out, and now that you have begun
to speak again, I am still more amazed. Whether I think all this or not,
is a matter about which you seem to have already made up your mind, and
therefore my denial will have no effect upon you. But granting, if
I must, that you have perfectly divined my purposes, why is your
assistance necessary to the attainment of them? Can you tell me why?

SOCRATES: You want to know whether I can make a long speech, such as you
are in the habit of hearing; but that is not my way. I think, however,
that I can prove to you the truth of what I am saying, if you will grant
me one little favour.

ALCIBIADES: Yes, if the favour which you mean be not a troublesome one.

SOCRATES: Will you be troubled at having questions to answer?

ALCIBIADES: Not at all.

SOCRATES: Then please to answer.

ALCIBIADES: Ask me.

SOCRATES: Have you not the intention which I attribute to you?

ALCIBIADES: I will grant anything you like, in the hope of hearing what
more you have to say.

SOCRATES: You do, then, mean, as I was saying, to come forward in
a little while in the character of an adviser of the Athenians? And
suppose that when you are ascending the bema, I pull you by the sleeve
and say, Alcibiades, you are getting up to advise the Athenians--do you
know the matter about which they are going to deliberate, better than
they?--How would you answer?

ALCIBIADES: I should reply, that I was going to advise them about a
matter which I do know better than they.

SOCRATES: Then you are a good adviser about the things which you know?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And do you know anything but what you have learned of others,
or found out yourself?

ALCIBIADES: That is all.

SOCRATES: And would you have ever learned or discovered anything, if you
had not been willing either to learn of others or to examine yourself?

ALCIBIADES: I should not.

SOCRATES: And would you have been willing to learn or to examine what
you supposed that you knew?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then there was a time when you thought that you did not know
what you are now supposed to know?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: I think that I know tolerably well the extent of your
acquirements; and you must tell me if I forget any of them: according
to my recollection, you learned the arts of writing, of playing on the
lyre, and of wrestling; the flute you never would learn; this is the sum
of your accomplishments, un