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[260c] baggage and was useful for many other purposes—

Phaedrus
Then it would be supremely ridiculous.

Socrates
But is it not better to be ridiculous than to be clever and an enemy?

Phaedrus
To be sure.

Socrates
Then when the orator who does not know what good and evil are undertakes to persuade a state which is equally ignorant, not by praising the ““shadow of an ass”” under the name of a horse, but by praising evil under the name of good, and having studied the opinions of the multitude persuades them to do evil instead of good, what harvest do you suppose his oratory will reap thereafter


Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.

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