Then I remarked: Upon my word, how opportunely it has happened that Prodicus is here to join in our discussion! For it is very likely, Protagoras, that Prodicus’ wisdom is a gift of long ago from heaven, beginning either in the time of Simonides or even earlier. But you, so skilled in many other things, appear to be unskilled in this, and lack the skill that I can boast because I am a disciple of the great Prodicus; and so now I find you do not understand that perhaps Simonides did not conceive “hard” in the way that you conceive it—just as, in the case of “awful,” Prodicus here corrects me each time I use the word in praising you or someone else; when I say, for instance, that Protagoras is an awfully wise man, he asks if I am not ashamed to call good things awful. For awful, he says, is bad; thus no one on this or that occasion speaks of “awful wealth” or “awful peace” or “awful health,” but we say “awful disease,” “awful war” or “awful poverty,” taking “awful” to be “bad.” So perhaps “hard” also was intended by the Ceans and Simonides as either “bad” or something else that you do not understand: let us therefore ask Prodicus, for it is fair to question him on the dialect of Simonides. What did Simonides mean, Prodicus, by “hard”?

Prodicus “Bad,” he replied.

Then it is on this account, Prodicus, I said, that he blames Pittacus for saying it is hard to be good, just as though he heard him say it is bad to be good.

Well, Socrates, he said, what else do you think Simonides meant? Was he not reproaching Pittacus for not knowing how to distinguish words correctly, Lesbian as he was, and nurtured in a foreign tongue?

You hear, Protagoras, I said, what Prodicus here suggests: have you anything to say upon it?

Protagoras The case, said Protagoras, is far otherwise, Prodicus: I am quite sure that Simonides meant by “hard” the same as we generally do—not “bad,” but whatever is not easy and involves a great amount of trouble.

Ah, I agree with you, Protagoras, I said, that this is Simonides’ meaning, and that our friend Prodicus knows it, but is joking and chooses to experiment on you to see if you will be able to support your own statement. For that Simonides does not mean that “hard” is “bad” we have clear proof forthwith in the next phrase, where he says— God alone can have this privilege. ¹ Surely he cannot mean that it is bad to be good, if he proceeds here to say that God alone can have this thing, and attributes this privilege to God only; otherwise Prodicus would call Simonides a rake, and no true Cean.

But I should like to tell you what I take to be Simonides’ intention in this ode, if you care to test my powers, as you put it,² in the matter of verses; though if you would rather, I will hear your account.

When Protagoras heard me say this—As you please, Socrates, he said; then Prodicus and Hippias strongly urged me, and the rest of them also.

Well then, I said, I will try to explain to you my own feeling about this poem. Now philosophy is of more ancient and abundant growth in Crete and Lacedaemon than in any other part of Greece, and sophists are more numerous in those regions: but the people there deny it and make pretence of ignorance, in order to prevent the discovery that it is by wisdom that they have ascendancy over the rest of the Greeks, like those sophists of whom Protagoras was speaking³; they prefer it to be thought that they owe their superiority to fighting and valor, conceiving that the revelation of its real cause would lead everyone to practise this wisdom. So well have they kept their secret that they have deceived the followers of the Spartan cult in our cities, with the result that some get broken ears by imitating them, bind their knuckles with thongs, go in for muscular exercises, and wear dashing little cloaks,⁴ as though it were by these means that the Spartans were the masters of Greece. And when the Spartans wish to converse unrestrainedly with their sophists, and begin to chafe at the secrecy of their meetings, they pass alien acts against the laconizing set⁵ and any other strangers within their gates, and have meetings with the sophists unknown to the foreigners; while on their part they do not permit any of their young men to travel abroad to the other cities—in this rule they resemble the Cretans—lest they unlearn what they are taught at home. In those two states there are not only men but women also who pride themselves on their education; and you can tell that what I say is true and that the Spartans have the best education in philosophy and argument by this: if you choose to consort with the meanest of Spartans, at first you will find him making a poor show in the conversation; but soon, at some point or other in the discussion, he gets home with a notable remark, short and compressed—a deadly shot that makes his interlocutor seem like a helpless child.

Hence this very truth has been observed by certain persons both in our day and in former times—that the Spartan cult is much more the pursuit of wisdom than of athletics; for they know that a man’s ability to utter such remarks is to be ascribed to his perfect education. Such men were Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, Solon of our city, Cleobulus of Lindus, Myson of Chen, and, last of the traditional seven, Chilon of Sparta. All these were enthusiasts, lovers and disciples of the Spartan culture; and you can recognize that character in their wisdom by the short, memorable sayings that fell from each of them they assembled together and dedicated these as the first-fruits of their lore to Apollo in his Delphic temple, inscribing there those maxims which are on every tongue—“Know thyself” and “Nothing overmuch.” To what intent do I say this? To show how the ancient philosophy had this style of laconic brevity; and so it was that the saying of Pittacus was privately handed about with high approbation among the sages—that it is hard to be good. Then Simonides, ambitious to get a name for wisdom, perceived that if he could overthrow this saying, as one might some famous athlete, and become its conqueror, he would win fame himself amongst men of that day. Accordingly it was against this saying, and with this aim, that he composed the whole poem as a means of covertly assailing and abasing this maxim, as it seems to me.⁶

Now let us all combine in considering whether my account is really true. The opening of the ode must at once appear crazy if, while intending to say that it is hard for a man to become good, he inserted “indeed.” There is no sort of sense, I imagine, in this insertion, unless we suppose that Simonides is addressing himself to the saying of Pittacus as a disputant: Pittacus says—It is hard to be good; and the poet controverts this by observing—No, but to become good, indeed, is hard for a man, Pittacus, truly—not truly good; he does not mention truth in this connexion, or imply that some things are truly good, while others are good but not truly so: this would seem silly and unlike Simonides.

We must rather take the “truly” as a poetical transposition, and first quote the saying of Pittacus in some such way as this: let us suppose Pittacus himself to be speaking and Simonides replying, as thus—Good people, he says, it is hard to be good; and the poet answers—Pittacus, what you say is not true, for it is not being but becoming good, indeed—in hands and feet and mind foursquare, fashioned without reproach—that is truly hard. In this way we see a purpose in the insertion of “indeed,” and that the “truly” is correctly placed at the end; and all that comes after corroborates this view of his meaning. There are many points in the various expressions of the poem which might be instanced to show its fine composition, for it is a work of very elegant and elaborate art; but it would take too long to detail all its beauties. However, let us go over its general outline and intention, which is assuredly to refute Pittacus’ saying, throughout the ode.

Proceeding a little way on from our passage, just as though he were making a speech, he says to become, indeed, a good man is truly hard (not but what it is possible for a certain space of time); “but to continue in this state of what one has become, and to be a good man” is, as you say, Pittacus, impossible, superhuman: God alone can have this privilege— For that man cannot help but be bad Whom irresistible mischance has overthrown. ⁷ Now who is it that an irresistible mischance overthrows in the command of a ship? Clearly not the ordinary man, for he may be overcome at any time; just as you cannot knock over one who is lying down, but one who is standing; you might knock over a standing man so as to make him lie down, not one who is lying down already. So it is a man apt to resist that an irresistible mischance would overthrow, and not one who could never resist anything. A great storm breaking over a steersman will render him helpless, and a severe season will leave a farmer helpless, and a doctor will be in the same case. For the good has the capacity of becoming bad, as we have witness in another poet⁸ who said—Nay more, the virtuous man is at one time bad, at another good. ⁹whereas the bad man has no capacity for becoming, but must ever be, what he is; so that when an irresistible mischance overthrows him who is resourceful, wise, and good, he cannot but be bad; and you say, Pittacus, that it is hard to be good—that is, to become good, indeed, is hard, though possible, but to be good is impossible: for—¹⁰ If he hath fared well, every man is good; Bad, if ill. ¹¹