Plato

“ Socrates: “You think, then, what you did not say just now, that to bury one’s parents and be buried by one’s offspring is sometimes and for some persons disgraceful; and it is still more impossible, as it seems, for this to become and to be beautiful for all, so that the same thing has happened to this as to the things we mentioned before, the maiden and the pot, in a still more ridiculous way than to them; it is beautiful for some and not beautiful for others. And you are not able yet, even today, Socrates,” he will say, “to answer what is asked about the beautiful, namely what it is.” ”

“ I do not mean all pleasures, but that which makes us feel joy through hearing and sight? For surely beautiful human beings, Hippias, and all decorations and paintings and works of sculpture which are beautiful, delight us when we see them; and beautiful sounds and music in general and speeches and stories do the same thing, so that if we were to reply to that impudent fellow, “My excellent man, the beautiful is that which is pleasing through hearing and sight,” don’t you think that we should put a stop to his impudence? ”

“ Socrates: “Is it not,” then, he will say, “for some other reason than because they are pleasures that you chose these pleasures out from the other pleasures — it was because you saw some quality in both, since they have something different from the others, in view of which you say that they are beautiful? For the reason why that which is pleasant through sight is beautiful, is not, I imagine, because it is through sight; for if that were the cause of its being beautiful, the other pleasure, that through hearing, would not be beautiful; it certainly is not pleasure through sight.” ”

“ For you are both in your private capacity able to earn much money from the young and to confer upon them still greater benefits than you receive, and in public affairs you are able to benefit your own state, as a man must who is to be not despised but held in high repute among the many. And yet, Hippias, what in the world is the reason why those men of old whose names are called great in respect to wisdom — Pittacus, and Bias, and the Milesian Thales with his followers and also the later ones, down to Anaxagoras, are all, or most of them, found to refrain from affairs of state? ”

“ Hippias: Do you wish me to tell you, Socrates, what definition of the beautiful will enable you to free yourself from long discussion?
Socrates: Certainly; but not until after you have told me which of the two ladles I just spoke of I shall reply is appropriate and more beautiful.
Hippias: Well, if you like, reply to him that it is the one made of fig wood.
Socrates: Now, then, say what you were just now going to say. For by this reply, if I say that the beautiful is gold, it seems to me that gold will be shown to be no more beautiful than fig wood ”

“ Hippias: But the appropriate, Socrates, makes things both be and appear beautiful by its presence.
Socrates: Is it impossible, then, for things which are really beautiful not to appear to be beautiful, at any rate when that is present which makes them appear so? ”

“ Hippias: But you see, Socrates, you do not consider the entirety of things, nor do they with whom you are in the habit of conversing, but you all test the beautiful and each individual entity by taking them separately and cutting them to pieces. For this reason you fail to observe that embodiments of reality are by nature so great and undivided. ”

“ Hippias: Certainly.
Socrates: If, then, the beautiful is the cause of good, the good would come into being through the beautiful; and this is why we are eager for wisdom and all the other beautiful things, because their offspring, the good, is worthy of eagerness, and, from what we are finding, it looks as if the beautiful were a sort of father of the good. ”

“ Socrates: Then will not he who is able to transmit the doctrines that are of most value for the acquisition of virtue be most highly honored in Lacedaemon and make most money, if he so wishes, and in any other of the Greek states that is well governed? But do you, my friend, think he will fare better in Sicily and at Inycus? Are we to believe that, Hippias? For if you tell us to do so, we must believe it.
Hippias: Yes, for it is not the inherited usage of the Lacedaemonians to change their laws or to educate their children differently from what is customary. ”

“ For these things, therefore, one must strive, renouncing these petty arguments, that one may not, by busying oneself, as at present, with mere talk and nonsense, appear to be a fool.
Socrates: My dear Hippias, you are blessed because you know the things a man ought to practise, and have, as you say, practised them satisfactorily. ”

“ If I am strong and you also, are we both collectively strong, and if I am just and you also, are we both collectively just, and if both collectively, then each individually so, too, if I am beautiful and you also, are we both collectively beautiful, and if both collectively, then each individually? ”

“ But either of these two has earned more money from his wisdom than any artisan from his art. And even before these Protagoras did so.
Hippias: Why, Socrates, you know nothing of the beauties of this. For if you were to know how much money I have made, you would be amazed. I won’t mention the rest, but once, when I went to Sicily, although Protagoras was staying there and had a great reputation and was the older, I, who was much younger, made in a very short time more than one hundred and fifty minas, and in one very small place, Inycus, more than twenty minas ”

“ Hippias: What do you mean by that, Socrates?
Socrates: I will tell you. “Oh, my dear Socrates,” he says, “stop making replies of this sort and in this way — for they are too silly and easy to refute; but see if something like this does not seem to you to be beautiful, which we got hold of just now in our reply, when we said that gold was beautiful for those things for which it was appropriate, but not for those for which it was not, and that all the other things were beautiful to which this quality pertains ”

“ Hippias: And by Zeus, Socrates, I have just lately gained reputation there by telling about noble or beautiful pursuits, recounting what those of a young man should be. For I have a very beautiful discourse composed about them, well arranged in its words and also in other respects. And the plan of the discourse, and its beginning, is something like this: After the fall of Troy, the story goes that Neoptolemus asked Nestor what the noble and beautiful pursuits were, by following which a young man would become most famous ”

“ Socrates: Well, then, when another asks the question, perhaps it is not quite disrespectful to religion to say that these things are so?
Hippias: Perhaps.
Socrates: “Perhaps, then, you are the man,” he will say, “who says that it is beautiful for every one and always to be buried by one’s offspring, and to bury one’s parents ”