Lesser Hippias | Page 8

ask.
SOCRATES: Truly, Hippias, you are to be congratulated, if at every
Olympic festival you have such an encouraging opinion of your own
wisdom when you go up to the temple. I doubt whether any muscular
hero would be so fearless and confident in offering his body to the
combat at Olympia, as you are in offering your mind.
HIPPIAS: And with good reason, Socrates; for since the day when I
first entered the lists at Olympia I have never found any man who was
my superior in anything. (Compare Gorgias.)
SOCRATES: What an ornament, Hippias, will the reputation of your
wisdom be to the city of Elis and to your parents! But to return: what
say you of Odysseus and Achilles? Which is the better of the two? and
in what particular does either surpass the other? For when you were
exhibiting and there was company in the room, though I could not
follow you, I did not like to ask what you meant, because a crowd of
people were present, and I was afraid that the question might interrupt
your exhibition. But now that there are not so many of us, and my
friend Eudicus bids me ask, I wish you would tell me what you were
saying about these two heroes, so that I may clearly understand; how
did you distinguish them?
HIPPIAS: I shall have much pleasure, Socrates, in explaining to you
more clearly than I could in public my views about these and also about
other heroes. I say that Homer intended Achilles to be the bravest of the
men who went to Troy, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the wiliest.
SOCRATES: O rare Hippias, will you be so good as not to laugh, if I
find a difficulty in following you, and repeat my questions several
times over? Please to answer me kindly and gently.
HIPPIAS: I should be greatly ashamed of myself, Socrates, if I, who

teach others and take money of them, could not, when I was asked by
you, answer in a civil and agreeable manner.
SOCRATES: Thank you: the fact is, that I seemed to understand what
you meant when you said that the poet intended Achilles to be the
bravest of men, and also that he intended Nestor to be the wisest; but
when you said that he meant Odysseus to be the wiliest, I must confess
that I could not understand what you were saying. Will you tell me, and
then I shall perhaps understand you better; has not Homer made
Achilles wily?
HIPPIAS: Certainly not, Socrates; he is the most straight-forward of
mankind, and when Homer introduces them talking with one another in
the passage called the Prayers, Achilles is supposed by the poet to say
to Odysseus:--
'Son of Laertes, sprung from heaven, crafty Odysseus, I will speak out
plainly the word which I intend to carry out in act, and which will, I
believe, be accomplished. For I hate him like the gates of death who
thinks one thing and says another. But I will speak that which shall be
accomplished.'
Now, in these verses he clearly indicates the character of the two men;
he shows Achilles to be true and simple, and Odysseus to be wily and
false; for he supposes Achilles to be addressing Odysseus in these lines.
SOCRATES: Now, Hippias, I think that I understand your meaning;
when you say that Odysseus is wily, you clearly mean that he is false?
HIPPIAS: Exactly so, Socrates; it is the character of Odysseus, as he is
represented by Homer in many passages both of the Iliad and Odyssey.
SOCRATES: And Homer must be presumed to have meant that the
true man is not the same as the false?
HIPPIAS: Of course, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And is that your own opinion, Hippias?
HIPPIAS: Certainly; how can I have any other?
SOCRATES: Well, then, as there is no possibility of asking Homer
what he meant in these verses of his, let us leave him; but as you show
a willingness to take up his cause, and your opinion agrees with what
you declare to be his, will you answer on behalf of yourself and him?
HIPPIAS: I will; ask shortly anything which you like.
SOCRATES: Do you say that the false, like the sick, have no power to
do things, or that they have the power to do things?

HIPPIAS: I should say that they have power to do many things, and in
particular to deceive mankind.
SOCRATES: Then, according to you, they are both powerful and wily,
are they not?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And are they wily, and do they deceive by reason of their
simplicity and folly, or by reason of their cunning and a certain sort of
prudence?
HIPPIAS: By reason of their cunning and prudence,