this, and some things with something else, or do you know all things with
this?
All that I know, I replied, I know with this.
There again, Socrates, he said, the addition is superfluous.
Well, then, I said, I will take away the words 'that I know.'
Nay, take nothing away; I desire no favours of you; but let me ask: Would
you be able to know all things, if you did not know all things?
Quite impossible.
And now, he said, you may add on whatever you like, for you confess that
you know all things.
I suppose that is true, I said, if my qualification implied in the words
'that I know' is not allowed to stand; and so I do know all things.
And have you not admitted that you always know all things with that which
you know, whether you make the addition of 'when you know them' or not? for
you have acknowledged that you have always and at once known all things,
that is to say, when you were a child, and at your birth, and when you were
growing up, and before you were born, and before the heaven and earth
existed, you knew all things, if you always know them; and I swear that you
shall always continue to know all things, if I am of the mind to make you.
But I hope that you will be of that mind, reverend Euthydemus, I said, if
you are really speaking the truth, and yet I a little doubt your power to
make good your words unless you have the help of your brother Dionysodorus;
then you may do it. Tell me now, both of you, for although in the main I
cannot doubt that I really do know all things, when I am told so by men of
your prodigious wisdom--how can I say that I know such things, Euthydemus,
as that the good are unjust; come, do I know that or not?
Certainly, you know that.
What do I know?
That the good are not unjust.
Quite true, I said; and that I have always known; but the question is,
where did I learn that the good are unjust?
Nowhere, said Dionysodorus.
Then, I said, I do not know this.
You are ruining the argument, said Euthydemus to Dionysodorus; he will be
proved not to know, and then after all he will be knowing and not knowing
at the same time.
Dionysodorus blushed.
I turned to the other, and said, What do you think, Euthydemus? Does not
your omniscient brother appear to you to have made a mistake?
What, replied Dionysodorus in a moment; am I the brother of Euthydemus?
Thereupon I said, Please not to interrupt, my good friend, or prevent
Euthydemus from proving to me that I know the good to be unjust; such a
lesson you might at least allow me to learn.
You are running away, Socrates, said Dionysodorus, and refusing to answer.
No wonder, I said, for I am not a match for one of you, and a fortiori I
must run away from two. I am no Heracles; and even Heracles could not
fight against the Hydra, who was a she-Sophist, and had the wit to shoot up
many new heads when one of them was cut off; especially when he saw a
second monster of a sea-crab, who was also a Sophist, and appeared to have
newly arrived from a sea-voyage, bearing down upon him from the left,
opening his mouth and biting. When the monster was growing troublesome he
called Iolaus, his nephew, to his help, who ably succoured him; but if my
Iolaus, who is my brother Patrocles (the statuary), were to come, he would
only make a bad business worse.
And now that you have delivered yourself of this strain, said Dionysodorus,
will you inform me whether Iolaus was the nephew of Heracles any more than
he is yours?
I suppose that I had best answer you, Dionysodorus, I said, for you will
insist on asking--that I pretty well know--out of envy, in order to prevent
me from learning the wisdom of Euthydemus.
Then answer me, he said.
Well then, I said, I can only reply that Iolaus was not my nephew at all,
but the nephew of Heracles; and his father was not my brother Patrocles,
but Iphicles, who has a name rather like his, and was the brother of
Heracles.
And is Patrocles, he said, your brother?
Yes, I said, he is my half-brother, the son of my mother, but not of my
father.
Then he is and is not your brother.
Not by the same father, my good man, I said, for Chaeredemus was his
father, and mine was Sophroniscus.
And was Sophroniscus a father, and Chaeredemus also?
Yes, I said; the former was my father, and the latter his.
Then, he said, Chaeredemus is not a father.
He is not my father, I said.
But can a father be other than a father? or are you the same as a stone?
I certainly do not think that I am a stone, I said, though I am afraid that
you may prove me to be one.
Are you not other than a stone?
I am.
And being other than a stone, you are not a stone; and being other than
gold, you are not gold?
Very true.
And so Chaeredemus, he said, being other than a father, is not a father?
I suppose that he is not a father, I replied.
For if, said Euthydemus, taking up the argument, Chaeredemus is a father,
then Sophroniscus, being other than a father, is not a father; and you,
Socrates, are without a father.
Ctesippus, here taking up the argument, said: And is not your father in
the same case, for he is other than my father?
Assuredly not, said Euthydemus.
Then he is the same?
He is the same.
I cannot say that I like the connection; but is he only my father,
Euthydemus, or is he the father of all other men?
Of all other men, he replied. Do you suppose the same person to be a
father and not a father?
Certainly, I did so imagine, said Ctesippus.
And do you suppose that gold is not gold, or that a man is not a man?
They are not 'in pari materia,' Euthydemus, said Ctesippus, and you had
better take care, for it is monstrous to suppose that your father is the
father of all.
But he is, he replied.
What, of men only, said Ctesippus, or of horses and of all other animals?
Of all, he said.
And your mother, too, is the mother of all?
Yes, our mother too.
Yes; and your mother has a progeny of sea-urchins then?
Yes; and yours, he said.
And gudgeons and puppies and pigs are your brothers?
And yours too.
And your papa is a dog?
And so is yours, he said.
If you will answer my questions, said Dionysodorus, I will soon extract the
same admissions from you, Ctesippus. You say that you have a dog.
Yes, a villain of a one, said Ctesippus.
And he has puppies?
Yes, and they are very like himself.
And the dog is the father of them?
Yes, he said, I certainly saw him and the mother of the puppies come
together.
And is he not yours?
To be sure he is.
Then he is a father, and he is yours; ergo, he is your father, and the
puppies are your brothers.
Let me ask you one little question more, said Dionysodorus, quickly
interposing, in order that Ctesippus might not get in his word: You beat
this dog?
Ctesippus said, laughing, Indeed I do; and I only wish that I could beat
you instead of him.
Then you beat your father, he said.
I should have far more reason to beat yours, said Ctesippus; what could he
have been thinking of when he begat such wise sons? much good has this
father of you and your brethren the puppies got out of this wisdom of
yours.
But neither he nor you, Ctesippus, have any need of much good.
And have you no need, Euthydemus? he said.
Neither I nor any other man; for tell me now, Ctesippus, if you think it
good or evil for a man who is sick to drink medicine when he wants it; or
to go to war armed rather than unarmed.
Good, I say. And yet I know that I am going to be caught in one of your
charming puzzles.
That, he replied, you will discover, if you answer; since you admit
medicine to be good for a man to drink, when wanted, must it not be good
for him to drink as much as possible; when he takes his medicine, a
cartload of hellebore will not be too much for him?
Ctesippus said: Quite so, Euthydemus, that is to say, if he who drinks is
as big as the statue of Delphi.
And seeing that in war to have arms is a good thing, he ought to have as
many spears and shields as possible?
Very true, said Ctesippus; and do you think, Euthydemus, that he ought to
have one shield only, and one spear?
I do.
And would you arm Geryon and Briareus in that way? Considering that you
and your companion fight in armour, I thought that you would have known
better...Here Euthydemus held his peace, but Dionysodorus returned to the
previous answer of Ctesippus and said:--
Do you not think that the possession of gold is a good thing?
Yes, said Ctesippus, and the more the better.
And to have money everywhere and always is a good?
Certainly, a great good, he said.
And you admit gold to be a good?
Certainly, he replied.
And ought not a man then to have gold everywhere and always, and as much as
possible in himself, and may he not be deemed the happiest of men who has
three talents of gold in his belly, and a talent in his pate, and a stater
of gold in either eye?
Yes, Euthydemus, said Ctesippus; and the Scythians reckon those who have
gold in their own skulls to be the happiest and bravest of men (that is
only another instance of your manner of speaking about the dog and father),
and what is still more extraordinary, they drink out of their own skulls
gilt, and see the inside of them, and hold their own head in their hands.
And do the Scythians and others see that which has the quality of vision,
or that which has not? said Euthydemus.
That which has the quality of vision clearly.
And you also see that which has the quality of vision? he said. (Note:
the ambiguity of (Greek), 'things visible and able to see,' (Greek), 'the
speaking of the silent,' the silent denoting either the speaker or the
subject of the speech, cannot be perfectly rendered in English. Compare
Aristot. Soph. Elenchi (Poste's translation):--
'Of ambiguous propositions the following are instances:--
'I hope that you the enemy may slay.
'Whom one knows, he knows. Either the person knowing or the person known
is here affirmed to know.
'What one sees, that one sees: one sees a pillar: ergo, that one pillar
sees.
'What you ARE holding, that you are: you are holding a stone: ergo, a
stone you are.
'Is a speaking of the silent possible? "The silent" denotes either the
speaker are the subject of speech.
'There are three kinds of ambiguity of term or proposition. The first is
when there is an equal linguistic propriety in several interpretations; the
second when one is improper but customary; the third when the ambiguity
arises in the combination of elements that are in themselves unambiguous,
as in "knowing letters." "Knowing" and "letters" are perhaps separately
unambiguous, but in combination may imply either that the letters are
known, or that they themselves have knowledge. Such are the modes in which
propositions and terms may be ambiguous.'
Yes, I do.
Then do you see our garments?
Yes.
Then our garments have the quality of vision.
They can see to any extent, said Ctesippus.
What can they see?
Nothing; but you, my sweet man, may perhaps imagine that they do not see;
and certainly, Euthydemus, you do seem to me to have been caught napping
when you were not asleep, and that if it be possible to speak and say
nothing--you are doing so.
And may there not be a silence of the speaker? said Dionysodorus.
Impossible, said Ctesippus.
Or a speaking of the silent?
That is still more impossible, he said.
But when you speak of stones, wood, iron bars, do you not speak of the
silent?
Not when I pass a smithy; for then the iron bars make a tremendous noise
and outcry if they are touched: so that here your wisdom is strangely
mistaken; please, however, to tell me how you can be silent when speaking
(I thought that Ctesippus was put upon his mettle because Cleinias was
present).
When you are silent, said Euthydemus, is there not a silence of all things?
Yes, he said.
But if speaking things are included in all things, then the speaking are
silent.
What, said Ctesippus; then all things are not silent?
Certainly not, said Euthydemus.
Then, my good friend, do they all speak?
Yes; those which speak.
Nay, said Ctesippus, but the question which I ask is whether all things are
silent or speak?
Neither and both, said Dionysodorus, quickly interposing; I am sure that
you will be 'non-plussed' at that answer.
Here Ctesippus, as his manner was, burst into a roar of laughter; he said,
That brother of yours, Euthydemus, has got into a dilemma; all is over with
him. This delighted Cleinias, whose laughter made Ctesippus ten times as
uproarious; but I cannot help thinking that the rogue must have picked up
this answer from them; for there has been no wisdom like theirs in our
time. Why do you laugh, Cleinias, I said, at such solemn and beautiful
things?
Why, Socrates, said Dionysodorus, did you ever see a beautiful thing?
Yes, Dionysodorus, I replied, I have seen many.
Were they other than the beautiful, or the same as the beautiful?
Now I was in a great quandary at having to answer this question, and I
thought that I was rightly served for having opened my mouth at all: I
said however, They are not the same as absolute beauty, but they have
beauty present with each of them.
And are you an ox because an ox is present with you, or are you
Dionysodorus, because Dionysodorus is present with you?
God forbid, I replied.
But how, he said, by reason of one thing being present with another, will
one thing be another?
Is that your difficulty? I said. For I was beginning to imitate their
skill, on which my heart was set.
Of course, he replied, I and all the world are in a difficulty about the
non-existent.
What do you mean, Dionysodorus? I said. Is not the honourable honourable
and the base base?
That, he said, is as I please.
And do you please?
Yes, he said.
And you will admit that the same is the same, and the other other; for
surely the other is not the same; I should imagine that even a child will
