gorgias   

Soc. And will you continue to ask and answer questions, Gorgias,

as we are at present doing and reserve for another occasion the longer

mode of speech which Polus was attempting? Will you keep your promise,

and answer shortly the questions which are asked of you?

Gor. Some answers, Socrates, are of necessity longer; but I will

do my best to make them as short as possible; for a part of my

profession is that I can be as short as any one.

Soc. That is what is wanted, Gorgias; exhibit the shorter method

now, and the longer one at some other time.

Gor. Well, I will; and you will certainly say, that you never

heard a man use fewer words.

Soc. Very good then; as you profess to be a rhetorician, and a maker

of rhetoricians, let me ask you, with what is rhetoric concerned: I

might ask with what is weaving concerned, and you would reply (would

you not?), with the making of garments?

Gor. Yes.

Soc. And music is concerned with the composition of melodies?

Gor. It is.

Soc. By Here, Gorgias, I admire the surpassing brevity of your

answers.

Gor. Yes, Socrates, I do think myself good at that.

Soc. I am glad to hear it; answer me in like manner about

rhetoric: with what is rhetoric concerned?

Gor. With discourse.

Soc. What sort of discourse, Gorgias?-such discourse as would

teach the sick under what treatment they might get well?

Gor. No.

Soc. Then rhetoric does not treat of all kinds of discourse?

Gor. Certainly not.

Soc. And yet rhetoric makes men able to speak?

Gor. Yes.

Soc. And to understand that about which they speak?