Complete Works (371 page)

D.S.H.

C
HAEREPHON
: Socrates, what was that voice that reached us from way
[1]
down along the beach, under the headland? It was so sweet to my ears! What creature can it be that makes that sound? Surely creatures that live in the sea are silent.

S
OCRATES
: It’s a sort of sea bird, Chaerephon, called the halcyon, much given to lamenting and weeping. There is an ancient account about this bird, which was handed down as a myth by men of old. They say that it was once a woman, the daughter of Aeolus the son of Hellen, who ached with love and lamented the death of her wedded husband, Ceyx of Trachis, the son of Eosphorus the Dawn Star—a handsome son of a handsome father. And then, through some act of divine will, she grew wings like a bird and now flies about the sea searching for him, since she could not find him when she wandered all over the face of the earth.

C
HAEREPHON
: Is it Halcyon that you’re referring to? I had never heard
[2]
the voice before; it really did strike me as something exotic. Anyway, the creature certainly does produce a mournful sound. About how big is it, Socrates?

S
OCRATES
: Not very large. Yet great is the honor she has been given by the gods because of her love for her husband. For it’s when the halcyons are nesting that the cosmos brings us what are called the ‘halcyon days’ in mid-winter, days distinguished for their fair weather—today is an especially good example. Don’t you see how bright the sky above is and how the whole sea is calm and tranquil, like a mirror, so to speak?

C
HAEREPHON
: You’re right; today does seem to be a halcyon day, and yesterday was much like it. But by the gods, Socrates! How can we actually believe those ancient tales, that once upon a time birds turned into women or women into birds? All that sort of thing seems utterly impossible.

S
OCRATES
: Ah, my dear Chaerephon, we seem to be utterly short-sighted
[3]
judges of what is possible or impossible—we make our assessment according to the best of our human ability, which is unknowing, unreliable, and blind. Many things which are feasible seem, to us, not feasible, and many things which are attainable seem unattainable—often because of our inexperience, and often because of the childish folly in our minds. For in fact all human beings, even very old men, really do seem to be as foolish as children, since the span of our lives is small indeed, no longer than childhood when compared with all eternity. My good friend, how could people who know nothing about the powers of the gods and divinities, or of nature as a whole, possibly tell whether something like this is possible or impossible?

Did you notice, Chaerephon, how big a storm we had the day before yesterday? Someone pondering those lightning flashes and thunderbolts and the tremendous force of the winds might well be struck by fear; one might have thought the whole inhabited world was actually going to collapse. But a little later there was an astounding restoration of fair weather
[4]
which has lasted right up to the present moment. Do you think, then, that it is a greater and more laborious task to conjure up this kind of fair weather out of such an overwhelming storm and disturbance and to bring the entire cosmos into a state of calm, than it is to reshape a woman’s form and turn it into a bird’s? Even our little children who know how to model such things out of clay or wax can easily work them into all kinds of shapes, all out of the same material. Since the divinity possesses great power, incomparably greater than ours, perhaps all such things are actually very easy for it. After all, how much greater than yourself would you say that the whole of heaven is?

[5]
C
HAEREPHON
: Socrates, who among men could imagine or find words for anything of the sort? Even to say it is beyond human attainment.

S
OCRATES
: When we compare people with each other, do we not see that there are vast differences in their abilities and inabilities? Adult men, when compared to mere infants who are five or ten days old, have an amazing superiority in their ability at virtually all the practical affairs of life, those carried out by means of our sophisticated skills as well as those carried out by means of the body and soul; these things cannot, as I said, even
[6]
cross the minds of young children. And how immeasurably superior is the physical strength of one man grown to full size, compared to them, for one man could easily vanquish thousands of such children; and it is surely natural that in the initial stages of life men should be utterly helpless and incapable of anything. When one person, as it seems, is so far superior to another, how are we to suppose that the powers of the whole heaven would appear, compared with our powers, to those who are capable of grasping such matters? Perhaps indeed many people will think it plausible that, just as the size of the cosmos surpasses the form of Socrates or Chaerephon, so its power and wisdom and intelligence will to the same degree surpass our condition.

[7]
For you and me and many others like us, many things are impossible which are quite easy for others to do. For as long as they lack the knowledge, it is more impossible that people who cannot play the flute should do so or that the illiterate should read or write, than it is to make women out of birds or birds out of women. Nature virtually tosses into a honeycomb an animal which is footless and wingless; then she gives it feet and wings, adorns it with all kinds of variegated and beautiful colors and so produces a bee, wise producer of heavenly honey; and from mute and lifeless eggs she shapes many species of winged, walking and water-dwelling animals,
[8]
using (as some say) the sacred arts of the vast aether. We are mortal and utterly trivial, unable to see clearly either great or small matters and in the dark about most of the things which happen to us; so we could not possibly make any reliable claim about the mighty powers of the immortals, whether as regards halcyons or as regards nightingales.
¹

O bird of musical lamentations, I shall pass on to my children the far-famed myth about your songs just as I received it from my ancestors, and I shall sing frequently to my wives, Xanthippe and Myrto, of your piety and loving devotion to your husband, with special emphasis on the honor you received from the gods. Will you too do something like this, Chaerephon?

C
HAEREPHON
: That would certainly be appropriate, Socrates, and what you say is a double exhortation to the bond between husbands and wives.

S
OCRATES
: Well, now it’s time to bid farewell to Halcyon, and go on to the city from Cape Phaleron.

C
HAEREPHON
: Certainly; let’s do so.

1
. Legend tells that Procne and Philomela were also turned into birds, one into a nightingale, the other into a swallow.

ERYXIAS

Translated by Mark Joyal.

Socrates falls into conversation with Erasistratus, and the talk turns to the topic of wealth and virtue. If the wealthiest person is whoever possesses what is of the greatest value, then those who possess the skill of practical wisdom must be the wealthiest, argues Socrates. Eryxias rejects this line of thinking, but when he asserts that it is good to be materially prosperous, he is defeated by Critias’ argument that having money is not always a good thing. Socrates shows that Eryxias’ common-sense ideas about money are confused; money has only conventional value and is no more useful, for providing ourselves with what our bodies need, than the skills which a teacher can communicate to others. In a subtle argument addressed to Critias, Socrates concludes that money cannot be considered useful at all, even when it is needed to obtain something of value. The final paradox: if money is useful, whoever has the most of it must be in the worst condition; if he wasn’t in a very bad condition, he wouldn’t need a lot of money and he wouldn’t find it useful.

In between the arguments about wealth runs another theme, a discussion about the nature of philosophical argument: What is the difference between serious philosophical arguments and intellectual games? What is the difference between philosophical arguments and quarrels? Is it the argument or the speaker that carries credibility? Is philosophy a matter of personal commitment or a diverting performance?

Together these two themes constitute a meditation on the way of life embraced by Socrates and like-minded philosophers. Outwardly poor but inwardly rich, they support themselves by teaching others their wisdom, a wisdom that increases the value to them and their students of all that they come across and make use of in life. Their skill lies in their arguments, which they take seriously but not to the point of quarrelling, arguments to which they give credence and are personally committed.

Many of the ideas in
Eryxias
are Socratic commonplaces, and some have parallels in Plato. Socrates prayed, “May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him”
(Phaedrus 279
c). It is better to know how to use things than to possess them, he argues in advocating philosophy in
Euthydemus.
But the influence of Plato on the unknown author of
Eryxias
is probably strongest in the dialogue’s literary composition, which is as subtle as many of Plato’s own ‘Socratic’ dialogues. Scholars have noticed parallels to Stoic and sceptic ideas in
Eryxias
and have tried to draw chronological conclusions. But the only secure evidence is the gymnasiarch of 399a, holder of an office that took that form at some date between 337 and 318
B.C.
The dialogue must be of that date or later, and it may have been written in the Academy, which provided a fertile ground for the later development of Stoicism and scepticism.

D.S.H.

I happened to be strolling about in the Stoa of Zeus the Liberator with
[392]
Eryxias, from the deme Stiria, when Critias and Erasistratus, the nephew of Phaeax (Erasistratus’ son), came up to us. Erasistratus, it turned out, was just recently back from Sicily and other places nearby. When he came to me he said, “Greetings, Socrates.” [b]

“The same to you,” I replied. “Well now, anything worth reporting to us from Sicily?”

“Certainly. But would you care to sit down first? I walked from Megara yesterday and now I’m exhausted.”

“By all means, if that’s what you want.”

“What would you like to hear first about the situation over there? What the Sicilians are up to, or what attitude they’re taking towards our city? Personally, I think that in their feelings towards us they’re like wasps. If you stir them up and get them angry just a little at a time they become [c] unmanageable; you have to drive them out by attacking their nest. That’s what the Syracusans are like. Unless we make it our business to go to their city with a very large force, there’s no chance they will ever submit to us. Half-measures can only make them angrier, and then they’ll be extremely hard to deal with. In fact they’ve just now sent envoys to us, and I think they intend to trick our city somehow.”

While we were talking the Syracusan envoys happened to pass by. [d] Erasistratus pointed to one of them and said, “That man over there, Socrates, is the wealthiest in all Sicily and Italy. He must be, since he has such an enormous amount of land at his disposal that he could easily farm a huge tract if he wanted to. This land of his is unlike any other, in Greece at any rate. And he also has plenty of the other things that make you wealthy—slaves, horses, gold, and silver.”

When I saw that he was getting ready to babble on about the man’s
[393]
possessions, I asked him, “But, Erasistratus, what sort of reputation does he have in Sicily?”

“People think that he’s the wickedest of all the Sicilians and Italians, and he really is. He’s even more wicked than he is wealthy, so if you wanted to ask any Sicilian who he thinks is the wickedest man, and who is the wealthiest, everyone will say the same thing: he is.”

I thought that what Erasistratus was talking about was no small matter; on the contrary, it’s what people consider to be of the very highest importance, namely virtue and wealth. So I asked him, “Who’s wealthier, [b] a man who has one talent
¹
of silver, or a man who has a field worth two talents?”

“The man with the field, I suppose.”

“By the same argument, if someone had clothes or blankets or other things worth yet more than our Sicilian fellow’s property, he would be wealthier.” Erasistratus agreed. “And if someone were to give you a choice between these two, which would you want?”

[c] “I would choose the most valuable of them.”

“Do you think that choice would make you wealthier?”

“I do.”

“So as it stands we think that whoever possesses the most valuable things is the wealthiest person?”

“Yes.”

“Then healthy people would be wealthier than sick people, since health is a more valuable possession than the sick man’s property. Everyone, at [d] any rate, would prefer to be healthy and possess little money than to be sick and possess the Great King’s
²
fortune, since they obviously believe that health is more valuable. After all, nobody would ever choose in favor of health unless he thought it was preferable to wealth.”

“Of course not.”

“Again, if something else should seem more valuable than health, the one who possessed this would be the wealthiest person.”

“Yes.”

“And suppose someone were to come up to us now and ask, ‘Can [e] you tell me, Socrates, Eryxias, and Erasistratus, what the most valuable possession for a person is? Is it the thing whose possession would enable him to make the best decisions about how he could most effectively manage both his own affairs and those of his friends?’ What would we say this thing is?”

“In my view, Socrates, prosperity is a person’s most valuable possession.”

“That’s not a bad answer at all. But would we consider the most prosperous people in the world to be the most successful?”