Complete Works (203 page)
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: In a race, then, and in running, quickness is a good thing, and slowness, bad?
H
IPPIAS
: What else would it be?
S
OCRATES
: Which one is the better runner, then: the one who runs slowly voluntarily, or the one who does so involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: The one who does so voluntarily.
S
OCRATES
: And isn’t running doing something?
H
IPPIAS
: Doing something, of course.
S
OCRATES
: If doing, doesn’t it also accomplish something?
[e] H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: So one who runs badly accomplishes something bad and shameful in a race?
H
IPPIAS
: Bad; how else?
S
OCRATES
: One who runs slowly runs badly?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: So the good runner voluntarily accomplishes this bad and shameful thing, and the bad runner, involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: So it seems, at least.
S
OCRATES
: In a race, then, one who accomplishes bad things involuntarily is more worthless than one who does them voluntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: In a race, at least.
[374]
S
OCRATES
: What about in wrestling? Which is the better wrestler, one who falls down voluntarily, or involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: One who does so voluntarily, it seems.
S
OCRATES
: Is it more worthless and shameful in wrestling to fall down or to knock down the opponent?
H
IPPIAS
: To fall down.
S
OCRATES
: So also in wrestling, one who voluntarily has worthless and shameful accomplishments is a better wrestler than one who has them involuntarily.
H
IPPIAS
: So it seems.
S
OCRATES
: What about in other physical activities? Isn’t the physically better person able to accomplish both sorts of things: the strong
and
the [b] weak, the shameful
and
the fine? So whenever he accomplishes worthless physical results, the one who is physically better does them voluntarily, whereas the one who is worse does them involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: That how it seems to be in matters of strength, also.
S
OCRATES
: What about gracefulness, Hippias? Doesn’t the better body strike shameful and worthless poses voluntarily, and the worse body involuntarily? What do you think?
H
IPPIAS
: That’s right.
S
OCRATES
: So awkwardness, when voluntary, counts toward virtue, but [c] when involuntary, toward worthlessness.
H
IPPIAS
: Apparently.
S
OCRATES
: What do you say about the voice? Which do you say is better, one that sings out of tune voluntarily, or involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: One that does so voluntarily.
S
OCRATES
: And the one that does so involuntarily is in a worse condition?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Would you prefer to possess good or bad things?
H
IPPIAS
: Good.
S
OCRATES
: Then would you prefer to possess feet that limp voluntarily, or involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: Voluntarily. [d]
S
OCRATES
: But doesn’t having a limp mean having worthless and awkward feet?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Well, again; doesn’t dullness of sight mean having worthless eyes?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Which sort of eyes, then, would you wish to possess and live with: those with which you would see dully and incorrectly voluntarily, or involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: Those with which one would do so voluntarily.
S
OCRATES
: So you regard organs that voluntarily accomplish worthless results as better than those that do so involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes, in these sorts of cases.
S
OCRATES
: So then one statement embraces them all, ears, nose, mouth [e] and all the senses: those that involuntarily accomplish bad results aren’t worth having because they’re worthless, whereas those that do so voluntarily are worth having because they’re good.
H
IPPIAS
: I think so.
S
OCRATES
: Well, then. Which tools are better to work with? Those with which one accomplishes bad results voluntarily, or involuntarily? For example, is a rudder with which one will involuntarily steer badly better, or one with which one will do so voluntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: One with which one will do so voluntarily.
S
OCRATES
: Isn’t it the same with a bow, a lyre, flutes, and all the rest?
[375]
H
IPPIAS
: What you say is true.
S
OCRATES
: Well, then. Is it better to possess a horse with such a soul that one could ride it badly voluntarily, or involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: Voluntarily.
S
OCRATES
: So that’s a better one.
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: With the better horse’s soul, then, one would voluntarily do the worthless acts of this soul, but with the soul of the worthless mare one would do them involuntarily.
H
IPPIAS
: Certainly.
S
OCRATES
: And so also with a dog and all other animals?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Well now, then. For an archer, is it better to possess a soul [b] which voluntarily misses the target, or one which does so involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: One which does so voluntarily.
S
OCRATES
: So this sort of soul is better also for archery?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: A soul which involuntarily misses the mark is more worthless than one which does so voluntarily.
H
IPPIAS
: In archery, anyway.
S
OCRATES
: How about in medicine? Isn’t one that voluntarily accomplishes bad things for the body better at medicine?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Then this sort of soul is better at this craft than the other.
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Well, then. As to the soul that plays the lyre and the flute better and does everything else better in the crafts and the sciences—doesn’t [c] it accomplish bad and shameful things and miss the mark voluntarily, whereas the more worthless does this involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: Apparently.
S
OCRATES
: And perhaps we would prefer to have slaves with souls that voluntarily miss the mark and act badly, rather than those which do so involuntarily, as being better at these things.
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Well, then. Would we not wish to possess our own soul in the best condition?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: So, will it be better if it acts badly and misses the mark [d] voluntarily or involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: But it would be terrible, Socrates, if those who commit injustice voluntarily are to be better than those who do it involuntarily!
S
OCRATES
: But nonetheless they appear to be, at least given what’s been said.
H
IPPIAS
: Not to me.
S
OCRATES
: But I thought, Hippias, that they appeared to be so to you, too. But answer again: isn’t justice either some sort of power or knowledge, or both? Or isn’t justice necessarily one of these things?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes. [e]
S
OCRATES
: So if justice is a power of the soul, isn’t the more powerful soul the more just? For, my excellent friend, it appeared to us, didn’t it, that one of this sort was better?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes, it did.
S
OCRATES
: And if it’s knowledge? Then isn’t the wiser soul more just and the more ignorant more unjust?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: And if it’s both? Then isn’t the soul which has both—knowledge and power—more just, and the more ignorant more unjust? Isn’t that necessarily so?
H
IPPIAS
: It appears so.
S
OCRATES
: This more powerful and wiser soul was seen to be better and to have more power to do both fine and shameful in everything it
[376]
accomplishes?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Whenever it accomplishes shameful results, then, it does so voluntarily, by power and craft, and these things appear to be attributes of justice, either both or one of them.
H
IPPIAS
: So it seems.
S
OCRATES
: And to do injustice is to do bad, whereas to refrain from injustice is to do something fine.
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: So the more powerful and better soul, when it does injustice, will do injustice voluntarily, and the worthless soul involuntarily?
H
IPPIAS
: Apparently.
[376b]
S
OCRATES
: And isn’t the good man the one who has a good soul, and the bad man the one who has a bad soul?
H
IPPIAS
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Therefore, it’s up to the good man to do injustice voluntarily, and the bad man to do it involuntarily; that is, if the good man has a good soul.
H
IPPIAS
: But surely he has.
S
OCRATES
: So the one who voluntarily misses the mark and does what is shameful and unjust, Hippias—that is, if there is such a person—would be no other than the good man.
H
IPPIAS
: I can’t agree with you in that, Socrates.
[c] S
OCRATES
: Nor I with myself, Hippias. But given the argument, we can’t help having it look that way to us, now, at any rate. However, as I said before, on these matters I waver back and forth and never believe the same thing. And it’s not surprising at all that I or any other ordinary person
should
waver. But if you wise men are going to do it, too—that means something terrible for us, if we can’t stop our wavering even after we’ve put ourselves in your company.
1
.
Iliad
ix.308–10, 12–14. The “Prayers” is the embassy scene in which Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax plead with Achilles to give up his anger and return to the fighting.
2
. Or rather, “one who says what is false,” whether or not their intent is to deceive. In what follows “liar” should be understood in that broad sense.
3
. The strigil was a tool used to scrape from the skin the residue of olive oil used to wash off perspiration and soil after athletic exercise.
4
.
Iliad
ix.357–63; the Earth-shaker is the god Posidon.
5
.
Iliad
i.169–71.
6
.
Iliad
ix.650–55.
7
. Reading
eu
ē
theias
in e1.
Translated by Paul Woodruff.
A ‘rhapsode’ is a professional reciter of the poetry of Homer and certain other prestigious early poets of Greece. In Athens the prize-winning rhapsode Ion from Ephesus (we do not know whether he is a historical personage or Plato’s invention) runs into Socrates, who expresses admiration for his profession and questions him about it. Theirs is a private conversation, apparently with no others present (as in
Euthyphro
). Ion professes not just to recite superbly Homer’s poetry (his specialty) but also to speak beautifully in his own right
about
Homer—in interpreting and explaining his poetry and its excellences. Socrates is more interested in this second aspect of Ion’s professional expertise than in the first. He wants to know whether Ion speaks about Homer ‘on the basis of knowledge or mastery’: is he the master of some body of knowledge, which he employs and expresses in speaking about Homer?
The chief interest of this short dialogue, apart from its comical portrayal of Ion’s enthusiasm for his own skills, lies in the way Socrates develops his own view—which Ion in the end blithely accepts!—that Ion speaks not from knowledge but from inspiration, his thoughts being ‘breathed into’ him without the use of his own understanding at all. Using the analogy of a magnet, with the power to draw one iron ring to itself, and through that another, and another, Socrates suggests that Homer himself—the greatest of the Greek poets—had no knowledge of his own in writing his poetry, but was divinely possessed. Ion and other expert rhapsodes are also divinely possessed—as it were, ‘magnetized’—through him, both when they recite his poetry and when they speak about it—and they pass on the inspiration to their hearers, who are in a state of divine possession in opening themselves to the poetry. Neither poets nor rhapsodes have any knowledge or mastery of anything: their work, with all its beauty, is the product of the gods working through them, not of any human intelligence and skill. Thus these minor characters, the rhapsodes, provide Socrates entrée to much bigger game, the poet Homer himself, the great ‘teacher’ of the Greeks. Readers should compare (and contrast) Socrates’ criticisms of Homer here with those in
Republic
II and III, and his critique of poetry in X, along with the views about poetic ‘madness’ that he advances in
Phaedrus
and elsewhere.