a mountain of words, declaring and
insisting that we ought all of us to be engine-makers, and that no
other profession is worth thinking about; he would have plenty to say.
Nevertheless you despise him and his art, and sneeringly call him an
engine-maker, and you will not allow your daughters to marry his son,
or marry your son to his daughters. And yet, on your principle, what
justice or reason is there in your refusal? What right have you to
despise the engine-maker, and the others whom I was just now mentioning?
I know that you will say, 'I am better, and better born.' But if the
better is not what I say, and virtue consists only in a man saving
himself and his, whatever may be his character, then your censure of the
engine-maker, and of the physician, and of the other arts of salvation,
is ridiculous. O my friend! I want you to see that the noble and
the good may possibly be something different from saving and being
saved:--May not he who is truly a man cease to care about living a
certain time?--he knows, as women say, that no man can escape fate,
and therefore he is not fond of life; he leaves all that with God, and
considers in what way he can best spend his appointed term;--whether by
assimilating himself to the constitution under which he lives, as you at
this moment have to consider how you may become as like as possible to
the Athenian people, if you mean to be in their good graces, and to have
power in the state; whereas I want you to think and see whether this is
for the interest of either of us;--I would not have us risk that
which is dearest on the acquisition of this power, like the Thessalian
enchantresses, who, as they say, bring down the moon from heaven at the
risk of their own perdition. But if you suppose that any man will
show you the art of becoming great in the city, and yet not conforming
yourself to the ways of the city, whether for better or worse, then I
can only say that you are mistaken, Callides; for he who would deserve
to be the true natural friend of the Athenian Demus, aye, or of
Pyrilampes' darling who is called after them, must be by nature like
them, and not an imitator only. He, then, who will make you most like
them, will make you as you desire, a statesman and orator: for every
man is pleased when he is spoken to in his own language and spirit, and
dislikes any other. But perhaps you, sweet Callicles, may be of another
mind. What do you say?

CALLICLES: Somehow or other your wor