Socrates : Certainly, Hippias; now you understand beautifully.
Hippias : Listen, then ; for, mind you, if anyone has anything to say against this, you may say I know nothing at all.
Socrates : Then for Heaven’s sake, speak as quickly as you can.
Hippias : I say, then, that for every man and everywhere it is most beautiful to be rich and healthy, and honored by the Greeks, to reach old age, and, after providing a beautiful funeral for his deceased parents, [291e] to be beautifully and splendidly buried by his own offspring.
Socrates : Bravo, bravo, Hippias ! You have spoken in a way that is wonderful and great and worthy of you ; and now, by Hera, I thank you, because you are kindly coming to my assistance to the best of your ability. But our shots are not hitting the man ; no, he will laugh at us now more than ever, be sure of that.
Hippias : A wretched laugh, Socrates ; for when he has nothing to say to this, but laughs, he will be laughing at himself [292a] and will himself be laughed at by those present.
Socrates : Perhaps that is so perhaps, however, after this reply, he will, I foresee, be likely to do more than laugh at me.
Hippias : Why do you say that, pray ?
Socrates : Because, if he happens to have a stick, unless I get away in a hurry, he will try to fetch me a good one.
Hippias : What ? Is the fellow some sort of master of yours, and if he does that, will he not be arrested and have to pay for it ? Or does your city disregard justice [292b] and allow the citizens to beat one another unjustly ?
Socrates : Oh no that is not allowed at all.
Hippias : Then he will have to pay a penalty for beating you unjustly.
Socrates : I do not think so, Hippias. No, if I were to make that reply, the beating would be just, I think.
Hippias : Then I think so, too, Socrates, since that is your own belief.
Socrates : Shall I, then, not tell you why it is my own belief that the beating would be just, if I made that reply ? Or will you also beat me without trial ? Or will you listen to what I have to say ?
[292c] Hippias : It would be shocking if I would not listen ; but what have you to say ?Socrates : I will tell you, imitating him in the same way as a while ago, that I may not use to you such harsh and uncouth words as he uses to me. For you may be sure, “Tell me, Socrates,” he will say, “do you think it would be unjust if you got a beating for singing such a long dithyramb so unmusically and so far from the question ?” “How so ?” I shall say. “How so ?” he will say ; “are you not able to remember that I asked for the absolute beautiful, [292d] by which everything to which it is added has the property of being beautiful, both stone and stick and man and god and every act and every acquisition of knowledge ? For what I am asking is this, man : what is absolute beauty ? and I cannot make you hear what I say any more than if you were a stone sitting beside me, and a millstone at that, having neither ears nor brain.” Would you, then, not be angry, Hippias, if I should be frightened and should reply in this way ? “Well, but Hippias said that this was the beautiful ; [292e] and yet I asked him, just as you asked me, what is beautiful to all and always.” What do you say ? Will you not be angry if I say that ?
Hippias : I know very well, Socrates, that this which I said was beautiful is beautiful to all and will seem so.
Socrates : And will it be so, too he will say for the beautiful is always beautiful, is it not ?
Hippias : Certainly.
Socrates : “Then was it so, too ?” he will say.
Hippias : It was so, too.
Socrates : “And,” he will say, “did the stranger from Elis say also that for Achilles it was beautiful to be buried later than his parents, and for his grandfather Aeacus, and all the others who were born of gods, [293a] and for the gods themselves ?”
Hippias : What’s that ? Confound it ! These questions of the fellow’s are not even respectful to religion.
Socrates : Well, then, when another asks the question, perhaps it is not quite disrespectful to religion to say that these things are so ?
Hippias : Perhaps.
Socrates : “Perhaps, then, you are the man,” he will say, “who says that it is beautiful for every one and always to be buried by one’s offspring, and to bury one’s parents; or was not Heracles included in ‘every one,’ he and all those whom we just now mentioned ?”
Hippias : But I did not say it was so for the gods.
Socrates : “Nor for the heroes either, apparently.”
[293b] Hippias : Not those who were children of gods.Socrates : “But those who were not ?”
Hippias : Certainly.
Socrates : “Then again, according to your statement, among the heroes it is terrible and impious and disgraceful for Tantalus and Dardanus and Zethus, but beautiful for Pelops and the others who were born as he was ?”
Hippias : I think so.