protagoras   

them; but there would be no difficulty in finding a teacher of those

who are wholly ignorant. And this is true of virtue or of anything

else; if a man is better able than we are to promote virtue ever so

little, we must be content with the result. A teacher of this sort I

believe myself to be, and above all other men to have the knowledge

which makes a man noble and good; and I give my pupils their

money's-worth, and even more, as they themselves confess. And

therefore I have introduced the following mode of payment:-When a

man has been my pupil, if he likes he pays my price, but there is no

compulsion; and if he does not like, he has only to go into a temple

and take an oath of the value of the instructions, and he pays no more

than he declares to be their value.

Such is my Apologue, Socrates, and such is the argument by which I

endeavour to show that virtue may be taught, and that this is the

opinion of the Athenians. And I have also attempted to show that you

are not to wonder at good fathers having bad sons, or at good sons

having bad fathers, of which the sons of Polycleitus afford an

example, who are the companions of our friends here, Paralus and

Xanthippus, but are nothing in comparison with their father; and

this is true of the sons of many other artists. As yet I ought not

to say the same of Paralus and Xanthippus themselves, for they are

young and there is still hope of them.

Protagoras ended, and in my ear



So charming left his voice, that I the while

Thought him still speaking; still stood fixed to hear.



At length, when the truth dawned upon me, that he had really finished,

not without difficulty I began to collect myself, and looking at

Hippocrates, I said to him: O son of Apollodorus, how deeply

grateful I am to you for having brought me hither; I would not have

missed the speech of Protagoras for a great deal. For I used to