The Memorabilia Part 20

Possibly (he answered); but why do you address these questions to me?

Because (replied Socrates) I think that you, who have this power, do hesitate to devote yourself to matters which, as being a citizen, if for no other reason, you are bound to take part in. (4)

(4) Or add, "and cannot escape from."

Charm. And wherein have you detected in me this power, that you pa.s.s so severe a sentence upon me?

Soc. I have detected it plainly enough in those gatherings (5) in which you meet the politicians of the day, when, as I observe, each time they consult you on any point you have always good advice to offer, and when they make a blunder you lay your finger on the weak point immediately.

(5) See above, I. v. 4; here possibly of political club conversation.

Charm. To discuss and reason in private is one thing, Socrates, to battle in the throng of the a.s.sembly is another.

Soc. And yet a man who can count, counts every bit as well in a crowd as when seated alone by himself; and it is the best performer on the harp in private who carries off the palm of victory in public.

Charm. But do you not see that modesty and timidity are feelings implanted in man's nature? and these are much more powerfully present to us in a crowd than within the circle of our intimates.

Soc. Yes, but what I am bent on teaching you is that while you feel no such bashfulness and timidity before the wisest and strongest of men, you are ashamed of opening your lips in the midst of weaklings and dullards. (6) Is it the fullers among them of whom you stand in awe, or the cobblers, or the carpenters, or the coppersmiths, or the merchants, or the farmers, or the hucksters of the market-place exchanging their wares, and bethinking them how they are to buy this thing cheap, and to sell the other dear--is it before these you are ashamed, for these are the individual atoms out of which the Public a.s.sembly is composed? (7) And what is the difference, pray, between your behaviour and that of a man who, being the superior of trained athletes, quails before a set of amateurs? Is it not the case that you who can argue so readily with the foremost statesmen in the city, some of whom affect to look down upon you--you, with your vast superiority over practised popular debaters--are no sooner confronted with a set of folk who never in their lives gave politics a thought, and into whose heads certainly it never entered to look down upon you--than you are afraid to open your lips in mortal terror of being laughed at?

(6) Cf. Cic. "Tusc." v. 36, 104; Plat. "Gorg." 452 E, 454 B.

(7) Cf. Plat. "Protag." 319 C. See W. L. Newman, op. cit. i. 103.

Well, but you would admit (he answered) that sound argument does frequently bring down the ridicule of the Popular a.s.sembly.

Soc. Which is equally true of the others. (8) And that is just what rouses my astonishment, that you who can cope so easily with these lordly people (when guilty of ridicule) should persuade yourself that you cannot stand up against a set of commoners. (9) My good fellow, do not be ignorant of yourself! (10) do not fall into that commonest of errors--theirs who rush off to investigate the concerns of the rest of the world, and have no time to turn and examine themselves. Yet that is a duty which you must not in cowardly sort draw back from: rather must you brace ourself to give good heed to your own self; and as to public affairs, if by any manner of means they may be improved through you, do not neglect them. Success in the sphere of politics means that not only the ma.s.s of your fellow-citizens, but your personal friends and you yourself last but not least, will profit by your action.

(8) {oi eteroi}, i.e. "the foremost statesmen" mentioned before. Al.

"the opposite party," the "Tories," if one may so say, of the political clubs.

(9) Lit. "those... these."

(10) Ernesti aptly cf. Cic. "ad Quint." iii. 6. See below, III. ix. 6; IV. ii. 24.

VIII

Once when Aristippus (1) set himself to subject Socrates to a cross-examination, such as he had himself undergone at the hands of Socrates on a former occasion, (2) Socrates, being minded to benefit those who were with him, gave his answers less in the style of a debater guarding against perversions of his argument, than of a man persuaded of the supreme importance of right conduct. (3)

(1) For Aristippus see above, p. 38; for the connection, {boulomenos tous sunontas ophelein}, between this and the preceeding chapter, see above, Conspectus, p. xxvi.

(2) Possibly in reference to the conversation above. In reference to the present dialogue see Grote, "Plato," I. xi. p. 380 foll.

(3) For {prattein ta deonta} cf. below, III. ix. 4, 11; Plat. "Charm."

164 B; but see J. J. Hartman, "An. Xen." p. 141.

Aristippus asked him "if he knew of anything good," (4) intending in case he a.s.sented and named any particular good thing, like food or drink, or wealth, or health, or strength, or courage, to point out that the thing named was sometimes bad. But he, knowing that if a thing troubles us, we immediately want that which will put an end to our trouble, answered precisely as it was best to do. (5)

(4) See Grote, "Plato," ii. 585, on Philebus.

(5) Or, "made the happiest answer."

Soc. Do I understand you to ask me whether I know anything good for fever?

No (he replied), that is not my question.

Soc. Then for inflammation of the eyes?

Aristip. No, nor yet that.

Soc. Well then, for hunger?

Aristip. No, nor yet for hunger.

Well, but (answered Socrates) if you ask me whether I know of any good thing which is good for nothing, I neither know of it nor want to know.

And when Aristippus, returning to the charge, asked him "if he knew of any thing beautiful."

He answered: Yes, many things.

Aristip. Are they all like each other?

Soc. On the contrary, they are often as unlike as possible.

How then (he asked) can that be beautiful which is unlike the beautiful?

Soc. Bless me! for the simple reason that it is possible for a man who is a beautiful runner to be quite unlike another man who is a beautiful boxer, (6) or for a shield, which is a beautiful weapon for the purpose of defence, to be absolutely unlike a javelin, which is a beautiful weapon of swift and sure discharge.

(6) See Grote, "H. G." x. 164, in reference to Epaminondas and his gymnastic training; below, III. x. 6.

Aristip. Your answers are no better now than (7) when I asked you whether you knew any good thing. They are both of a pattern.

(7) Or, "You answer precisely as you did when..."

Soc. And so they should be. Do you imagine that one thing is good and another beautiful? Do not you know that relatively to the same standard all things are at once beautiful and good? (8) In the first place, virtue is not a good thing relatively to one standard and a beautiful thing relatively to another standard; and in the next place, human beings, on the same principle (9) and relatively to the same standard, are called "beautiful and good"; and so the bodily frames of men relatively to the same standards are seen to be "beautiful and good,"

and in general all things capable of being used by man are regarded as at once beautiful and good relatively to the same standard--the standing being in each case what the thing happens to be useful for. (10)

(8) Or, "good and beautiful are convertible terms: whatever is good is beautiful, or whatever is beautiful is good."

(9) Or, "in the same breath." Cf. Plat. "Hipp. maj." 295 D; "Gorg."

474 D.

(10) Or, "and this standard is the serviceableness of the thing in question."

Aristip. Then I presume even a basket for carrying dung (11) is a beautiful thing?

(11) Cf. Plat. "Hipp. maj." 288 D, 290 D; and Grote's note, loc. cit.

p. 381: "in regard to the question wherein consists {to kalon}?"