Dialogues

is this notion true of one soul, or of two or more? Callicles Equally true of two or more. Socrates Then a man may delight a whole assembly, and yet have no regard for their true interests? Callicles Yes. Socrates Can you tell me the pursuits which delight mankind⁠—or rather, if you would prefer, let me ask, and do you answer, which of them belong to the pleasurable class, and which of them not? In the first place, what say you of flute-playing? Does not that appear to be an art which seeks only pleasure, Callicles, and thinks of nothing else? Callicles I assent. Socrates And is not the same true of all similar arts, as, for example, the art of playing the lyre at festivals? Callicles Yes. Socrates And what do you say of the choral art and of dithyrambic poetry?⁠—are not they of the same nature? Do you imagine that Cinesias the son of Meles cares about what will tend to the moral improvement of his hearers, or about what will give pleasure to the multitude? Callicles There can be no mistake about Cinesias, Socrates. Socrates And what do you say of his father, Meles the harp-player? Did he perform with any view to the good of his hearers? Could he be said to regard even their pleasure? For his singing was an infliction to his audience. And of harp-playing and dithyrambic poetry in general, what would you say? Have they not been invented wholly for the sake of pleasure? Callicles That is my notion of them. Socrates And as for the Muse of Tragedy, that solemn and august personage⁠—what are her aspirations? Is all her aim and desire only to give pleasure to the spectators, or does she fight against them and refuse to speak of their pleasant vices, and willingly proclaim in word and song truths welcome and unwelcome?⁠—which in your judgment is her character? Callicles There can be no doubt, Socrates, that Tragedy has her face turned towards pleasure and the gratification of the audience. Socrates And is not that the sort of thing, Callicles, which we were just now describing as flattery? Callicles Quite true. Socrates Well now, suppose that we strip all poetry of song and rhythm and metre, there will remain speech?127 Callicles To be sure. Socrates And this speech is addressed to a crowd of people? Callicles Yes. Socrates Then poetry is a sort of rhetoric? Callicles True. Socrates And do not the poets in the theatres seem to you to be rhetoricians? Callicles Yes. Socrates Then now we have discovered a sort of rhetoric which is addressed to a crowd of men, women, and children, freemen and slaves. And this is not much to our taste, for we have described it as having the nature of flattery. Callicles Quite true. Socrates Very good. And what do you say of that other rhetoric which addresses the Athenian assembly and the assemblies of freemen in other states? Do the rhetoricians appear to you always to aim at what is best, and do they seek to improve the citizens by their speeches, or are they too, like the rest of mankind, bent upon giving them pleasure, forgetting the public good in the thought of their own interest, playing with the people as with children, and trying to amuse them, but never considering whether they are better or worse for this? Callicles I must distinguish. There are some who have a real care of the public in what they say, while others are such as you describe. Socrates I am contented with the admission that rhetoric is of two sorts; one, which is mere flattery and disgraceful declamation; the other, which is noble and aims at the training and improvement of the souls of the citizens, and strives to say what is best, whether welcome or unwelcome, to the audience; but have you ever known such a rhetoric; or if you have, and can point out any rhetorician who is of this stamp, who is he? Callicles But, indeed, I am afraid that I cannot tell you of any such among the orators who are at present living. Socrates Well, then, can you mention anyone of a former generation, who may be said to have improved the Athenians, who found them worse and made them better, from the day that he began to make speeches? for, indeed, I do not know of such a man. Callicles What! did you never hear that Themistocles was a good man, and Cimon and Miltiades and Pericles, who is just lately dead, and whom you heard yourself? Socrates Yes, Callicles, they were good men, if, as you said at first, true virtue consists only in the satisfaction of our own desires and those of others; but if not, and if, as we were afterwards compelled to acknowledge, the satisfaction of some desires makes us better, and of others, worse, and we ought to gratify the one and not the other, and there is an art in distinguishing them⁠—can you tell me of any of these statesmen who did distinguish them? Callicles No, indeed, I cannot. Socrates Yet, surely, Callicles, if you look you will find such a one. Suppose that we just calmly consider whether any of these was such as I have described. Will not the good man, who says whatever he says with a view to the best, speak with a reference to some standard and not at random; just as all other artists, whether the painter, the builder, the shipwright, or any other look all of them to their own work, and do not select and apply at random what they apply, but strive to give a definite form to it? The artist disposes all things in order, and compels the one part to harmonize and accord with the other part, until he has constructed a regular and systematic whole; and this is true of all artists, and in the same way the trainers and physicians, of whom we spoke before, give order and regularity to the body: do you deny this? Callicles No; I am ready to admit it. Socrates Then the house in