he did not see that I had not yet answered him
when he proceeded to ask a further question: Whether I do not think
rhetoric a fine thing? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a
fine thing or not, until I have first answered, 'What is rhetoric?' For
that would not be right, Polus; but I shall be happy to answer, if you
will ask me, What part of flattery is rhetoric?

POLUS: I will ask and do you answer? What part of flattery is rhetoric?

SOCRATES: Will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my view,
is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.

POLUS: And noble or ignoble?

SOCRATES: Ignoble, I should say, if I am compelled to answer, for I call
what is bad ignoble: though I doubt whether you understand what I was
saying before.

GORGIAS: Indeed, Socrates, I cannot say that I understand myself.

SOCRATES: I do not wonder, Gorgias; for I have not as yet explained
myself, and our friend Polus, colt by name and colt by nature, is apt
to run away. (This is an untranslatable play on the name 'Polus,' which
means 'a colt.')

GORGIAS: Never mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying that
rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.

SOCRATES: I will try, then, to explain my notion of rhetoric, and if
I am mistaken, my friend Polus shall refute me. We may assume the
existence of bodies and of souls?

GORGIAS: Of course.

SOCRATES: You would further admit that there is a good condition of
either of them?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Which condition may not be really good, but good only in
appearance? I mean to say, that there are many persons who appear to
be in good health, and whom only a physician or trainer will discern at
first sight not to be in good health.

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul:
in either there may be that which gives the appearance of health and not
the reality?

GORGIAS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what I
mean: The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to them:
there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another art
attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which may be
described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic, and the other
medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which answers to
gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts run into one
another, justice hav