g your acquaintance; he would like to know what
will happen to him if he associates with you. I have no more to say.

Protagoras answered: Young man, if you associate with me, on the very
first day you will return home a better man than you came, and better on
the second day than on the first, and better every day than you were on
the day before.

When I heard this, I said: Protagoras, I do not at all wonder at hearing
you say this; even at your age, and with all your wisdom, if any one
were to teach you what you did not know before, you would become better
no doubt: but please to answer in a different way--I will explain how
by an example. Let me suppose that Hippocrates, instead of desiring your
acquaintance, wished to become acquainted with the young man Zeuxippus
of Heraclea, who has lately been in Athens, and he had come to him as
he has come to you, and had heard him say, as he has heard you say, that
every day he would grow and become better if he associated with him: and
then suppose that he were to ask him, 'In what shall I become better,
and in what shall I grow?'--Zeuxippus would answer, 'In painting.' And
suppose that he went to Orthagoras the Theban, and heard him say the
same thing, and asked him, 'In what shall I become better day by day?'
he would reply, 'In flute-playing.' Now I want you to make the same sort
of answer to this young man and to me, who am asking questions on his
account. When you say that on the first day on which he associates with
you he will return home a better man, and on every day will grow in like
manner,--in what, Protagoras, will he be better? and about what?

When Protagoras heard me say this, he replied: You ask questions fairly,
and I like to answer a question which is fairly put. If Hippocrates
comes to me he will not experience the sort of drudgery with which other
Sophists are in the habit of insulting their pupils; who, when they have
just escaped from the arts, are taken and driven back into them by these
teachers, and made to learn calculation, and astronomy, and geometry,
and music (he gave a look at Hippias as he said this); but if he comes
to me, he will learn that which he comes to learn. And this is prudence
in affairs private as well as public; he will learn to order his own
house in the best manner, and he will be able to speak and act for the
best in the affairs of the state.

Do I understand you, I said; and is your meaning that you teach the art
of politics