stately muse of
Tragedy is bent upon pleasure, and not upon improvement. Poetry in
general is only a rhetorical address to a mixed audience of men, women,
and children. And the orators are very far from speaking with a view
to what is best; their way is to humour the assembly as if they were
children.

Callicles replies, that this is only true of some of them; others have
a real regard for their fellow-citizens. Granted; then there are two
species of oratory; the one a flattery, another which has a real regard
for the citizens. But where are the orators among whom you find the
latter? Callicles admits that there are none remaining, but there were
such in the days when Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades, and the great
Pericles were still alive. Socrates replies that none of these were true
artists, setting before themselves the duty of bringing order out of
disorder. The good man and true orator has a settled design, running
through his life, to which he conforms all his words and actions; he
desires to implant justice and eradicate injustice, to implant all
virtue and eradicate all vice in the minds of his citizens. He is the
physician who will not allow the sick man to indulge his appetites
with a variety of meats and drinks, but insists on his exercising
self-restraint. And this is good for the soul, and better than the
unrestrained indulgence which Callicles was recently approving.

Here Callicles, who had been with difficulty brought to this point,
turns restive, and suggests that Socrates shall answer his own
questions. 'Then,' says Socrates, 'one man must do for two;' and though
he had hoped to have given Callicles an 'Amphion' in return for his
'Zethus,' he is willing to proceed; at the same time, he hopes that
Callicles will correct him, if he falls into error. He recapitulates the
advantages which he has already won:--

The pleasant is not the same as the good--Callicles and I are agreed
about that,--but pleasure is to be pursued for the sake of the good, and
the good is that of which the presence makes us good; we and all things
good have acquired some virtue or other. And virtue, whether of body or
soul, of things or persons, is not attained by accident, but is due to
order and harmonious arrangement. And the soul which has order is better
than the soul which is without order, and is therefore temperate and is
therefore good, and the intemperate is bad. And he who is temperate
is also just and brave and pious,