Part 50

Pol. What? shall I not be allowed to speak as much as I please?

Socr. You would indeed be very badly treated, my excellent friend, if, having come to Athens, where of all Greece there is the greatest liberty of speech, you alone should here be deprived of this liberty. But set this against it: if you speak in a prolix manner, and will not answer a question put to you, should not I be badly treated, if I am not allowed to go away and not listen to you? But if you feel any interest in the discussion that has taken place, and wish to correct it, as I just now said, retract whatever you please, and questioning and being questioned in turn, as Gorgias and I did, confute and be confuted. For you profess, surely, to know the same things as Gorgias; is it not so?

Pol. I do.

Socr. Will not you, then, also bid any one ask you what question he pleases, as knowing how to answer him.

Pol. Assuredly.

Socr. Then do whichever of these you please, ask or answer.

40. Pol. I will do so; and do you answer me, Socrates. Since Gorgias appears to you to be in doubt respecting rhetoric, what do you say it is?

Socr. Do you ask me what kind of art I say it is?

Pol. I do.

Socr. To tell you the truth, Polus, it does not appear to me to be an art at all.

Pol. What, then, does rhetoric appear to you to be?

Socr. A thing which you say produced art, in the treatise which I lately read.

Pol. What do you say this is?

Socr. A certain skill.

Pol. Does rhetoric, then, appear to you to be skill?

Socr. To me it does, unless you say otherwise.

Pol. Of what is it the skill?

Socr. Of procuring a certain gratification and pleasure.

Pol. Does not rhetoric, then, appear to you to be a beautiful thing, since it is able to gratify mankind?

Socr. What, Polus? Have you already heard from me what I say it is, that you afterwards ask me, if it does not appear to me to be beautiful?

Pol. Did I not hear you say that it is a certain skill?

Socr. Since, then, you prize giving pleasure, are you willing to give me a little pleasure?

Pol. I am.

41. Socr. Ask me, then, what kind of art cookery appears to me to be.

Pol. I do ask you; what kind of an art is cookery?

Socr. None at all, Polus.

Pol. What is it? say.

Socr. I say, then, it is a certain skill.