The itch and consistency
SocratesSplendid, my good friend: keep on as you began, and see that you don’t hold back out of shame. And I too, it seems, must not hold back out of shame. So first tell me whether even someone who has the itch and an urge to scratch, with plenty of scope for scratching, and who spends his life scratching, can live happily.
CalliclesWhat an outlandish man you are, Socrates, and simply a popular orator!
SocratesThat is just why, Callicles, I astounded Polus and Gorgias and made them ashamed, while you will certainly not be astounded or ashamed; for you are brave. Only answer.
CalliclesWell then, I do say that even the man who scratches would live pleasantly.
SocratesThen if pleasantly, happily too?
CalliclesCertainly.
SocratesWhat if he has the urge to scratch only his head—or what more shall I ask you? Consider, Callicles, what you will answer if someone asks you, one after another, all the things that go with these. And the head of all such things, the life of catamites—isn’t that terrible, shameful and wretched? Or will you dare to say that they are happy, if they have plenty of what they need?
CalliclesAren’t you ashamed, Socrates, to lead the discussion into such things?
SocratesIs it I who lead it there, my noble friend, or the man who says so recklessly that those who enjoy themselves, however they enjoy themselves, are happy, and does not distinguish which pleasures are good and which bad? But tell me, even now: do you say that the pleasant and the good are the same, or that there is something among pleasant things that is not good?
CalliclesWell, so that my argument won’t disagree with itself if I say they are different, I say they are the same.