by this who they are whom I
deem to be wise men, for you will see that when I am talking with a wise
man, I am very attentive to what he says; and I ask questions of him,
in order that I may learn, and be improved by him. And I could not help
remarking while you were speaking, that when you recited the verses in
which Achilles, as you argued, attacks Odysseus as a deceiver, that you
must be strangely mistaken, because Odysseus, the man of wiles, is
never found to tell a lie; but Achilles is found to be wily on your own
showing. At any rate he speaks falsely; for first he utters these words,
which you just now repeated,--

'He is hateful to me even as the gates of death who thinks one thing and
says another:'--

And then he says, a little while afterwards, he will not be persuaded by
Odysseus and Agamemnon, neither will he remain at Troy; but, says he,--

'To-morrow, when I have offered sacrifices to Zeus and all the Gods,
having loaded my ships well, I will drag them down into the deep; and
then you shall see, if you have a mind, and if such things are a care
to you, early in the morning my ships sailing over the fishy Hellespont,
and my men eagerly plying the oar; and, if the illustrious shaker of the
earth gives me a good voyage, on the third day I shall reach the fertile
Phthia.'

And before that, when he was reviling Agamemnon, he said,--

'And now to Phthia I will go, since to return home in the beaked ships
is far better, nor am I inclined to stay here in dishonour and amass
wealth and riches for you.'

But although on that occasion, in the presence of the whole army, he
spoke after this fashion, and on the other occasion to his companions,
he appears never to have made any preparation or attempt to draw down
the ships, as if he had the least intention of sailing home; so nobly
regardless was he of the truth. Now I, Hippias, originally asked you
the question, because I was in doubt as to which of the two heroes was
intended by the poet to be the best, and because I thought that both of
them were the best, and that it would be difficult to decide which was
the better of them, not only in respect of truth and falsehood, but of
virtue generally, for even in this matter of speaking the truth they are
much upon a par.

HIPPIAS: There you are wrong, Socrates; for in so far as Achilles speaks
falsely, the falsehood is obviously unintentional. He is compelled
against his will to remain and rescue the army in their