not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the
body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily
delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras, that word
with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far
and wide: 'Chaos' would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine
would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have told you my
notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is
to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when
I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think that I may be
excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of
my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into an
explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use of yours, I
hope that you will speak at equal length; but if I am able to understand
you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair: And now
you may do what you please with my answer.

POLUS: What do you mean? do you think that rhetoric is flattery?

SOCRATES: Nay, I said a part of flattery; if at your age, Polus, you
cannot remember, what will you do by-and-by, when you get older?

POLUS: And are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under
the idea that they are flatterers?

SOCRATES: Is that a question or the beginning of a speech?

POLUS: I am asking a question.

SOCRATES: Then my answer is, that they are not regarded at all.

POLUS: How not regarded? Have they not very great power in states?

SOCRATES: Not if you mean to say that power is a good to the possessor.

POLUS: And that is what I do mean to say.

SOCRATES: Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the
citizens.

POLUS: What! are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile
any one whom they please.

SOCRATES: By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance
of yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a
question of me.

POLUS: I am asking a question of you.

SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once.

POLUS: How two questions?

SOCRATES: Why, did you not say just now that the rhetoricians are like
tyrants, and that they kill and despoil or exile any one whom they
please?

POLUS: I did.

SOCRATES: Well then, I say to you that here are two questions in one,
and I will answer both of them. And I tell you, Polus, that rhet