n knew the just and the honourable and the good, and
admitted that to any one who came to him ignorant of them he could teach
them, and then out of this admission there arose a contradiction--the
thing which you dearly love, and to which not he, but you, brought the
argument by your captious questions--(do you seriously believe that
there is any truth in all this?) For will any one ever acknowledge that
he does not know, or cannot teach, the nature of justice? The truth is,
that there is great want of manners in bringing the argument to such a
pass.

SOCRATES: Illustrious Polus, the reason why we provide ourselves with
friends and children is, that when we get old and stumble, a younger
generation may be at hand to set us on our legs again in our words and
in our actions: and now, if I and Gorgias are stumbling, here are you
who should raise us up; and I for my part engage to retract any error
into which you may think that I have fallen-upon one condition:

POLUS: What condition?

SOCRATES: That you contract, Polus, the prolixity of speech in which you
indulged at first.

POLUS: What! do you mean that I may not use as many words as I please?

SOCRATES: Only to think, my friend, that having come on a visit to
Athens, which is the most free-spoken state in Hellas, you when you got
there, and you alone, should be deprived of the power of speech--that
would be hard indeed. But then consider my case:--shall not I be very
hardly used, if, when you are making a long oration, and refusing to
answer what you are asked, I am compelled to stay and listen to you,
and may not go away? I say rather, if you have a real interest in the
argument, or, to repeat my former expression, have any desire to set it
on its legs, take back any statement which you please; and in your turn
ask and answer, like myself and Gorgias--refute and be refuted: for I
suppose that you would claim to know what Gorgias knows--would you not?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And you, like him, invite any one to ask you about anything
which he pleases, and you will know how to answer him?

POLUS: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And now, which will you do, ask or answer?

POLUS: I will ask; and do you answer me, Socrates, the same question
which Gorgias, as you suppose, is unable to answer: What is rhetoric?

SOCRATES: Do you mean what sort of an art?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: To say the truth, Polus, it is not an art at all, in my
opinion.

POLUS: Then what, in you