you want really to know what justice is,
you should not only ask but answer, and you should not seek honour to
yourself from the refutation of an opponent, but have your own answer;
for there is many a one who can ask and cannot answer. And now I will
not have you say that justice is duty or advantage or profit or gain or
interest, for this sort of nonsense will not do for me; I must have
clearness and accuracy.

I was panic-stricken at his words, and could not look at him without
trembling. Indeed I believe that if I had not fixed my eye upon him, I
should have been struck dumb: but when I saw his fury rising, I looked
at him first, and was therefore able to reply to him.

Thrasymachus, I said, with a quiver, don't be hard upon us.
Polemarchus and I may have been guilty of a little mistake in the
argument, but I can assure you that the error was not intentional. If
we were seeking for a piece of gold, you would not imagine that we were
'knocking under to one another,' and so losing our chance of finding
it. And why, when we are seeking for justice, a thing more precious
than many pieces of gold, do you say that we are weakly yielding to one
another and not doing our utmost to get at the truth? Nay, my good
friend, we are most willing and anxious to do so, but the fact is that
we cannot. And if so, you people who know all things should pity us
and not be angry with us.

How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter
laugh;--that's your ironical style! Did I not foresee--have I not
already told you, that whatever he was asked he would refuse to answer,
and try irony or any other shuffle, in order that he might avoid
answering?

You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if
you ask a person what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit
him whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six
times two, or four times three, 'for this sort of nonsense will not do
for me,'--then obviously, that is your way of putting the question, no
one can answer you. But suppose that he were to retort, 'Thrasymachus,
what do you mean? If one of these numbers which you interdict be the
true answer to the question, am I falsely to say some other number
which is not the right one?--is that your meaning?'--How would you
answer him?

Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said.

Why should they not be? I replied; and even if they are not, but only
appear to be