Zethus and Amphion
CalliclesFor, as I was saying just now, this person, even if he is very naturally gifted, is bound to become unmanly, fleeing the centre of the city and the marketplaces, where, the poet said, men become distinguished, and to sink out of sight and live the rest of his life whispering with three or four lads in a corner, never giving voice to anything free, great or of consequence. And I, Socrates, feel reasonably friendly towards you; so it may well be that I am feeling now what Zethus felt towards Amphion—the Zethus of Euripides, whom I mentioned.
For it occurs to me, too, to say to you the kind of things he said to his brother: “You neglect, Socrates, the things you ought to care for; and a soul so noble by nature you disfigure with some boyish guise; you could offer no rightly spoken word in the deliberations of justice, nor lay hold of what is likely and persuasive, nor devise a bold device on another’s behalf.” And yet, my dear Socrates—and do not be at all annoyed with me, for I will say it out of goodwill towards you—does it not seem shameful to you to be in the state I think you are in, you and the others who keep driving ever further into philosophy? For as things are, if someone seized you, or anyone else at all of your sort, and hauled that man off to prison, claiming he was doing injustice when he was doing none, you know that you would have no idea what to do with yourself, but you would be dizzy and gape, with nothing to say. And going up into the lawcourt, with an accuser who happened to be altogether worthless and vile, you would die, if he wanted to propose death as your penalty.