ys continue to know all things, if I am
of the mind to make you.

But I hope that you will be of that mind, reverend Euthydemus, I said,
if you are really speaking the truth, and yet I a little doubt your
power to make good your words unless you have the help of your brother
Dionysodorus; then you may do it. Tell me now, both of you, for although
in the main I cannot doubt that I really do know all things, when I am
told so by men of your prodigious wisdom--how can I say that I know such
things, Euthydemus, as that the good are unjust; come, do I know that or
not?

Certainly, you know that.

What do I know?

That the good are not unjust.

Quite true, I said; and that I have always known; but the question is,
where did I learn that the good are unjust?

Nowhere, said Dionysodorus.

Then, I said, I do not know this.

You are ruining the argument, said Euthydemus to Dionysodorus; he will
be proved not to know, and then after all he will be knowing and not
knowing at the same time.

Dionysodorus blushed.

I turned to the other, and said, What do you think, Euthydemus? Does not
your omniscient brother appear to you to have made a mistake?

What, replied Dionysodorus in a moment; am I the brother of Euthydemus?

Thereupon I said, Please not to interrupt, my good friend, or prevent
Euthydemus from proving to me that I know the good to be unjust; such a
lesson you might at least allow me to learn.

You are running away, Socrates, said Dionysodorus, and refusing to
answer.

No wonder, I said, for I am not a match for one of you, and a fortiori
I must run away from two. I am no Heracles; and even Heracles could not
fight against the Hydra, who was a she-Sophist, and had the wit to shoot
up many new heads when one of them was cut off; especially when he saw
a second monster of a sea-crab, who was also a Sophist, and appeared
to have newly arrived from a sea-voyage, bearing down upon him from
the left, opening his mouth and biting. When the monster was growing
troublesome he called Iolaus, his nephew, to his help, who ably
succoured him; but if my Iolaus, who is my brother Patrocles (the
statuary), were to come, he would only make a bad business worse.

And now that you have delivered yourself of this strain, said
Dionysodorus, will you inform me whether Iolaus was the nephew of
Heracles any more than he is yours?

I suppose that I had best answer you, Dionysodorus, I said, for you
will insist on asking--that