[344d]
After this Thrasymachus was minded to depart when like a
bathman1 he had poured his speech in a
sudden flood over our ears. But the company would not suffer him and were
insistent that he should remain and render an account of what he had said.
And I was particularly urgent and said, “I am surprised at you,
Thrasymachus; after hurling2 such a doctrine at us, can it be that you
propose to depart without staying to teach us properly or learn yourself
whether this thing is so or not? Do you think it is a small matter3 that you are attempting to determine
1 Cf. Theophrastus, Char. xv. 19 (Jebb), Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens, p. 134. For the metaphor cf. 536 B, Lysis 204 D, Aristophanes Wasps 483. “Sudden,” lit. “all at once.”
2 Cf. Euripides Alcestis 680οὐ βαλὼν οὕτως ἄπει.
3 Socrates reminds us that a serious moral issue is involved in all this word-play. So 352 D, Gorgias 492 C, 500 C, Laches 185 A. Cf. 377 B, 578 C, 608 B.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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