n talk eloquently? The player on the lyre may be supposed to make a
man talk eloquently about that which he makes him understand, that is
about playing the lyre. Is not that true?

Yes.

Then about what does the Sophist make him eloquent? Must not he make him
eloquent in that which he understands?

Yes, that may be assumed.

And what is that which the Sophist knows and makes his disciple know?

Indeed, he said, I cannot tell.

Then I proceeded to say: Well, but are you aware of the danger which you
are incurring? If you were going to commit your body to some one, who
might do good or harm to it, would you not carefully consider and ask
the opinion of your friends and kindred, and deliberate many days as to
whether you should give him the care of your body? But when the soul is
in question, which you hold to be of far more value than the body,
and upon the good or evil of which depends the well-being of your
all,--about this you never consulted either with your father or with
your brother or with any one of us who are your companions. But no
sooner does this foreigner appear, than you instantly commit your soul
to his keeping. In the evening, as you say, you hear of him, and in the
morning you go to him, never deliberating or taking the opinion of any
one as to whether you ought to intrust yourself to him or not;--you
have quite made up your mind that you will at all hazards be a pupil of
Protagoras, and are prepared to expend all the property of yourself
and of your friends in carrying out at any price this determination,
although, as you admit, you do not know him, and have never spoken with
him: and you call him a Sophist, but are manifestly ignorant of what a
Sophist is; and yet you are going to commit yourself to his keeping.

When he heard me say this, he replied: No other inference, Socrates, can
be drawn from your words.

I proceeded: Is not a Sophist, Hippocrates, one who deals wholesale or
retail in the food of the soul? To me that appears to be his nature.

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul?

Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul; and we must take
care, my friend, that the Sophist does not deceive us when he praises
what he sells, like the dealers wholesale or retail who sell the food
of the body; for they praise indiscriminately all their goods, without
knowing what are really beneficial or hurtful: neither do their
customers know, with the exception of any trainer or physicia