Gorgias [10]
Cookery simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children, as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself, because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, but only an experience, because it is unable to explain or to give a reason of the nature of its own applications. And I do not call any irrational thing an art; but if you dispute my words, I am prepared to argue in defence of them. Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of medicine; and tiring, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the form of gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working deceitfully by the help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and garments, and making men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect of the true beauty which is given by gymnastic. I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, after the manner of the geometricians (for I think that by this time you will be able to follow)
astiring : gymnastic :: cookery : medicine; or rather, astiring : gymnastic :: sophistry : legislation; and as cookery : medicine :: rhetoric : justice.
And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras, that word with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far and wide: "Chaos" would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use of yours, I hope that you will speak at equal length; but if I am able to understand you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair: And now you may do what you please with my answer. Pol. What do you mean? do you think that rhetoric is flattery? Soc. Nay, I said a part of flattery-if at your age, Polus, you cannot remember, what will you do by-and-by, when you get older? Pol. And are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under the idea that they are flatterers? Soc. Is that a question or the beginning of a speech? Pol. I am asking a question. Soc. Then my answer is, that they are not regarded at all. Pol. How not regarded? Have they not very great power in states? Soc. Not if you mean to say that power is a good to the possessor. Pol. And that is what I do mean to say. Soc. Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the citizens. Pol. What! Are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile any one whom they please. Soc. By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance of yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a question of me. Pol. I am asking a question of you. Soc. Yes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once. Pol. How two questions? Soc. Why, did you not say just now that the rhetoricians are like tyrants, and that they kill and despoil or exile any one whom they please?
astiring : gymnastic :: cookery : medicine; or rather, astiring : gymnastic :: sophistry : legislation; and as cookery : medicine :: rhetoric : justice.
And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras, that word with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far and wide: "Chaos" would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use of yours, I hope that you will speak at equal length; but if I am able to understand you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair: And now you may do what you please with my answer. Pol. What do you mean? do you think that rhetoric is flattery? Soc. Nay, I said a part of flattery-if at your age, Polus, you cannot remember, what will you do by-and-by, when you get older? Pol. And are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under the idea that they are flatterers? Soc. Is that a question or the beginning of a speech? Pol. I am asking a question. Soc. Then my answer is, that they are not regarded at all. Pol. How not regarded? Have they not very great power in states? Soc. Not if you mean to say that power is a good to the possessor. Pol. And that is what I do mean to say. Soc. Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the citizens. Pol. What! Are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile any one whom they please. Soc. By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance of yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a question of me. Pol. I am asking a question of you. Soc. Yes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once. Pol. How two questions? Soc. Why, did you not say just now that the rhetoricians are like tyrants, and that they kill and despoil or exile any one whom they please?