all the similar ones too, like competitive lyre-playing?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

What about the training of choruses, and the composing of dithyrambs? Doesn't it strike you as the same kind of thing? Or do you think Cinesias son of Meles gives any thought to saying something that would make his listeners better, rather than something likely to gratify the crowd of spectators?

Callicles

That much is clear, Socrates, at least about Cinesias.

Socrates

And what about his father, Meles? Did he seem to you to sing to the lyre with an eye toward what's best? Or didn't even he aim at what's most pleasant? Because his singing annoyed the audience. But consider — doesn't the whole art of singing to the lyre, and the composing of dithyrambs, seem to you to have been invented for the sake of pleasure?

Callicles

So it seems to me.

Socrates

And what about this solemn and wondrous thing, the composing of tragedy — what is it in earnest about? Is its whole undertaking and effort, as it seems to you, just to gratify the spectators, or does it also fight against this, so that if something is pleasant and gratifying to them but bad, it won't say that, and if something happens to be unpleasant but beneficial, it will say and sing that instead, whether they enjoy it or not? Which way does the composing of tragedies seem to you to be arranged?

Callicles

That much is clear, Socrates — it's aimed more at pleasure, and at gratifying the spectators.

Socrates

And didn't we just say, Callicles, that this sort of thing is flattery?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

Now, if someone stripped away the melody, the rhythm, and the meter from all poetry, wouldn't what's left just be speeches?

Callicles

Necessarily.

Socrates

And aren't these speeches delivered before a great crowd, the people?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So poetry turns out to be a kind of public speaking to the crowd.

Callicles

So it appears.

Socrates

So it would be a rhetorical kind of public speaking — or don't the poets seem to you to be practicing rhetoric in the theaters?

Callicles

So it seems to me.

Socrates

So now we've discovered a kind of rhetoric addressed to a crowd made up of children and women and men together, and slaves and free men alike — one we don't much admire, since we say it's a flattering kind.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

Very well — but what about the rhetoric addressed to the Athenian people and the other free citizens in other cities — what is this rhetoric, for us? Do the orators seem to you always to speak with an eye to what's best, aiming at making the citizens as good as possible through their speeches, or are they too driven toward gratifying the citizens, neglecting the common good for the sake of their own private interest, treating the people like children, trying only to please them, and giving no thought at all to whether this makes them better or worse?

Callicles

That's no longer a simple question you're asking — some of them say what they say out of genuine care for the citizens, while others are just as you describe.

Socrates

That's enough. Because if this too is twofold, then one part of it would be flattery and shameful public speaking, while the other would be fine — the part that works to make the citizens' souls as good as possible, and fights hard, saying what's best, whether it turns out more pleasant or less pleasant to the listeners. But you've never once seen this kind of rhetoric — or if you can name one of the orators who's like that, why haven't you told me who he is?

Callicles

By Zeus, I can't name a single one of the current orators for you.

Socrates

What about this? Among the men of old, can you name one on whose account the Athenians became better, when before his public speaking began they were worse? Because I myself don't know who this man could be.

Callicles

What about this? Haven't you heard that Themistocles was a good man, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and this Pericles here who died recently, whom you yourself have heard speak?

Socrates

If, Callicles, the virtue you spoke of earlier is the true one — satisfying one's own appetites and other people's — well and good; but if it isn't that, and instead it's what we were forced to agree to later on, that of the appetites, the ones that make a person better when filled should be satisfied, and the ones that make him worse should not, and that this takes some skill — then I myself have no way to say that any of these men [became] such a man.

Callicles

But if you look for one properly, you'll find one.

Socrates

Let's look at this quietly, examining whether any of these men actually became like that — because, consider: the good man, the one who speaks with a view to what's best, won't he say whatever he says not at random, but with his eye on something? Just as all the other craftsmen too, each one, don't select and apply things to their work at random, but so that the thing they're making takes on some definite form. For instance, if you want to look at painters, builders, shipwrights, all the other craftsmen, any one you like — see how each one places whatever he places into some arrangement, and forces one part to be fitting and to harmonize with another, until the whole stands together as an ordered and well-arranged thing; and the other craftsmen too, and the ones we were just talking about, those concerned with the body, trainers and doctors, they too, I take it, bring order and arrangement to the body. Do we agree this is so, or not?

Callicles

Let it be so.

Socrates

So a house that has arrangement and order would be a good one, and one with disorder a bad one?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And a ship, the same way?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And surely we say the same about our bodies too?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And what about the soul? Will it be good if it has disorder, or if it has some arrangement and order?

Callicles

Given what we agreed before, I have to grant this too.

Socrates

So what's the name for the thing that arises in the body from arrangement and order?

Callicles

I suppose you mean health and strength.

Socrates

I do. And what about the thing that arises in the soul from arrangement and order? Try to find and give its name, just as you did for the body.

Callicles

Why don't you just say it yourself, Socrates?

Socrates

Well, if you'd rather I did, I'll say it — and you, if you think I'm putting it well, say so, and if not, refute me, don't just let it pass. Because it seems to me the name for the body's arrangements is "healthy," the thing from which health arises in it, along with the body's other excellence. Is this so, or not?

Callicles

It is.

Socrates

And for the soul's arrangements and orderings, the names are "lawful order" and "law" — the source from which people become law-abiding and orderly; and these are justice and moderation. Do you say so, or not?

Callicles

Let it be so.

Socrates

So, keeping his eye on these things, that orator — the skilled and good one — will apply to people's souls whatever speeches he gives, and all his actions besides, and if he gives some gift, he'll give it, and if he takes something away, he'll take it away, always with his mind fixed on this: how justice might arise in his fellow citizens' souls and injustice be driven out, how moderation might come to be there and lack of restraint be driven out, and how their other virtue might arise and vice depart. Do you agree, or not?

Callicles

I agree.

Socrates

Because what good is it, Callicles, to give a body that's sick and in bad condition plenty of food, even the most pleasant kind, or drink, or anything else, if it won't do it any more good — and, by a fair reckoning, even less good than the opposite would? Isn't that so?

Callicles

Let it be so.

Socrates

Because I don't think it profits a person to live with a body in bad condition — since that means living badly, of necessity. Or isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So don't doctors, as a rule, allow a healthy person to satisfy his appetites, letting him eat as much as he wants when hungry, or drink when thirsty, while a sick person, one might say, they never allow to fill himself with what he desires? Do you agree with this too?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

And isn't it the same way with the soul, my excellent friend? As long as it's in bad condition — being mindless, unrestrained, unjust, and unholy — it must be held back from its appetites, and not permitted to do anything except what will make it better; do you say so, or not?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

Because that's better for the soul, isn't it?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And isn't holding it back from what it desires a matter of correcting it?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So being corrected is better for the soul than lacking restraint, just as you thought a moment ago.

Callicles

I don't know what you're talking about, Socrates — ask somebody else.

Socrates

This man can't stand being helped, or undergoing the very thing our discussion is about — being corrected.

Callicles

And I don't care in the least about what you're saying — and I only answered you this far as a favor to Gorgias.

Socrates

Very well — so what shall we do, then? Shall we break off the discussion in the middle?

Callicles

You'll have to decide that yourself.

Socrates

But they say it isn't even permitted to leave stories unfinished in the middle — you have to put a head on them, so they don't go around headless. So answer the rest too, so our discussion can get a head.

Callicles

What a bully you are, Socrates. If you'll listen to me, you'll let this discussion go, or else find someone else to argue with.

Socrates

Well, who else is willing? Because we really shouldn't leave the discussion unfinished.

Callicles

Couldn't you get through the discussion yourself, either talking it out on your own or answering your own questions?

The Argument's Bonds of Iron and Adamant

Socrates

So Epicharmus's saying may come true for me — what two men used to say before, I, one man, may prove able to say. But it looks like this really is the most necessary thing. If we're actually going to do this, though, I think all of us need to be eager to find out what's true and what's false in what we're saying; it's a good shared by everyone alike once it comes out into the open. So I'll go through the argument the way it seems to me to stand; and if any of you thinks I'm not agreeing with myself about how things really are, you should take hold of it and refute me. I'm not saying what I say because I know it, but because I'm searching together with all of you, so that if the person disputing with me turns out to be saying something worthwhile, I'll be the first to agree. Still, I'm saying all this on the assumption that we ought to carry the argument through to the end; but if you don't want to, let's drop it right now and go.

Gorgias

But it doesn't seem to me yet time to leave, Socrates — you should go through the argument to the end; it looks to me like the others think so too. I myself, for one, want to hear you go through what's left yourself.

Socrates

But truly, Gorgias, I myself would happily go on talking with our friend Callicles here, until I paid him back Amphion's speech for Zethus's; but since you, Callicles, aren't willing to help me see the argument through, at least listen to me and step in if you think I'm not speaking well . And if you refute me, I won't be annoyed with you the way you were with me — instead you'll be registered as my greatest benefactor.

Callicles

Go on, my good man, speak for yourself and finish it.

Socrates

Listen, then, while I take up the argument again from the beginning. Is the pleasant the same as the good?—Not the same, as Callicles and I agreed.—Now, which is it: do we choose the pleasant because of the good, or the good because of the pleasant?—The pleasant, because of the good.—And the pleasant is that whose presence gives us pleasure, and the good is that whose presence makes us good?—Certainly.—And we, and everything else that's good, are good once some excellence is present in us?—That seems necessary to me, Callicles.—But surely the excellence of each thing — a tool, a body, a soul again, any living creature — comes to it at its finest not by chance, but through arrangement, correctness, and whatever craft has been assigned to each; is that so?—Yes, I say so.—So the excellence of each thing is arranged by arrangement and given order?—I'd say so.—So it's some order, arising in each thing and proper to it, that makes each existing thing good?—So it seems to me.—And a soul that has its own order is better than one without order?—Necessarily.—And surely one that has order is orderly?—How could it not be?—And the orderly one is moderate ?—Quite necessarily.—So the moderate soul is good. I have nothing else to say against this, my dear Callicles; but if you do, teach me.

Callicles

Speak, my good man.

Socrates

I say this: if the moderate soul is good, then the one in the opposite condition to the moderate is bad; and that one was the foolish and unrestrained soul.—Certainly.—And surely the moderate man would do what's fitting, both toward gods and toward men; for he wouldn't be moderate if he did what's not fitting?—That must be so.—And doing what's fitting toward men, he'd be doing just things, and toward gods, pious things; and a man who does just and pious things must be just and pious.—That's so.—And he must be brave too; for it's not the mark of a moderate man to chase or avoid what he shouldn't, but to avoid and pursue whatever things, people, pleasures, and pains he ought to, and to hold his ground and endure where he must; so it's altogether necessary , Callicles, that the moderate man, as we've gone through, being just and brave and pious, is a completely good man; and that the good man does well and finely whatever he does; and that the one who does well is blessed and happy, while the wicked one, who does badly, is wretched; and this last would be the man in the condition opposite to the moderate — the unrestrained man, whom you were praising.

So I hold to all this, and I say it's true; and if it's true, then anyone who wants, it seems, to be happy must pursue and practice moderation, and flee licentiousness as fast as his feet will carry him, and above all arrange things so he never needs correcting, but if he does need it — himself, or anyone close to him, whether a private person or a city — then punishment must be imposed and correction applied, if he's going to be happy. This seems to me to be the goal a person should keep in view and live by, directing everything he does — his own affairs and the city's — toward making sure justice and moderation will be present in the man who's going to be happy, acting that way instead of letting his desires run unrestrained and trying to fill them up, an endless evil, living a bandit's life. A man like that couldn't be dear to anyone else, human or god; he's incapable of community, and where there's no community, there can be no friendship. The wise say, Callicles, that heaven and earth, gods and men, are all held together by community, friendship, orderliness, moderation, and justice — and that's why they call the whole of it order, my friend, not disorder or licentiousness. But you seem to me to pay no attention to any of this, clever as you are, and it has escaped you that geometric equality has great power among both gods and men, while you think one should practice getting more; that's because you neglect geometry. Well then; either this argument of ours must be refuted — that it's not by possessing justice and moderation that the happy are happy, and by possessing vice that the wretched are wretched — or, if it's true, we need to look at what follows from it. And all those earlier things follow, Callicles — the ones you asked me about, whether I was serious when I said that a person ought to accuse himself, his son, or his companion, if he does any wrong, and that rhetoric should be used for this purpose; and what you thought Polus admitted only out of shame turns out to be true after all — that doing wrong is worse than suffering it by exactly as much as it's more shameful ; and that the man who's going to be a genuine orator must be just and knowledgeable about just things, which Polus in turn said Gorgias admitted only out of shame.

Since that's how things stand, let's consider what it actually is you're reproaching me with — whether it's well said or not — that I'm not capable of helping myself or any of my friends or family, or saving them from the greatest dangers, and that I'm at the mercy of anyone who wants, the way disgraced men are at the mercy of anyone who's willing — whether he wants to hit me across the face, that vigorous phrase of yours, or take my money, or drive me out of the city, or, worst of all, kill me; and that being in such a position is the most shameful thing there is, according to your argument. But my own position, whatever it is, has already been stated many times, and nothing stops me from stating it again now; I say, Callicles, that being struck unjustly across the face isn't the most shameful thing, and neither is having my body cut, or my purse — but striking me and mine unjustly, and cutting us, is more shameful and worse, and so is stealing, enslaving, breaking into my house, and in a word doing any wrong at all to me and mine — for the one doing the wrong, it's worse and more shameful than it is for me, the one wronged. These things, having appeared to us this way, up there in our earlier discussions, are held fast and bound, as I put it, and — if I may put it rather crudely — bound by arguments of iron and adamant, or so it would seem, at any rate; arguments which, unless you or someone even more forceful than you break them, no one can say anything other than what I'm now saying and still speak well; since, for my part, my position is always the same — that I myself don't know how these things stand, but that of everyone I've ever met, as now, no one can say anything different without being ridiculous. So I, for my part, maintain once again that this is how things stand; and if this is so, and doing wrong is the greatest of evils for the one doing it, and greater still than this greatest evil — if such a thing is possible — is for the wrongdoer to escape paying the penalty, then what kind of help, if a person can't provide it for himself, would make him truly ridiculous? Isn't it the help that would turn aside the greatest harm to us? It must surely be the most shameful thing, then, not to be able to provide that help either for oneself or for one's own friends and family, and the next most shameful not to be able to help against the second-worst evil, and the third most shameful against the third, and so on down the line; the greater the natural size of each evil, the finer it is to be able to help against it, and the more shameful not to be able to. Or does it stand some other way than this, Callicles?

Callicles

Not some other way.

Socrates

So, there being two things, doing wrong and suffering wrong, we say doing wrong is the greater evil, and suffering wrong the lesser. What, then, would a person need to acquire in order to help himself and get both these benefits — the one that comes from not doing wrong, and the one that comes from not suffering wrong? Power, or wishing? Here's what I mean: if he simply doesn't wish to suffer wrong, will he not suffer it, or does he need to acquire the power not to suffer wrong in order not to suffer it?

Callicles

That much is clear — if he has the power.

Socrates

And what about doing wrong? Is it enough for him simply not to wish to do wrong — since then he won't do it — or does he also need to acquire some power and craft for this , so that if he doesn't learn and practice it, he'll do wrong? Why don't you just answer me this, Callicles: do you think Polus and I were right to be forced into agreeing, earlier in the discussion, or not, when we agreed that no one does wrong willingly, and that everyone who does wrong does it unwillingly?

Currying a Tyrant's Favour, and the Craft That Saves Lives

Callicles

Let's grant you that, Socrates, so that you can finish the argument.

Socrates

So for this too, it seems, we need to acquire some power and craft, so that we don't do wrong.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So what craft, then, provides for not being wronged at all, or as little as possible? See if you think the same as I do. Because it seems to me to be this: either a man must rule in the city himself, or even be tyrant, or be a partner of the government currently in power.

Callicles

You see, Socrates, how ready I am to praise you, whenever you say something well? This seems to me very well put.

Socrates

Then consider this too, and see if you think I'm right. It seems to me that each person is a friend to another as much as possible in the way the ancients and the wise put it — like to like. Don't you think so too?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So wherever a savage, uneducated man is tyrant and ruler, if someone in the city were far better than he is, the tyrant would surely be afraid of him, and could never wholeheartedly become his friend?

Callicles

That's so.

Socrates

Nor, if someone were far worse, could that man be his friend either; the tyrant would look down on him, and would never take him seriously as a friend.

Callicles

That's true too.

Socrates

So the only friend worth mentioning left for a man like that is someone of the same character, who blames and praises the same things, and is willing to be ruled and to submit to the ruler. This man will have great power in that city, and no one will wrong him and get away with it. Isn't that how it is?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So if one of the young men in that city were to consider, in what way could I gain great power and have no one wrong me? This, it seems, is his path: to accustom himself, right from youth, to take pleasure and displeasure in the same things as his master, and to arrange things so that he becomes as much like him as possible. Isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So this man will have achieved both not being wronged and having great power in the city, according to your account.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

But does he also achieve not doing wrong? Or is that far from true, if he's going to be like a ruler who's unjust, and have great power at his side? No — I think it's exactly the opposite: his preparation will be aimed at being able to do as much wrong as possible, and doing wrong without paying the penalty. Isn't that so?

Callicles

It seems so.

Socrates

So the greatest evil will befall him — being corrupt in his soul and maimed, because of his imitation of his master and his power.

Callicles

I don't know how you keep turning the arguments upside down every time, Socrates; or don't you know that the man who does the imitating will kill the one who doesn't, if he wants to, and take his property away?

Socrates

I know it, my good Callicles, unless I'm deaf — I've heard it just now from you, and from Polus, many times over, and from nearly everyone else in the city; but you listen to me too: he'll kill him, if he wants — but he'll be a wicked man killing a fine and good one.

Callicles

And isn't that exactly the outrageous part?

Socrates

Not to a man with sense, at any rate, as the argument shows. Or do you think a person ought to arrange to live as long as possible, and practice the crafts that always save us from danger — the way you tell me to practice rhetoric, the kind that saves people in the courtroom?

Callicles

Yes, by Zeus, and giving you good advice too.

Socrates

But what about this, my excellent fellow? Does the knowledge of swimming seem to you to be some solemn thing?

Callicles

No, by Zeus, not to me.

Socrates

And yet it too saves people from death, whenever they fall into a situation where that knowledge is needed. And if that seems too small a thing to you, I'll tell you of a greater one : the pilot's craft, which saves not only lives but also bodies and property from the direst dangers, the way rhetoric does. And this craft is modest and orderly, and doesn't put on airs, dressing itself up as though it were doing something magnificent, but having accomplished the very same result as the courtroom pleader's craft — if it brings someone safely here from Aegina, I think it charges two obols, and if from Egypt or the Black Sea, however great the distance, for this great service — having saved, as I was just saying, the man himself, his children, his property, and his womenfolk — it sets them ashore at the harbor and charges two drachmas; and the man who has the craft, having accomplished all that, steps off the ship and walks along the beach beside it in a modest manner; for I imagine he knows how to reckon that it's unclear which of his fellow passengers he benefited by not letting them drown, and which he harmed, knowing that he put none of them ashore any better than they were when they boarded, neither in body nor in soul. So he reckons that it isn't the case that if a man burdened with great, incurable diseases of the body failed to drown, that man is wretched for not having died, and got no benefit from him; but that if someone, on the other hand, has many incurable diseases in what is more valuable than the body, the soul, and this man is to go on living, the pilot will do him a service by saving him, whether from the sea, or the courtroom, or wherever else he saves him from — no, he knows that it's no better for a corrupt man to live; for such a man is bound to live badly.

That's why it isn't customary for the pilot to give himself airs, even though he saves us, nor for the engineer either, my remarkable friend, who's sometimes able to save no less than a general — to say nothing of a pilot — or anyone else; because sometimes he saves whole cities. Doesn't he seem to you to be on the same level as the courtroom pleader? And yet if he wanted to talk the way you people do, Callicles, giving the business a grand air , he could bury you in words, saying and urging that everyone ought to become an engineer, since nothing else amounts to anything; his argument would be more than adequate for it. But you look down on him and his craft all the same, and you'd use engineer as an insult, and you wouldn't want to give your daughter to his son, or take his daughter for yourself. And yet, given the grounds on which you praise your own pursuits, what fair reason do you have to look down on the engineer and the others I just mentioned? I know you'd say you're better, and from better people. But if the better isn't what I say it is, and instead virtue itself just is saving yourself and what's yours, whatever sort of person you happen to be, then your contempt for the engineer, the doctor, and the other crafts made for the sake of saving people becomes ridiculous. No, my good man, consider whether what's noble and good might be something other than saving and being saved. Because a man who's truly a man should let this — living for however long — go, and not cling to life, but leave these matters to the god and trust the women who say no one can escape his fated portion, and then turn to the question of how he might live as well as possible in whatever time he has left — whether by making himself like the government of the city he lives in, and so whether you now need to become as much like the Athenian people as possible, if you're going to be dear to them and have great power in the city; consider whether that actually pays off for you and for me, so that we don't end up, my good friend, suffering what they say the Thessalian witches suffer who pull down the moon — that we pay for this power in the city with what we hold dearest. But if you think any human being at all is going to hand you a craft that will let you have great power in this city while being unlike its government, whether for better or for worse, then, as it seems to me, you're not planning correctly, Callicles; you can't be an imitator — you have to be naturally like them, if you're going to produce anything genuine that wins the friendship of the Athenian people, and, by Zeus, of Pyrilampes' son too. So whoever makes you most like these people will make you into what you long to be — a politician and orator; for each group takes pleasure in speeches made to match its own character , and resents speeches that don't fit it, unless you have something else to say, my dear fellow. Do we have anything to say to that, Callicles?

Callicles

I don't know how it is, Socrates, but you seem to me to be right somehow, yet I feel what most people feel — I'm not entirely convinced by you.

Socrates

That's because the love of the people, Callicles, at home in your soul, is resisting me; but if we examine these same things over again many times, [perhaps even] better , you'll be convinced. Just recall that we said there were two ways of caring for each thing, body and soul alike: one that deals with pleasure, and another that deals with what's best, not indulging but fighting against it. Isn't that what we settled on back then?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So the one that deals with pleasure is base, and turns out to be nothing but flattery — isn't that so?

Callicles

Let it be so for you, if you like.

Socrates

And the other one aims at making whatever we're caring for — body or soul, whichever it happens to be — as good as possible?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So is this how we ought to go about caring for the city and its citizens — trying to make the citizens themselves as good as possible? Because without that, as we found earlier, there's no use in providing any other benefit at all, unless the intentions of the people who are going to acquire great wealth, or rule over others, or hold any other kind of power, are fine and good. Shall we say that's how it is?

Callicles

Certainly, if that's more agreeable to you.

Socrates

So if, Callicles, we were calling on each other to take up public affairs and turn to building projects — the greatest structures, whether walls, dockyards, or temples — should we first have examined and questioned ourselves , whether we knew the craft of building or not, and from whom we'd learned it? Should we have, or not?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And here's the second question: whether we'd ever actually built a building on our own, either for a friend or for ourselves, and whether that building was fine or shameful; and if, on examining the matter, we found that our teachers had been good and distinguished, and that we'd built many fine buildings together with our teachers, and many more on our own once we'd parted ways with them — in that condition, it would make sense to go on to public works; but if we had no teacher of our own to point to, and either no buildings at all, or many that weren't worth anything, then surely it would be senseless to attempt public works and call on each other to undertake them. Shall we say that's rightly put, or not?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And so it is with everything else too; and if we'd taken it upon ourselves to practice medicine in public and called on each other as competent doctors, surely I'd have examined you and you'd have examined me — come, by the gods, how is Socrates himself doing in bodily health? Or has anyone else, slave or free, ever been rid of a disease because of Socrates? I imagine I'd have questioned you along the same lines too; and if we found that no one had become better in body because of us, neither foreigner nor citizen, neither man nor woman, then by Zeus, Callicles, wouldn't it truly be laughable, for people to reach such a pitch of folly that, before practicing privately, doing a great many things as chance would have it, and getting a good many right, and training sufficiently in the craft, they attempt — as the saying goes — to learn pottery on a full-sized jar, and try to practice in public themselves, and call on other people like themselves to do the same? Doesn't it seem to you that acting that way would be senseless?

Callicles

It does to me.

Did the Great Statesmen Make Athens Better, or Only Bigger?

Socrates

But now, best of men — since you are just now starting to handle the city's affairs yourself, while you keep urging me on and reproaching me for not taking part — come, let's examine each other: has Callicles by now made any citizen better? Is there anyone — foreigner or citizen, slave or free — who was wicked before, unjust and undisciplined and foolish, and has become fine and good because of Callicles? Tell me — if someone were to question you on this, Callicles — what will you say? Who will you say you have made better by keeping company with you? Are you reluctant to answer, if there is some deed of yours from when you were still a private citizen, before you attempted public life?

Callicles

You're a contentious man, Socrates.

Socrates

No, I'm not asking out of contentiousness, but because I genuinely want to know in what manner you think one ought to conduct politics among us. Or is it something else you'll take care of for us once you turn to the city's affairs, rather than making the citizens as good as possible? Or haven't we already agreed many times over that this is what the political man must do? Have we agreed, or not? Answer. We have agreed — I'll answer on your behalf. So if this is what a good man must provide for his own city, think back now and tell me about those men you were mentioning a little earlier — whether you still think they turned out to be good citizens — Pericles, Cimon, Miltiades, and Themistocles.

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

Then if they were good, clearly each of them made the citizens better instead of worse. Did he, or not?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So when Pericles first began speaking before the assembly, were the Athenians worse than when he was giving his last speeches?

Callicles

Perhaps.

Socrates

Not perhaps, best of men, but a necessity from what we've agreed, if he really was a good citizen.

Callicles

What of it, then?

Socrates

Nothing — but tell me this too: whether the Athenians are said to have become better because of Pericles, or, on the contrary, to have been utterly ruined by him. For this is what I hear — that Pericles made the Athenians idle and cowardly and talkative and money-loving, by being the first to establish paid service.

Callicles

You're hearing that from the men with the battered ears, Socrates.

Socrates

But this I no longer merely hear — both you and I know clearly that Pericles was well regarded at first, and the Athenians voted no shameful conviction against him while they were worse; but once they had become fine and good because of him, at the end of Pericles's life, they convicted him of theft, and came close to sentencing him to death — clearly because they thought him wicked.

Callicles

What of it? Was Pericles bad because of that?

Socrates

Well, a keeper of donkeys or horses or cattle, at any rate, would be thought a bad one if this were his record — if he took them over not kicking or butting or biting him, and turned them into animals doing all of that out of savageness. Or don't you think any keeper of any animal whatever is a bad one, if he takes over gentler creatures and turns them out wilder than he received them? Do you think so, or not?

Callicles

Certainly — just to indulge you.

Socrates

Then indulge me on this too, and answer: is man one of the animals, or not?

Callicles

Of course he is.

Socrates

So Pericles was taking care of human beings?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

What then? Shouldn't they, as we just agreed, have become more just instead of more unjust because of him, if he really was taking care of them as a man good in political matters?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

Now the just are gentle, as Homer said — but what do you say? Isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And yet he made them come out wilder than he received them — and toward himself, of all people, whom he'd least have wished it.

Callicles

Do you want me to agree with you?

Socrates

If you think I'm telling the truth.

Callicles

All right, let it be so.

Socrates

Then if wilder, also more unjust and worse?

Callicles

Let it be.

Socrates

Then by this argument Pericles was not good at politics.

Callicles

Not by your account, anyway.

Socrates

No, by Zeus, nor by yours either, from what you've agreed. Now tell me again about Cimon — didn't the very men he served ostracize him, so as not to hear his voice for ten years? And didn't they do the same to Themistocles, and add exile as punishment? And didn't they vote to throw Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, into the pit, and if not for the presiding officer, wouldn't he have gone in? And yet if these men were good, as you claim, they would never have suffered any of this. Good charioteers, surely, don't fall out of their chariots at the start and then fall out later, once they've trained their horses and become better drivers themselves — that isn't how it works, either in chariot-driving or in any other line of work — or do you think it is?

Callicles

Not to me.

Socrates

So it seems our earlier arguments were true, that we know of no man who has turned out good at politics in this city. You agreed there was none among the men of today, but there was among the men of the past, and you picked out these particular men — but they've turned out to be no better than the men of today, so that, if they were orators, they used neither the true rhetoric — for then they wouldn't have fallen — nor the flattering kind.

Callicles

But it's far from the case, Socrates, that any man alive today could accomplish deeds like the ones any of these men — whichever one you please — accomplished.

Socrates

My good man, I'm not faulting them as servants of the city either — they seem to me to have been more capable servants than the men of today, and better able to supply the city with what it desired. But when it comes to redirecting people's desires instead of indulging them, persuading and compelling the citizens toward whatever would actually make them better — in that, they differed from the men of today, one might say, not at all; and that is the one task of a good citizen. As for ships and walls and dockyards and plenty of other things of that kind, I grant you those men were cleverer at supplying them. So you and I are doing something absurd in our discussion — the whole time we've been talking, we haven't stopped circling back to the same point, each failing to grasp what the other is saying. At any rate, I think you've many times agreed and recognized that this business, whether concerning the body or the soul, comes in two kinds: one of them is a service, capable of supplying, if our bodies are hungry, food, if thirsty, drink, if cold, clothes, bedding, shoes, or whatever else bodies come to desire — and I'm deliberately using the same images with you, so you'll follow more easily. For being able to supply any of these things — whether as a shopkeeper or a merchant or a craftsman of one of them, a baker or a cook or a weaver or a shoemaker or a tanner — it's no wonder that a man of that kind seems, both to himself and to others, to be a caretaker of the body, to anyone who doesn't know that there is, apart from all these, one craft, physical training together with medicine, which really is the caretaking of the body, and which rightly ought to rule over all these crafts and make use of their products, because it alone knows what is good and bad among foods and drinks for the excellence of the body, while all the others are ignorant of this — which is why these other crafts, in dealing with the body, are slavish and servile and unfree, while physical training and medicine are, by right, their mistresses. That the same holds for the soul as well — at times you seem to me to understand what I'm saying, and agree as though you know what I mean; but a little later you come round saying that men have become fine and good citizens in the city, and when I ask which men, you seem to me to be putting forward, for politics, men of exactly the same stripe as if, when I asked about physical training who has become or is a good caretaker of bodies, you told me quite in earnest, Thearion the baker, and Mithaecus, who wrote the book on Sicilian cookery, and Sarambus the wine-merchant — that these men have turned out to be wonderful caretakers of bodies, one preparing wonderful bread, another relish, another wine. Well, perhaps you'd be indignant if I told you: my good man, you understand nothing about physical training — you're telling me about servants, men who supply desires, with no understanding of anything fine and good about the matter, who, if it so happens, stuff and fatten people's bodies, get praised for it, and along the way destroy their old flesh too; while the people themselves, in their inexperience, won't blame the ones who feasted them as the cause of their sicknesses and the loss of their old flesh, but rather whoever happens to be present at the time offering some advice, once that earlier overindulgence brings on sickness a good while later, arriving as it does with no regard for health — these are the ones they'll blame and censure and do some harm to, if they can, while praising those earlier men, the actual causes of the trouble, to the skies. And that, Callicles, is exactly what you're doing now — you praise men who have feasted the citizens, filling them up with whatever they wanted. And people say these men made the city great — but that it's swollen and festering underneath because of those men of old, that they don't perceive. For without moderation and justice they've filled the city with harbors and dockyards and walls and tribute and nonsense of that kind; so when this collapse of its weakness comes, they'll blame whoever happens to be advising at the time, and praise Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, the actual causes of the trouble — and perhaps they'll take hold of you too, if you aren't careful, and of my friend Alcibiades, once they start losing even the old possessions along with what they've newly gained — though you two aren't the causes of the trouble, only perhaps its accomplices. And yet I see a foolish thing happening even now, and I hear the same about the men of old. For I notice that whenever the city takes some political man to task as a wrongdoer, they grow indignant and complain bitterly at the terrible treatment they're suffering — as if, having done the city many good services, they're now being unjustly destroyed by it, or so their story goes. But the whole thing is a lie — no leader of a city could ever be unjustly destroyed by the very city he leads. It seems the same holds for all who claim to be statesmen as for all who claim to be sophists. For the sophists too, wise as they are in other respects, do this absurd thing — claiming to be teachers of virtue, they often accuse their own students of wronging them, cheating them of their fees and paying back no other gratitude either, after having been well treated by them. And what could be more unreasonable than this claim — that men who have become good and just, who have had injustice removed from them by their teacher and have acquired justice instead, should do wrong by means of something they no longer have? Doesn't that strike you as absurd, my friend? You've truly forced me into giving a speech, Callicles, by refusing to answer.

Callicles

And you wouldn't be able to talk, if no one answered you?

The True Political Craft, and a Trial Foreseen

Socrates

So it seems — at any rate, I'm stretching out long speeches now, since you refuse to answer. But, my good man, tell me, in Zeus's name, god of friendship — don't you think it's unreasonable for someone who claims to have made a person good to then blame that same person, made good and being good through him, for afterward turning out wicked?

Callicles

I think so.

Socrates

Now don't you hear men who claim to educate people in virtue saying things like that?

Callicles

I do — but why would you talk about men who aren't worth anything?

Socrates

Then why would you talk about those men who claim to lead the city and take care that it becomes as good as possible, and then turn around and accuse it, whenever it suits them, of being utterly wicked? Do you think these men are any different from the others? The sophist and the orator, my dear fellow, are the same thing, or nearly the same and closely related, as I was telling Polus — but out of ignorance you think one of them, rhetoric, is something altogether splendid, while you look down on the other. But in truth sophistry is as much finer than rhetoric as legislation is finer than the administration of justice, and physical training finer than medicine — and I, for my part, thought it was only public speakers and sophists who had no room to blame the very thing they teach as bad for its practitioners, or else, in that same breath, to accuse themselves of never having benefited the very people they claim to benefit. Isn't that how it is?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And surely, then, giving that benefit for free, as one would expect, was possible only for these men, if they were telling the truth. For with any other benefit, someone who's received it — say, made swift by a trainer — might perhaps cheat him of his due gratitude, if the trainer let him go without first striking a bargain for pay and taking the money at the very moment he passed on the speed — since it's not slowness, I imagine, that makes men do wrong, but injustice — isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So if someone removes this very thing, injustice itself, there's no danger of his ever being wronged, but for him alone it's safe to give away this particular benefit for free, if someone really could make people good. Isn't that so?

Callicles

I agree.

Socrates

That's why, it seems, there's nothing shameful in taking money for giving other kinds of advice — about building houses, say, or the other crafts.

Callicles

So it seems.

Socrates

But when it comes to this particular business — by what means someone might become as good as possible and best manage his own household or city — it's considered shameful to refuse to give advice unless someone pays for it. Isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

Clearly the reason is that this, alone among benefits, makes the one who has received it want to do good in return — so it seems a fine sign, if a man who has done this particular good is treated well in return; and if not, not. Is that how things stand?

Callicles

It is.

Socrates

So which kind of care for the city are you calling me to — define it for me: the kind that fights hard with the Athenians so that they'll become as good as possible, like a doctor, or the kind that serves them and speaks to please them? Tell me the truth, Callicles — it's only fair, since you began speaking frankly with me, that you keep on saying what you actually think. So speak up now, clearly and nobly.

Callicles

Well then, I say the kind that serves them.

Socrates

So you're calling me, noblest of men, to a life of flattering them.

Callicles

If you'd rather call it playing the Mysian, Socrates — because if you won't do that—

Socrates

Don't say what you've said so often — that anyone who wants to can kill me — so that I don't in turn say, a wicked man killing a good one; nor that he'll take my property if I have any, so that I don't in turn say, but having taken it he won't know what to do with it, but just as he took it from me unjustly, so too he'll use it unjustly once he has it, and if unjustly, shamefully, and if shamefully, badly.

Callicles

You really do seem to me, Socrates, to be confident that none of this could happen to you — as if you lived out of harm's way and could never be hauled into court by some thoroughly rotten and worthless man.

Socrates

Then I really am a fool, Callicles, if I don't think that in this city anyone at all, whoever it happens to be, could suffer that. But this much I know well — that if I do go into court facing danger over one of the things you're talking about, the man bringing me in will be some scoundrel, since no decent man would bring in someone who's done no wrong — and it wouldn't be at all strange if I died for it. Do you want me to tell you why I expect this?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

I think that I, along with a few Athenians — not to say alone — am attempting the true political craft, and that I'm the only man alive today practicing politics; so since the speeches I make each time aren't spoken to please, but aim at the best, not at the most pleasant, and since I'm unwilling to do those clever tricks you recommend, I'll have nothing to say for myself in court. The same argument comes back to me that I made to Polus — I'll be judged the way a doctor would be judged before a jury of children, prosecuted by a cook. Just think what a man like that could say in his own defense, caught in that position, if someone brought a charge against him, saying: children, this man here has done a great deal of harm to you, to you yourselves — he ruins your youngest with cutting and burning, and by starving and choking you leaves you at a loss, giving you the bitterest draughts and forcing hunger and thirst on you, not like me, who feasted you on all sorts of good things — what do you think a doctor, caught in that bind, could find to say? Or if he told the truth — that he did all of this for your health, children — how loud a cry do you think jurors like that would raise? Wouldn't it be loud?

Callicles

Perhaps — one should assume so, at least.

Socrates

So don't you think he'd be at a complete loss for what he ought to say?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And that, I know well, is just the kind of thing I would suffer if I went into court. For I won't be able to point to any pleasures I've supplied them with, the kind they count as benefits and services, and I envy neither the men who supply them nor those they're supplied to; and if someone claims I corrupt the young by putting them at a loss, or that I slander my elders with bitter words in private or in public, I'll have no way to say the true thing — that I say all of this justly, and that I'm acting, gentlemen of the jury, in your own interest — nor anything else at all; so whatever happens to come, that, I suppose, is what I'll suffer.

Callicles

So does it seem to you, Socrates, to be a fine thing, for a man in a city to be in such a state, and unable to help himself?

Socrates

Yes — provided he has that one thing, Callicles, which you've agreed to many times: provided he has already helped himself, by having neither said nor done anything unjust, whether toward men or toward gods. For this kind of help to oneself has often been agreed between us to be the strongest kind there is. Now if someone were to prove me unable to give this kind of help, to myself or to anyone else, I'd be ashamed, whether refuted before a crowd or a few, or alone by one man alone, and if I died because of that incapacity, I'd be indignant — but if I should die for lack of the flattering kind of rhetoric, I know well you would see me bear my death easily. For dying itself is feared by no one, unless he's utterly unreasoning and unmanly — what's feared is doing wrong, since arriving in Hades with a soul crammed full of wrongdoing is the worst of all evils. And if you like, I'm willing to tell you a story showing that this is so.

Callicles

Well, since you've finished everything else, finish this too.

The Myth of Judgment

Socrates

Listen, then, they say, to a very fine account — one you'll take for a myth, I imagine, but I take for a true story; for I'll tell you what I'm about to tell you as something that actually happened. As Homer tells it, Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided up the rule between them, once they had taken it over from their father. Now there was this law about human beings under Cronus, and it still holds among the gods even now: that whoever has lived out his life justly and piously should, once he dies, depart to the islands of the blessed and dwell there in complete happiness, free of evils, while whoever has lived unjustly and impiously should go to the prison of retribution and justice, the place they call Tartarus. The judges of these cases, under Cronus and still recently under Zeus's rule, were living men judging the living, on the very day each person was due to die — and so the cases were judged badly. So Pluto and the overseers coming from the islands of the blessed kept telling Zeus that men were arriving on both sides who didn't belong there. So Zeus said: well, I'll put a stop to this happening. For right now the cases are being judged badly. The ones being judged, he said, are judged still clothed — for they're judged while alive. Now many people, he said, with wicked souls are dressed up in fine bodies and lineages and riches, and when the judgment comes, plenty of witnesses show up for them, ready to testify that they've lived justly; so the judges are overawed by these witnesses, and at the same time they themselves judge while still clothed, with their own eyes and ears and whole body screening off their soul. So all of this stands in their way — their own coverings and the coverings of the men being judged alike. So first of all, he said, they must stop knowing their death beforehand, since right now they know it in advance. That much, in fact, has already been told to Prometheus, so he'll stop them from knowing it. Next, they must be judged stripped of all of that — for they must be judged while dead. And the judge too must be naked — dead himself — studying the soul itself with his own soul alone, the moment each person dies, stripped of all his kin and having left behind on earth all that finery, so that the judgment may be just. So having recognized this before you did, I made judges of my own sons — two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe, Aeacus — and once they themselves have died, they'll hold court in the meadow, at the fork from which the two roads lead off, one toward the islands of the blessed, the other toward Tartarus. Rhadamanthus will judge those from Asia, and Aeacus those from Europe, and to Minos I'll give the privilege of deciding whenever the other two are at a loss over some point, so that the judgment on people's journey may be as just as possible.

This, Callicles, is what I've heard and believe to be true — and from this account I reckon something like the following follows. Death, it seems to me, is nothing other than the separation of two things, soul and body, from each other; and once they've been separated from one another, each of the two keeps its own condition not much less than it had while the person was alive, the body keeping its own nature, and all its treatments and sufferings plainly visible. For instance, if someone's body was large, whether by nature or by feeding or by both while he was alive, then his corpse is large once he's died too, and if fat, fat also once dead, and so on for the rest — and if in turn he made a practice of wearing his hair long, his corpse is long-haired too. Again, if someone was a whipped man and carried, while living, the traces of blows as scars on his body, whether from whips or other wounds, one can see his corpse bearing these same marks too; and if someone's limbs were broken or twisted in life, these same things are plainly visible in death as well. In a word, whatever condition the body had been prepared to have in life, these same features remain visible after death too, either all of them or most of them, for a certain span of time. The very same thing, then, seems to me to hold for the soul as well, Callicles — once it's stripped of the body, everything is plainly visible in the soul, both its natural features and the conditions the person's soul acquired through his practice of each particular thing. So whenever they arrive before their judge, those from Asia before Rhadamanthus, Rhadamanthus stops each of them and studies his soul, not knowing whose it is — but often, laying hold of the Great King or some other king or potentate, he finds nothing sound in the soul at all, but one flogged raw and covered with scars from perjuries and injustice, which each of his actions has smeared into the soul, and everything crooked from lying and pretension, nothing straight, because it was raised without truth; and he sees the soul crammed with disproportion and ugliness from unchecked power and luxury and violence and unrestrained conduct; and seeing it in this state, he sends it off in disgrace, straight to its place of confinement, where it's bound to go and undergo the sufferings it deserves. Now it's fitting for everyone undergoing punishment, when rightly punished by another, either to become better and benefit from it, or to become an example to others, so that others, seeing him suffer whatever he suffers, may grow better out of fear. Those who benefit and pay their penalty at the hands of gods and men are the ones who have committed curable wrongs; but even so, the benefit comes to them only through pain and suffering, both here and in Hades — for there's no other way to be rid of injustice. But those who have committed the worst wrongs, and through such crimes have become incurable, from these come the examples — and while these men themselves no longer benefit at all, being incurable, others benefit, who see them suffering, on account of their crimes, the greatest and most painful and most terrifying sufferings for all time, hung up there in Hades in the prison, quite literally as examples, sights and warnings for whichever wrongdoers keep on arriving. And I say Archelaus will be one of these, if Polus is telling the truth, and so will any other tyrant of that kind — and I think most of these examples turn out to have come from tyrants and kings and potentates and men who've handled the affairs of cities, since it's their power that lets them commit the greatest and most unholy crimes. Homer bears witness to this too — for he portrays kings and potentates as the ones punished in Hades for all time, Tantalus and Sisyphus and Tityus, while Thersites, or any other private person who was wicked, no poet has ever portrayed as gripped by great punishments as incurable — no doubt because it wasn't open to him to sin on that scale, which is why he was happier than those to whom it was open — but the truth is, Callicles, that it's from among the powerful that the utterly wicked men tend to come; nothing, however, stops good men from arising among these too, and it's very much worth admiring the ones who do; for it's hard, Callicles, and worthy of great praise, for a man given great scope to do wrong to live his life out justly. Few such men come to exist — though both here and elsewhere there have been, and I think there will go on being, men fine and good in this particular virtue, that of justly managing whatever's entrusted to them; and one has even become quite renowned among the rest of the Greeks, Aristides son of Lysimachus — but most men in power, my excellent friend, turn out wicked. So, as I was saying, whenever Rhadamanthus gets hold of someone of that kind, he knows nothing else about him — not who he is, nor whose son — only that he's some wicked man; and having seen this, he sends him off to Tartarus, marking him as to whether he seems curable or incurable, and once he arrives there he suffers what he deserves. But sometimes, catching sight of another soul that has lived piously and with truthfulness, that of a private man or someone else — most of all, I'd say, Callicles, a philosopher's, one who has minded his own business and not meddled in others' affairs during his life — he's filled with admiration and sends it off to the islands of the blessed. Aeacus does the very same — each of the two holds a rod as he judges — while Minos sits overseeing them, alone holding a golden scepter, as Homer's Odysseus says he saw him—

So I, Callicles, am persuaded by this account, and I'm looking to how I might show the judge a soul as healthy as possible — so, letting go of the honors most men prize, and practicing truth, I'll try, as best I can, to actually be as good as possible both in living and, when I come to die, in dying. And I call on all other people too, as far as I'm able, and I call on you especially, in return, to this life and this contest, which I say stands in place of all the contests here — and I reproach you with this: that you'll be unable to help yourself, when your trial and judgment comes, the one I was just now describing, but instead, going before that judge, the son of Aegina, once he takes hold of you and leads you off, you'll gape and grow dizzy there no less than I do here, and someone will perhaps strike you on the side of the head in utter disgrace, and treat you with contempt in every way.

Now perhaps all this seems to you to be told like an old wives' tale, and you look down on it — and there'd be nothing strange in looking down on it, if we could search and find something better and truer than this somewhere; but as it is, you can see that the three of you, the wisest of the Greeks alive today, you and Polus and Gorgias, cannot show that one ought to live any other life than this one, which also turns out to serve us well in that other place. But out of so many arguments, with all the others refuted, this one alone stands firm: that one must guard against doing wrong more than against suffering it, and that above everything else a man must practice, in private and in public alike, not seeming to be good but being it; and if anyone turns out bad in some respect, he must be corrected, and this is the second-best good, after being just — becoming just by being corrected and paying the penalty; and every kind of flattery, both toward oneself and toward others, whether toward the few or toward the many, must be avoided; and rhetoric, just like every other activity, must always be used toward what's just. So trust me, and follow this path, arriving at which you'll be happy both in life and in death, as the argument shows. And let someone look down on you as a fool and treat you with contempt, if he wants to, and yes, by Zeus, confidently let him strike you with that disgraceful blow — for you'll suffer nothing terrible, if you're truly fine and good, practicing virtue. And then, once we've practiced it together in this way, at that point, if it still seems we should, we'll take up politics, or whatever else seems best to us — and we'll decide then, being better at deciding than we are now. For it's shameful, in the state we plainly find ourselves in right now, to go on swaggering as though we were somebody, when we can never agree with ourselves twice over about the very same things, and that about the most important matters — to such a depth of ignorance have we sunk — so let's take as our guide the argument that has now come to light, which shows us that this way of life is the best, practicing justice and the rest of virtue both in living and in dying. Let's follow this one, then, and call on others to follow it too, rather than the one you trust in and use to call on me — for that one, Callicles, is worth nothing at all.