Platos Gorgias
CALLICLES: You do not convince me, Socrates, for the pass your life in scratching, in your notion of happiness?
one who has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left; and this, as I was just now saying, is the life of a stone: he CALLICLES: What a strange being you are, Socrates! a has neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled; but the regular mob-orator.
pleasure depends on the superabundance of the influx.
SOCRATES: That was the reason, Callicles, why I scared SOCRATES: But the more you pour in, the greater the Polus and Gorgias, until they were too modest to say what waste; and the holes must be large for the liquid to escape.
they thought; but you will not be too modest and will not be scared, for you are a brave man. And now, answer my CALLICLES: Certainly.
question.
SOCRATES: The life which you are now depicting is not CALLICLES: I answer, that even the scratcher would live that of a dead man, or of a stone, but of a cormorant; you pleasantly.
mean that he is to be hungering and eating?
SOCRATES: And if pleasantly, then also happily?
CALLICLES: Yes.
CALLICLES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And he is to be thirsting and drinking?
SOCRATES: But what if the itching is not confined to CALLICLES: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his the head? Shall I pursue the question? And here, Callicles, desires about him, and to be able to live happily in the grati-I would have you consider how you would reply if conse-fication of them.
quences are pressed upon you, especially if in the last re-sort you are asked, whether the life of a catamite is not SOCRATES: Capital, excellent; go on as you have begun, terrible, foul, miserable? Or would you venture to say, and have no shame; I, too, must disencumber myself of that they too are happy, if they only get enough of what shame: and first, will you tell me whether you include itch-they want?
ing and scratching, provided you have enough of them and 114
Platos Gorgias
CALLICLES: Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introduc-CALLICLES: That, Socrates, is only your opinion.
ing such topics into the argument?
SOCRATES: And do you, Callicles, seriously maintain what SOCRATES: Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer you are saying?
of these topics, or he who says without any qualification that all who feel pleasure in whatever manner are happy, CALLICLES: Indeed I do.
and who admits of no distinction between good and bad pleasures? And I would still ask, whether you say that plea-SOCRATES: Then, as you are in earnest, shall we pro-sure and good are the same, or whether there is some plea-ceed with the argument?
sure which is not a good?
CALLICLES: By all means. (Or, I am in profound ear-CALLICLES: Well, then, for the sake of consistency, I nest.)
will say that they are the same.
SOCRATES: Well, if you are willing to proceed, deter-SOCRATES: You are breaking the original agreement, mine this question for me:There is something, I presume, Callicles, and will no longer be a satisfactory companion in which you would call knowledge?
the search after truth, if you say what is contrary to your real opinion.
CALLICLES: There is.
CALLICLES: Why, that is what you are doing too, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And were you not saying just now, that some courage implied knowledge?
SOCRATES: Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend, I would ask you to consider whether pleasure, from CALLICLES: I was.
whatever source derived, is the good; for, if this be true, then the disagreeable consequences which have been darkly SOCRATES: And you were speaking of courage and knowl-intimated must follow, and many others.
edge as two things different from one another?