son of one thing being present with another,
will one thing be another?

Is that your difficulty? I said. For I was beginning to imitate their
skill, on which my heart was set.

Of course, he replied, I and all the world are in a difficulty about the
non-existent.

What do you mean, Dionysodorus? I said. Is not the honourable honourable
and the base base?

That, he said, is as I please.

And do you please?

Yes, he said.

And you will admit that the same is the same, and the other other; for
surely the other is not the same; I should imagine that even a child
will hardly deny the other to be other. But I think, Dionysodorus, that
you must have intentionally missed the last question; for in general you
and your brother seem to me to be good workmen in your own department,
and to do the dialectician's business excellently well.

What, said he, is the business of a good workman? tell me, in the first
place, whose business is hammering?

The smith's.

And whose the making of pots?

The potter's.

And who has to kill and skin and mince and boil and roast?

The cook, I said.

And if a man does his business he does rightly?

Certainly.

And the business of the cook is to cut up and skin; you have admitted
that?

Yes, I have admitted that, but you must not be too hard upon me.

Then if some one were to kill, mince, boil, roast the cook, he would do
his business, and if he were to hammer the smith, and make a pot of the
potter, he would do their business.

Poseidon, I said, this is the crown of wisdom; can I ever hope to have
such wisdom of my own?

And would you be able, Socrates, to recognize this wisdom when it has
become your own?

Certainly, I said, if you will allow me.

What, he said, do you think that you know what is your own?

Yes, I do, subject to your correction; for you are the bottom, and
Euthydemus is the top, of all my wisdom.

Is not that which you would deem your own, he said, that which you have
in your own power, and which you are able to use as you would desire,
for example, an ox or a sheep--would you not think that which you could
sell and give and sacrifice to any god whom you pleased, to be your own,
and that which you could not give or sell or sacrifice you would think
not to be in your own power?

Yes, I said (for I was certain that something good would come out of the
questions, which I was impatient to hear); yes, such things, and such
things only are mine.

Yes,