[336d]
what you say the just is. And don't you be
telling me1 that it is that which ought to be, or
the beneficial or the profitable or the gainful or the advantageous, but
express clearly and precisely whatever you say. For I won't take from you
any such drivel as that!” And I, when I heard him, was dismayed,
and looking upon him was filled with fear, and I believe that if I had not
looked at him before he did at me I should have lost my voice.2 But as it is, at the very moment when he began to
be exasperated by the course of the argument
1 Thrasymachus objects to definition by substitution of synonyms (Cf. Clitophon 409 C). He demands an analysis of the underlying facts (338 D-E), such as is given in the later books.
2 For the fancy that to be seen first by the wolf makes dumb see Virgil Eclogues 9. 53, Theocr. 14. 22, Pliny, N.H. viii. 34, Milton, Epitaphium Damonis 27 “nisi me lupus ante videbit.”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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