The greatest affairs and a drinking song
SocratesCome, then, you too, Gorgias. For rhetoric does indeed happen to be one of those in which everything is achieved and accomplished by speech. Isn’t it so?
GorgiasThat is so.
SocratesThen tell me: one of those concerned with what? What is this, among the things that are, that these speeches rhetoric uses are concerned with?
GorgiasThe greatest of human affairs, Socrates, and the best.
SocratesBut what you are saying is disputable too, Gorgias, and not at all clear as yet. For I think you have heard people at banquets singing that drinking song in which they count off, as they sing, that to be healthy is best, second to be born handsome, and third, as the maker of the drinking song says, to be rich without fraud.
GorgiasYes, I’ve heard it; but what are you saying this for?