euripides ordered the tables to be removed, and then some musicians entered, followed by a girl, who danced as persephone among the flowers of enna. while the guests were admiring the grace of her gestures, and the swift movements of her thin, naked feet, callias came in with lysis and antisthenes. they had been unable to come earlier; and after making their excuses to euripides, callias and antisthenes took a couch close by protagoras, and lysis went to socrates. the company included glaucon, hermogenes, pythodorus, philip the buffoon, who never missed a feast, and apollodorus, the friend of socrates. protagoras had a couch to himself on the right of euripides, who was also without a companion. others came in during the evening until the room was very full. 56when the girl had finished her dance there was a murmur of admiration, and she leaned back on the bench, smiling with pleasure, her slim body trembling and palpitating beneath its crocus-coloured veils.
"you are magnificent, euripides," said socrates. "you not only feast us sumptuously; but you amuse us with dancing and music."
"i am glad that you are amused, socrates. why are you so silent to-night?"
"i feel like one about to be initiated into the mysteries. when there are so many older and wiser men than myself present i listen rather than talk. it is more interesting. i wish that i had come with flowers and ribbons like lysis, so that i might have occupied myself in making a garland. are you going to crown protagoras when he has read his discourse, lysis?"
"yes, socrates; callias said it would be worthy of a crown."
"protagoras must be the happiest of men." said socrates. "he has health, riches, and honour from all. i am impatient to hear what he has to say."
"i am old," said protagoras, "and like to rest a little while after eating; but i shall 57not keep you long. in the meantime, why do you not have a discussion with euripides?"
"well, as you have given me leave to speak, i should like to ask euripides a few questions."
"very well," said euripides.
"do not encourage him," shouted philip. "if he once begins asking questions we shall not know where we are. he will tell us that protagoras is not protagoras, and that this banquet is not a banquet."
"why do you attack me like this, philip? what harm have i ever done to you?" said socrates.
"why, ever since you have taken to frequenting the tables of the rich you have done me harm," said philip, with a pretence to excitement. "at one time i was always a welcome guest; but since you have come upon the scene no one laughs at me. your talk is all about justice, wisdom, and virtue. what does a poor man like myself know of such things? but these are all that amuse the company now; and, if i want a dinner in mine old age, i shall have to play the sophist too."
philip was a great favourite with the 58company, and his exaggerated gestures as he railed at socrates amused them extremely. he advanced into the middle of the room.
"laugh at me as you will," he cried; "it is true. socrates cannot deny it. the more wine a man has now, the more solemn he looks; until sometimes i think i have strayed to a funeral instead of to a feast. if i chose, i could be the greatest sophist of you all. i should teach you not only the knowledge of good, and truth, and virtue, but the knowledge of all things."
"and how would you teach us, philip?" said socrates; "for this is precisely the knowledge which i have been seeking all my life. by the dog of egypt, if you would teach me this i should ever afterwards obey you in all things. i have always had the greatest respect for you, philip, but i did not think that philosophy was among your accomplishments."
"do you answer me, socrates? and i shall prove it to you."
"willingly," said socrates; "but i am afraid you are going to make me ridiculous. i have never pretended to be a sophist, nor, indeed, to know anything."
philip stood in the middle of the room, and 59the company all leant forward, looking at him with amusement.
"is knowledge the knowledge of something, or the knowledge of nothing?" he enquired of socrates.
"of both," answered socrates.
"you will not escape me that way," exclaimed philip. "would you not rather say it is the knowledge of something, and the knowledge of not knowing other things?"
"very well, philip."
"then there is a knowledge of knowing, and a knowledge of not knowing; and we know the things we know, and the things we do not know?"
"that seems absurd," said socrates.
"what? will you go back on the argument, socrates, and say that knowledge is only the knowledge of something?"
"let us try that way then," socrates said.
"by zeus, socrates, that way will do as well as another," said philip; "for if you know something you can distinguish it from other things, can you not?"
"yes."
"you can distinguish one thing you know, from another thing you know; and both from what you do not know."
60"you have made me giddy, philip. let me think."
"well, socrates, you can distinguish euripides from protagoras, can you not? and you can distinguish both these people whom you know, from the tyrant archelaus, whom you do not know?"
"certainly; i must agree to that."
"then you can distinguish between something you know and something you do not know?"
"yes."
"consider a moment, socrates. is it possible for you to know the difference between one thing and another unless you know both things?"
"why, no! i must admit that," said socrates.
"then mark where i lead you; for if you know the things you know, you must also know the things you do not know."
every one was now laughing immoderately; not only at philip's dialectic, but at his pompous gestures, wherewith he mimicked many well-known sophists; blowing out his cheeks, pursing his lips, tapping his head suspiciously, and rubbing his nose.
61"by the dog of egypt!" cried socrates; "the man has been with euthydemus."
"euthydemus is a child to me," said philip contemptuously.
"but, philip, if i confess i know nothing?" said socrates, when the laughter failed a little.
"why, then, socrates, i shall not argue the question with you; though i could easily prove to you that if you knew nothing you would know everything."
"philip, i have always asserted my ignorance. it is my ignorance which causes me to ask questions. and now, as you have proved that you know everything, i want to ask you what knowledge is. can you tell me?"
"this talking has made me thirsty, socrates, and i am going to seek for truth in the wine, where the proverb says it may be found. i shall talk no more."
"well, then, i shall ask my question of euripides, if you will allow me."
"ask, by all means!" said philip; "but if your questions are to be about knowledge and virtue i shall go and sit with the flute-girls, and we shall talk of something that we can understand."
socrates settled himself more comfortably upon the couch, and, taking up one of the 62ribbons which lysis had brought, turned it about his fingers.
"protagoras is going to tell us whether we can have any knowledge of the gods or not," he said; "but let us enquire into their nature, assuming that we know them, for the present. shall we examine your own conception of god, euripides? it will clear matters up if we are able to say what the gods whom we seek to know are like."
"very well, socrates," said euripides.
"you live at the centre of things, euripides," said socrates; "and every aspect of our modern thought is clearly reflected in your work. this is one reason why i have always been an admirer of your plays; but it has its drawbacks, for sometimes you reflect two distinct and opposed theories, so that your meaning is not quite clear. your treatment of the myths is, in reality, a criticism of the myths, is it not?"
"yes."
"the dramatist takes a myth as his material, and by working upon it, criticising it, rejecting some features, and developing others, he will make it into a play, and not only does he deal with the myth itself in this way, but he also examines and criticises each character in it, 63using the same method, so that his play is not only a representation of the myths but a criticism of them as well. now i have lately been reading your hippolytus again, so that we shall take that as an example. the myth is very simple: aphrodite wishes to be avenged upon hippolytus, who neglects her worship in preference for the worship of artemis; and in order to compass the death of the young man she stirs up an unholy passion in ph?dra. hippolytus refuses the love of ph?dra, and, in despair, she kills herself, leaving a writing behind which accuses hippolytus of having forced her. theseus, discovering this writing, calls down upon hippolytus one of the three curses which poseidon has promised him to fulfil, and hippolytus is slain. then artemis reveals the truth to theseus, and before hippolytus dies theseus is forgiven by him.
"this story is full of improbable and supernatural conditions, the jealousy of aphrodite, the apparition of artemis, and the intervention of poseidon. we no longer imagine the gods as beings with the same passions as men; but the passions and strife of the gods are the essential feature of some myths. do you think, euripides, that the makers of myths in 64the old days simply dragged in the gods, in order to explain any tragedy which was quite inexplicable in itself, and that they attempted to alleviate in this way the sense of waste with which a tragedy fills us?"
"it seems a plausible supposition, socrates. if men cannot relate an event to any known cause, they consider it sufficiently explained if it be attributed to a deity."
"and so it happens," said socrates, "that many evil deeds are attributed to the gods; the death of hippolytus, for instance, to the jealousy of aphrodite. do you think, euripides, that the makers of myths and the common people believe that evil is not inherent in the action itself, but depends upon the quality and nature of the agent?"
"yes," answered euripides; "they imagine that actions are permissible in gods which would not be permissible in man; that the gods have a right to do evil, since they have the power. on the contrary, i maintain, that a god is all goodness, and that if he revenged himself on man, or were guilty of jealousy and hatred, he would cease, by that fact, to be a god."
"and is it because you hold this opinion 65that you make the action in your play of hippolytus, as far as possible, move independently of the gods?"
"how do you mean, socrates?"
"i mean, euripides, that your play seems to present two sides: the action as it is presented in the original myth, and the action which is the result of your criticism. there are some people who say that if you are not content with the myths, you should invent your own stories; but this would defeat your object which is purely critical, and which aims at presenting another version of the story. you seem to say to yourself: the myth presents the gods as beings with the same appetites, passions, and desires as mortals, and so i shall treat them. they are to you mere characters in the play, and even subordinate characters at that. you introduce aphrodite to speak the prologue, and thus, ostensibly following the myth, make her responsible for the catastrophe. but at the same time you show that the catastrophe is directly precipitated by the hastiness of theseus; a fatal flaw which he himself recognises, and laments when it is too late. he was over-hasty to use the gift of poseidon, he says; but hippolytus answers that if he 66had not used that method of revenge, he would have found another. theseus implicitly agrees to this, when he says that some lying spirit had blinded him to the truth, and thus the guilt is flung back upon aphrodite, whom artemis promises to punish by slaying adonis. in reality, euripides, the lying spirit is not aphrodite, but ph?dra; and you take care that artemis should point this out. thus, at every part of the myth where the action of the divinities is supposed to be clearly visible, you present us with another version and another cause; and, by this means, not only do you make the development of the plot more plausible, and fill us with admiration for your genius, but ultimately you remove the responsibility from the gods, by showing that the action of the play is not dependent upon them. aphrodite seems to be only the incarnation of ph?dra's desire, and poseidon of a father's curse. artemis, it is true, has a separate existence, and is not merely the personification of a mortal passion; she exists in order that she may reveal the truth to theseus, and for that purpose, had you not been bound by tradition, the nurse would have done as well. you say, too, in one of the choruses that the thought of the 67gods consoles your grief, and that your hope clings to the belief in a supreme reason; but that when you consider the deeds and the fate of men you are confounded. do you think, euripides, that the whole evil of life comes from man alone, and that the gods are not implicated in it?"
protagoras smiled. euripides leaned forward, looking at socrates with bright eyes from beneath his bent brows.
"the words of the chorus, socrates, mean that when i consider the wretchedness and the doom of men, i doubt the existence of a supreme reason, or at least waver in my belief."
"of course i see that," answered socrates; "but if you accept the idea of a universal mind animating all things, why should the misery and wretched conditions of the life of men dissipate this idea? your play shows that it is man's own folly, and not the anger of the gods, that punishes him with misfortune. theseus in ignorance calls down the doom of death upon hippolytus, and thus brings evil upon himself. it is the lust of ph?dra, and the blind anger of theseus, which are responsible for the death of the innocent; but is it better to have suffered unjustly as hippolytus 68suffered, or to die in shame, despised, as ph?dra died, or to live as theseus lived in misery, though forgiven?"
"i agree to what you have said of my play," answered euripides, his worn, melancholy face illuminated with a smile; "and i agree, also, that it was my purpose to deny that the gods do evil, and to make people dissatisfied with the myths. i misunderstood the reason for your use of what the chorus says about the supreme mind; the doings of men seem to me to be more the result of the conditions of life than of their own wickedness. if men err it is through ignorance; but they suffer quite independently of their deserts. it is through my sympathy with mankind that i am led into doubt. man struggles all his life with the fluctuations and vicissitudes of fortune; his pleasures are but phantoms and visions which elude his grasp; the one certainty before him is death: an unknown terror. why has he been set among this play of circumstance, over which he has no control, but which whirls him away like a dead leaf upon the ripples and eddies of a river? the best happiness we can find in life is resignation, a folding of the hands, a withdrawal into the interior peace of our own minds, the serene heights which the muses 69inhabit. those who have gained that sanctuary have at least the happiness which comes from a knowledge of the limitations of life; they have learned to desire little, to delight in natural and simple things, the bright air, the coolness of forests, wind rippling the waves of corn and setting the poplar leaves a-tremble; but, alas! behind even this serenity of mind is the shadow of human suffering. so few are the wise, and so many the miserable! we would not, if we could, cut ourselves off from the dumb herd of humanity, with its obscure sufferings, its vague desires, its inarticulate and eternal pain."
"i should not ask it of you, euripides," said socrates gently.
he had a real love for euripides, a real admiration for the mind which through its own tumult and discord had come at last into the possession of peace, and to the vision of a clear hope.
"if mankind with its blind follies makes me doubt the existence of a god," continued euripides, "its miseries make me believe in one. i am not an enemy of knowledge; i have sought it with diligence all the days of my life; but we have other needs. we suffer with one another; there is a trouble 70and perplexity in the world from which we cannot escape, and to which we cannot refuse sympathy, pity, and love. religion does not take into sufficient account the fact, that however diverse are the activities of men, all suffer alike. we have the corporate religious unity of the state, and it presents to us the noble and lofty ideas of the olympian deities. do you remember, socrates, the fable which protagoras made for you, describing how at first men had only the arts, and warred among themselves until zeus sent them the gifts of justice and reverence?"
"yes; i remember it. i cannot, of course, remember all that protagoras said," answered socrates. "long speeches puzzle me. but i remember that it was beautiful."
"it was at my house," said callias, with some pride.
"well, socrates, it seems to me that justice and reverence were not enough. man needed something more. so the worship of demeter and dionysos was revealed to him. i have sometimes meditated writing a play about dionysos, the enthusiasm of wine, of poetry, the deliverer, who uplifts the heart of man; or about demeter, the earth, the herbage and the ripe corn, through whom we are kin, not 71only with each other but with the beasts of the field, the cattle grazing in their fat pasture, and the young fawn couched among the briars and thickets of the forest. these divinities seem closer to us than the ruler of the sun or the lord of the sea. they move gently among us, coming and going with the seasons, filling our granaries and wine-jars with their mystical gifts; corn and wine, their very bodies and blood, through which we enter into a close and intimate communion with them, and become indeed their children, or even themselves, as when their spirit possesses us entirely, and with a wild enthusiasm we range through the wooded hills, clothed in spotted fawn-skins, crowned with dark ivy, shaking the thyrsus in the air, and leaping to the sound of timbrels and pipes, and the brazen cymbals of the great mother.
"the olympian divinities have given to man the knowledge of the arts, and instilled into him the principles of justice and of reverence; they are untouched by the sense of our human mortality.
"of old, the poets say, they visited mortals; and coming to a house at dusk in the guise of huntsmen or travellers would rest that night to share the evening meal, and at dawn 72depart again, leaving behind them strange gifts. now they come among us no more. but these divinities of our own delightful earth, how different they are! our mortality, our labours, and our desires are part of their ritual. they have shown man that he is one with that earth from which he derives his being, and which receives him again, after the toils and vicissitudes of life, as with the gentle enfolding arms of a mother; and that through it he is one also with them. they give him, in the recurrence of seed-time and harvest, the symbolism of the vine and the vintage, the return of spring, coming with frail, delicate flowers, and troops of swallows, in the first flush of green over the ploughlands, hints and foreshadowings of some such resurrection for himself; until death ceases to be a nameless terror to him, but is like a little interval of sleep not entirely barren of dreams. how natural they are too!
"we should not be surprised if we met with demeter, clad in blue raiment, in a cornfield, as the dawn was breaking. it would not seem strange to see her, plucking the golden ears, and weaving them into a garland for her head; or resting beside a well of bright water, and looking over the misty fields with 73quiet, thoughtful eyes. it would not seem strange if dionysos appeared suddenly to us, coming through the shadowy woods between the straight stems of the pines, light in his eyes, and the wind lifting the hair from his cool brow; or to meet him leading his troop of delirious worshippers by the banks of asopus, or up the steep glens of cith?ron. if she, earth, be a mother to us, he is like an elder brother, born of a mortal woman, and so closer to us. it is true, socrates, that the myths dealing with him contain much that is revolting, and are full of tragic and sinister episodes; but behind the veil of man's weaving is a figure of singular beauty, wild but gentle; a divinity who promises to the restless and troubled spirit of man joy in life and peace after death."
his words made an impression upon the company. there was silence for the moment.
"well, euripides, i shall not question you any further to-night," said socrates. "we have agreed that the idea of divinity is exclusive of all evil; and now protagoras will probably tell us that the philosophic question of the present time is not whether the gods are good or evil, but whether they exist at all."
74protagoras made no further delay. he had a roll of parchment in his hand, but scarcely referred to it. there was a movement among the guests as he began, for all were curious to hear what he had to say.
"we cannot know whether the gods exist or do not exist; the matter is too obscure, and man's life too short. if they exist, it must be in some manner peculiar to themselves, for we cannot find any trace of their presence in the world. they are not present to us as objects to be perceived by the senses; if they move among us at all it is by stealth, and without leaving so much trace as a ship leaves upon the waves. but man has always believed that they are close to him, and has come to imagine them as haunting every green corner of the earth, each well, and wood, and hill, the blue depths of the sea and the wide regions of the air. we have a god to preside at our sowing and at our harvest, at our setting-forth and at our home-coming; there are gods of flocks and herds, of vineyards and olive groves, of rivers and of the sea. poetry has peopled the air with them, and given to aphrodite a team of sparrows, and to hera a team of peacocks, and to grey-eyed athene an owl. 75indeed, it is strange, so familiar and frequent are they in our thoughts, that we should ever question their existence; yet the moment we seek for any tangible evidence of their presence in the world we are at fault, and the more we consider them the more shadowy and elusive they become. the whole notion of divinity is constantly changing in our minds, adapting itself to new conditions of life, varying its form as our knowledge becomes deeper; but always becoming more spiritual, less tangible, until it seems to be nothing but that wandering breath which quickens all things into life.
"at first we imagined the gods as the incarnation of some natural force, like aphrodite, the foam-born, whom all living creatures obey; or demeter, the earth-mother, who produces all the fruits and harvests, and the grass and flowers of the field. stripped of the mystery and beauty with which the poets have clothed them, these are but the conditions of man's life, his begetting and sustenance; we must seek behind them for that idea of the supreme reason, who is not only the cause but the end of all things, not only the source of existence but the principle from which spring our notions of truth, of wisdom, of justice, and all those ideals which reconcile us to life and 76bid us hope in the ultimate realisation of the good. it is not sufficient for us to find a cause from which existence is derived, for even if that were laid bare to us we could not find in it our ultimate satisfaction, unless it conformed to the idea of divinity, which, as socrates and euripides have agreed, is exclusive of all elements of evil. is it possible to have this knowledge? there are two insuperable difficulties.
"the first is in the nature of man's knowledge, which is not constant or common, but variable and peculiar to each individual. each man is the measure of all things. to him, things are what they seem; truth, what he thinks true; justice, what he thinks just; good, what he thinks good. coldness or heat, light or darkness, colour, sound, smell, touch, taste, are all equally matters of opinion. there is no truth external to the individual. the second difficulty is that even if all men had a fixed and common standard of truth, we can find no evidence of the action of any divinity in the world, no evidence of a supreme reason dominating all things. the world seems to obey certain blind and unreasonable laws; but the life of man, the life of all things, outside the mere routine of tides and seasons, seems 77to be subject only to chance: and whether we live or die, our fate is the result of an accident. we are merely the idle foam upon the surface of the waves of being; an accident, and not the reason of the waves. perhaps the whole reason of life is unconcerned with us; having a different aim to what we imagine, we ourselves being only the dust of a sculptor's workshop, the superfluous marble which he chips off from the hidden image of his desire.
"it is certain, that if there be a god he is careless of the fate of man. for, if there were a god, since he must be just and good, we should find the prayers of the good man answered, and evil would be punished in the world. as it is the evil men prosper, and the good gain no reward; evil and good, what are they but our points of view? it is for this reason that we doubt the existence of any but a mechanical cause for the universe; because we have had no experience of good triumphing in the external world. diagoras of melos, being taken into the temple of poseidon and shown the offerings dedicated there as memorials of answered prayers and in fulfilment of vows, looked at them with tears: 'they reckon those who were saved,' he said; 'they forget those who perished.' 78yes; one is more touched by the thought of what was not hung in the temple, than by the sight of what was. we think of the smallness of the temple, and of the largeness of the sea.
"let us state our position with clearness. we are not concerned with the existence of the gods, but with our knowledge of their existence. it would be equally foolish in us to deny, as to affirm, their existence. there may be a supreme reason acting upon the world, whose ends we cannot understand, whose action we cannot comprehend. it may be that the world exists for some other purpose than for the realisation of our own dreams. perhaps we are only the superfluities, the parings of ivory, the winnowed husks from the threshing, by-products in the creation of something more perfect; and perhaps the confused and obscure sense of an ideal, which works in us and is at once our desire and our despair, is a dim consciousness of the growth of this beauty, a desire and a despair of being one with it. but, if we could escape for a moment from the tyranny of our own selves, the illusion of our own momentary existence, we might learn to rejoice in the knowledge, that beauty exists, if not in us, at least somewhere in the world. if that knowledge were ever 79present with us, i think that we might be content. content even to suffer, to realise that everything that ever lived has died for an idea, that all life is a martyrdom; but, alas! we have not even this knowledge. our life is a dream of shadows. our knowledge is but a focus of wandering ideas, burning a moment in a white heat, ere they pass again, diffused widely, into the unknown.
"the sense of divinity, which moves in us, may be but a hope born of this trouble and perplexity, a desire that at some future time the fragments of our being shall be collected again and fashioned into a whole. we cry out that we need not be wasted, to drift forever as dust, blind, dumb, and inarticulate, yet with a dim consciousness of a life stirring beyond us and alien to us. let us share in it. let us have a share in the world's sunlight and the sweet air. we have personified this hope, and given it an extended significance which seems to breathe and move in all things. each individual finds his justification in god; and it follows that his god must be merciful, just, and good; but, at the same time, the notions of justice and good are entirely peculiar to the individual. god is thus a realisation of self, a self who triumphs and will be justified, 80even through his misery. the very practice of virtue is an accusation against the gods, an affirmation that if the good perish then god is evil.
"i am a maker of myths, one who fashions out of perishable things a thought which, through its informing truth, exists independently of time. i think of man as of one who is blind, dumb, and without hands. sitting alone in this physical darkness a thought comes to him of what his life might have been if he had been born whole; and he imagines himself as a man with hands, a voice, and sight, creating a whole world out of his pleasure. this other man, who moves like a creature of light through the dim passages of his mind, becomes, as it were another self; but through his greater power, a being of joy living eternally, a strong, triumphant, beautiful figure; and consequently external from, and different to, the man. and the blind, dumb, handless man, bowing his head in the darkness, says: 'it is god.'
"for the gods which we have imagined are immortal men, and man a mortal god. they differ from us in nothing but the gladness and eternity of their actions. they move delightfully on the wings of the wind; through the 81great tumult of waters their feet are swift and sure; their voices have a music that is like the fierce motion of dancing, yellow flames. god is simply our own selves, made whole, and removed from the devouring years. god is our weakness searching after strength, our blindness, thirsting after light; our desire seeking for a voice, and we worship him. we worship him because he is ourselves; but we seek him, always, as if conscious of our own weakness and worthlessness, beyond ourselves, in the external world, our god is hidden in the deeps of the sea; in the shadows of the forests; in that blue heaven beyond the stars. he is very subtile, moving on stealthy feet, through unknown ways. we seek him, but we find him not. he is swifter than we are, and when we pursue him he flies away into the darkness; and when we cry out that we have lost him he comes close to us again, filling our hearts with a silent sweetness. so it is ever with us; when we seek to clasp him he eludes us; but in the silence of night we imagine that he is not very far away and that a little thing would suffice to allure him to us, to reveal him to sight.
"once in a country of hills and valleys lived a shepherd who called to the nymph echo, and 82she answered him from her cave in the hillside with his own voice. then he girded himself, and taking a staff in his hand set out to seek her; and coming to the place whence she had answered him, he called again, and she replied from a higher peak. when he had called from the next peak he was answered from the valley and descended into its deep forests; and men saw him no more, for he died there, and the beasts devoured him.
"we also die ere we have found the voice which calls to us from the mountains; but it ever lures us forward, calling sometimes from a cave quite close to us, and again from a distant peak. we also die, and our ears hear it no longer; but our children will hear and follow it gladly up the steep glens of the windy hills."
as protagoras finished, he dropped the roll of parchment beside him, and motioned the slave to bring him some wine. lysis rose from his couch and attempted to crown him, when the loud voice of pythodorus broke in upon the general conversation.
"what is this that you are applauding?" he said; "are you men of athens or foreigners fond only of subtile words? i, for one, shall not praise or consent to what has been said 83by protagoras here to-night. what has he done but cloak his impiety in smooth phrases and suave periods? are you willing, through his soft persuasion, to deny that the gods inhabit the wide skies and the hidden regions of the bright sea?"
a silence fell upon the company. one or two shifted uneasily upon their couches. it was fairly well known that pythodorus had some personal grudge against protagoras; but no one had suspected that he would take this opportunity of revenge.
"you are mistaken, pythodorus," said euripides. "protagoras has only discussed the question of whether we can have any knowledge of the gods. he carefully disclaimed any intention of denying their existence."
"it is clear to me, euripides, that protagoras has denied them," answered pythodorus. "he claims that if we do not know a thing, the thing does not exist. but i shall not argue the question here; i shall lay it before the proper judges. an offence against the gods is a crime in which the whole city is implicated, and which they must cleanse from themselves. i would have you believe that i am not moved by any personal feeling 84against protagoras, but only by a desire that the whole people should not have to expiate, in suffering, the crime of one man. all the misfortunes of athens have arisen from the spirit of irreverent sophistry which is eating her away; and people now seem to think that they may say anything, provided that it be well said."
he spoke in a raucous voice, trying to contain his passion, but with an exultant fire in his eyes. socrates sat up on his couch and rubbed his leg.
"pythodorus, you are as bad a listener as i am. i can never understand these long speeches. they act like a charm, and i always fall asleep in the middle of them; but before i fell asleep to-night i heard what protagoras said as to his main position, and i think that he was laughing at us. he spoke only in a cautious vein of paradox. while he was pretending one thing, he was proving the opposite. you must not take him very seriously."
"what do you mean?"
"were you awake all the time, pythodorus?" said socrates.
"of course. i was listening most attentively."
85"then you will remember that protagoras said that the gods were not to be found in the external world, but in the hearts of men. we cannot know them, as we know a tree, but we can feel them by us. he seems to hold that we cannot know anything except what we have drawn out of ourselves."
socrates was attempting to lead the conversation back into quieter channels, but pythodorus rose.
"i shall leave you. it is not for me to judge whether protagoras is right or wrong," he said.
some of the guests left with him, through fear, and the rest were dismayed. protagoras, who had not said a word in answer to pythodorus, leaned back on his couch and spoke.
"of course, pythodorus will accuse me," he said; "and i shall be condemned. he is powerful, and in the present condition of things can do as he likes. but it would be a shame if we allowed the malice of one person to interrupt our discussion. let us sit talking until dawn, and then i shall prepare to leave athens. i expected that he would do me what injury he could. shall we have some more wine, euripides? it is probably our last feast together."
86"i am afraid it is," said euripides. "yes; let us have some wine. i blame myself for what has happened; but i never expected this."
"it would have happened to-morrow if not to-day," answered protagoras. "do not blame yourself, euripides. there are, i think, few persons in this room, who will escape from the reaction which is developing in athens. socrates, of course, will survive it. he follows the traditions of religion, but, at the same time, he differs from them. what was that curious paradox you put forward about my teaching, socrates?"
"it was no paradox, protagoras, but sober, earnest truth. you will never persuade me that your intention was to deny the existence of the gods."
"well, then, let us discuss it. only our friends are here now. and to-morrow i shall be beyond the reach of malice. can we know the gods, socrates?"
"you confuse the two things, because pythodorus did. philip has not deserted us. he is sitting there half drunk. will you argue with him? if with me, answer what i ask. you denied, did you not, that we can find any trace of the action of the gods in this world?"
87"yes."
"and did you not affirm that the gods exist, if they exist at all, in a manner peculiar to themselves."
"yes."
"without denying the existence of the gods, then, you affirm that we cannot know them because we cannot find any trace of their action in the life of man?"
"that is what i said," answered protagoras.
"and you also said that, man being the measure of all things, truth is what he thinks true; good, what he thinks good. there is no truth external to the individual. did you not?"
"yes, socrates; but i am afraid you are giving a sense to my words which they were not intended to convey."
"that is not my object. i wish merely to examine your thought. you incline to cloak it in myths, but you should learn to send truth from you clean and naked, as a trainer sends an athlete into the pal?stra. if i offend you, protagoras, you must forgive me; but i cannot follow an argument which is not direct. do your words contain my meaning?"
"yes, socrates."
"then you deny all truth except what a man draws out of himself?"
88"yes."
"and a man should not say it is cold. he should say i am cold?"
"yes; all external things are only what we imagine them to be."
"the same, of course, holds good with regard to truth, virtue, and justice; these things are equally external to the individual. i think that you have said this before, protagoras, have you not?"
"yes," said protagoras.
"well, then, let us leave that part of the argument for the present," said socrates. "we shall return to it later, as every one agrees to it. i wish to ask you another series of questions. if you wished to learn the art of making plays, would you go to a cobbler or to euripides? to euripides. very well! but if you wished to learn the art of making shoes, would you go to a cobbler, or to a playwright?"
"to a cobbler, of course!"
"you would choose one skilful rather than a beginner; and in politics, also, you would choose an experienced man, in preference to one who had no experience, and in art you would take the finest artist as your master. would you not?"
89"of course."
"and the same with pastry-cooks, with tillers of the soil and vine-dressers; you would choose the person most experienced?"
"yes."
"all this i have learnt from what you said at the beginning of your discourse. if you wished to learn the arts of politics or of cobbling you would go to a politician or to a cobbler; but if you wished to learn the art of being virtuous, would you go to a vicious or to a virtuous man?"
"to a virtuous man."
"but why, protagoras? is not the test of truth in yourself and not in others?"
"yes."
"then you know the truth, and you recognise it when you meet with it?"
"yes."
"but then the truth lies also outside of ourselves. goodness, wisdom, and other excellent things are external to us, and we can only draw them out of ourselves? have you not said that god is a projection of self?"
"a stronger self, socrates."
"then you recognise a standard of excellence beyond man, and this standard of excellence he draws out of himself; and that 90only is true which a man draws out of himself; but at the same time you recognise in others the art of cobbling and of politics."
"these things are only conventional," said protagoras.
"why, protagoras? what is the difference between going as an apprentice to a good cobbler and going as an apprentice to a good man?"
"because cobbling is an art that any one may learn, but virtue is different."
"is virtue different from doing good?"
"no."
"a virtuous person will seek the good; he recognises goodness by his own standard?"
"yes."
"he is the measure of truth, and he chooses a teacher who will show him a fitting wisdom, as he will choose a cobbler who will make him a fitting shoe?"
"socrates, i frankly admit that i am tired of your cobbler."
"but is virtue doing things well or ill?"
"well."
"and the individual judges whether the thing is well or ill done?"
"you are still cobbling, socrates."
"surely, protagoras, if truth is drawn 91entirely out of the individual, he will know virtue better than he will know a shoe. i do not want you to say that i am forcing your words into a construction that they will not bear. your arguments suggest others to me. i am cobbling, you say, point out the patches! you say that there is no truth external to the individual; that if a man feels hot, it is hot; that justice is what he thinks just, that he cannot know external things. surely, then, his whole standard of truth is himself. and if he fashion a god out of his inner consciousness, surely god exists more truly than a tree or a shoe exists."
"socrates, my words may bear this expansion. you hold, then, that we may have knowledge of their existence. i am not averse to this belief; but to me a god is simply a self, a self freed from our conditions of life.
"let us not say that socrates or protagoras has triumphed. we have simply got a little closer to the truth."
"god may exist for the individual, socrates; in the individual consciousness. but the truth lies beyond us. man's image of a tree is true, because a tree is."
"the colour, the shape, the texture, are not," replied socrates; "except as the man 92sees them. philip was right in saying that if we know one thing we know all others. philip, wake up!"
"socrates, what mischief are you up to now that pythodorus is gone," said philip. "you talk too much. protagoras said simply that a monkey imagines god as a monkey, while a peacock imagines him as a peacock."
"o philip, what a fool you are! does a foolish man imagine a foolish god? does a blind man imagine a blind god?"
"of course not."
"then, listen, philip! does pythodorus imagine a god who is a nuisance to his friends?"
"no."
"very well, then, some standard exists which is external to the individual, but which he only knows through his inner consciousness. the oracle at delphi was right when it said: 'know thyself. for the more a man knows himself, the more he knows god.'"
"it is dawn," said lysis.
"o socrates, you are the most unbridled and insatiable of all the sophists," said protagoras, laughing. "you have laid a trap for me."
"why do you accuse me of laying a trap 93for you? we are not arguing with the sole desire of scoring a point against each other. i do not lay traps for you, as if i were a hunter of men; but i lay traps for truth, being a hunter of truth, and having no other reason for existence but to chase and follow after it wherever it may be hidden."
"we have no more time, socrates," said protagoras. "tell me your own opinion of the gods and of the aim of life."
"what can i say to you," said socrates, "beyond what a prophetess taught me? for she said that in our voyage through the world we are being reminded constantly of a previous existence, and that when we are brought face to face with beauty or with virtue or with truth, in short wherever we are moved to admiration as in contemplating a work of art like the chryselephantine zeus at olympia, it is the memory stirring in us of the place from which we came; and, further, she asked me if i had never felt an inexplicable sadness mingling with all beauty, as if beauty itself were inseparable from sorrow. 'yes, diotima,' i answered, 'in the presence of beauty we are all sufferers.' 'then socrates,' she said, 'let me tell you that this feeling of sadness in the presence of beauty is in reality a sense of 94exile; for however deeply we may drink of lethe, the soul will retain some broken memories of the garden of the gods. when we meet with beauty in the world it is but a mutilated fragment of the divine beauty, but however small or slight it may be in itself, it is sufficient to call up into memory the divine beauty; and it is then that the sense of exile rushes in upon us like a wave and we weep and suffer anguish, and can neither tear ourselves away from the beautiful thing, nor be content with it; but all our being thirsts after the more perfect beauty. but let me warn you, socrates, that however much you may be tortured in the presence of the beauty that lies scattered through the world, it is your business to collect each tiny fragment; and if it be a few bars of music you must build it into a song; if it be a mere tangle of coloured skeins you must weave it into a garment; if it be fragments of gold and ivory you must make them into a statue; if it be beautiful colours you must make them into a picture, or beautiful words then into a poem; and all this time you will suffer and be tortured with desire for the more perfect beauty. but, until you have gathered together the broken fragments which are in the world you will not 95return into the garden of the gods.' 'then the gods exist?' i enquired. 'certainly the gods exist,' answered diotima; 'but they exist in a manner peculiar to themselves.' she would say nothing more, but when i questioned her smiled wisely and was silent."
hermogenes met lysis by the porch of the king archon near the house of callias.
"have you heard the news, hermogenes," said lysis, "i have just been with euripides. protagoras is drowned. within sight of sicily a storm came up and drove the boat on the rocks. the sailors saved themselves by swimming; but protagoras, who could not swim, sat on the prow of the boat. they saw him from the beach sitting calmly until the boat split in two. the waves reached out for him, and in a little time his bruised and battered body was cast up at their feet. as they reached for it it was snatched away by another wave. and so the sea played with him like a cat playing with a mouse. then he was flung ashore. his face was bloody but smiling."
"it was a judgment of the gods," said hermogenes.
"so everybody says."
