# Socrates — Gorgias

## Введение

> Проходкой царской по Пролетарской Сократа и Херефонта, они обсуждают талант убеждения Горгия

**Her**: My dearest teacher, Socrates, have you ever saw about Gorgias? He is one of the most impressing person of our time.

**Soc**: Yes, of course. I saw that Gorgias with his students are staying at Callicles residence.

## Part 1-2
> Каликус открывает двери своей комнаты, Сократ с учеником входят

> Общий план, в кадр с разных сторон входят с одной стороны: Сократ и Херефонт, а с другой: Горгий, Полюс. Действие происходит в доме Каликла.

**Cherephont**: Good morning, Gorgias, Polus. Thank you, Callicas that you are so hospital.

**Gorgias**: Ask me, Cherephont, what you want to know?

**Cherephont**: Gorgias, how should we call you? If a man makes swords and armor -- he’s a blacksmith. But who are you, Gorgias?

**Gorgias**: I am an orator, Cherephont, and a very good one.

**Cherephont**: Ok, so your art is about speaking, right? It is eloquence, as I can understand. But, for example, teaching is also dealing with words, do you call it eloquence?

**Gorgias**: Nope.

**Cherephont**: So tell me, Gorgias, why don’t you call “eloquence” other art that deals with words, but your own?

**Gorgias**: Other arts are not aiming on the speech. But mine... Oratory, or rhetoric, masters the speech, learns it's subject, how to talk in the right way.

**Cherephont**: So what is the purpose of rhetoric?

**Gorgias**: Rhetoric, Cherephont, is about convincing people. If you can handle the Word, you can make any crowd your slaves, Cherephont.

**Cherephont**: Seems that now you really showed the point of your art. Oratory aims on mastering the conviction skill, right?

**Gorgias**: Absolutely.

**Cherephont**: But tell me, Gorgias, if a mathematician is teaching, isn’t he convincing his students in the material?

**Gorgias**: That is right.

**Cherephont**: So not only rhetoric masters the skill of conviction?

**Gorgias**: And that is also right. But rhetoric’s goal is big crowds and courts, and it’s subject is fair and unfair. When the time comes for the great decision, why do people listen to orators? Athen walls were built after the suggestion of Pericles, not some wall builder. Do you understand, Cherephont?

**Cherephont**: Yes, but I want to know, what is the power in the rhetoric that gives orators the ability to convince anyone?

**Gorgias**: It is, Socrates, very simple. If you are training to fight, you will beat every inexperienced fighter. The same logic here, if you learn to speak, you will be better speaker than everyone else. Orator can convince crowd in any thought you can think about.

**Cherephont**: But the crowd usullay means idiots. So you are saying that idiot (in the medicine) for other idiots will have higher authority than actual medic?

**Gorgias**: isn’t that awesome, Cherephont? :)

## Part 3

**Gorgias**: Polus, my dearest student, maybe you have something to say?

**Polus** Well, I am not as sophisticated in such deep topic as you are, my friends, but it seems to me that the conversation became more like a one-directional question-answer session. Cherephont, you ask a lot of arguable questions. But it is clear that there is something on your mind that you want to share with us.

**Cherephont** Well, I'd say that rhetoric is not an art at all, it's simply not scientific. Ok, take for example cookery, it is a foul variation of the art of medicine, just as rhetoric is a foul variant of the art of justice.

**Polus** But is it really _bad_? I mean, why is this a problem - this "foul" art is still creating good for someone, for example take a thief who stole a lot of gold, but due to his great skill of sharp speech and mastery of conviction he was able to turn around the court with all its occusations and then to live his life thriving, and this is good for him. This you can agree with, right?

**Cherephont** Not really. I think that it is better for the individual to undergo proper punishment, than to walk around with his riches. Look at it this way: justice is analogous to medicine - medicine is for healing your body, while justice is for healing your soul. What would you prefer - living with a disease, while avoiding momentary discomfort, or "swallowing the pill", and living happily ever after?

**Polus** Well, if you put it that way, I really don't know...

## Part 4

**Callicles**: You really bore our ears with all those words about what is beautiful not by nature at all, but only by established custom. Custom declares it unjust and shameful to rise above the crowd. But strong can take what they want, the law was created by the weak and because of fear of strong people.
Taking what you want if you have enough power is natural and law is not. That is the truth, Socrates, and you will find it out if you give up philosophy and go to more important matters.

**Socrates**: So, are most by nature stronger than one? That is the most that makes the laws , as you just said.

**Callicles**: It appears so.

**Socrates**: So, the establishment of the majority is the establishment of the strong?

**Callicles**: Yes

**Socrates**: So their institutions are beautiful in nature, since they are the institutions of the strong?

**Callicles**: Yes

**Socrates**: Does the majority claim that justice is equality, and that it is more shameful to do injustice than to suffer it?

**Cal**: Yes, most people think so.

**Socrates**: It appears, perhaps, that you have spoken falsely before, and accused Cherephont unjustly, by asserting that custom is contrary to nature

## Part 5
**Callicles** You still haven't convinced me. Suffering wrong is worse than doing it.

**Socrates** I deny, Callicles, that the most shameful thing in this world is to endure humiliation or to be robbed. It is much worse to steal, beat, humiliate or do something terrible by yourself! What a man should do in order not to suffer from both things?

**Callicles** I believe that oratory makes the world better. At least, for me, it works.

**Socrates** No shipbuilder nor other professional is praising his profession as you are doing it. You miss how valuable is equality, both between Gods and people, - and I mean geometric equality.

**Callicles** Maybe.

**Socrates** But really, it is crucial to be fair in your life, because the greatest of all evils is a soul coming to Hades with a lot of unfair acts in the past.

**Callicles** What are you talking about?

**Socrates** Now I will tell you the story. At the beginning of the kingdom of Zeus, there were courts for dead people to decide their further way: Eden or Hades. The judges decided where the souls of the dead would go evaluating their actions in life, i.e. how fair they were. Good people were sent to paradise and continued to exist calmly. Those who are guilty serve as an example and a warning: they themselves do not derive any benefit, but others extract, seeing the greatest, most bitter and most terrible torments.
So, believe me and follow me to the goal, having achieved that you will be happy both in life and after death. And let others despise you, believing that you are a fool, let them insult you, if you like, even beat, I swear by Zeus, - endure shame and beatings calmly: nothing bad will happen to you if you are a truly worthy person and devoted to virtue.