wine.' Just below, περὶ δὲ τὸν οἶνον γιγνομένην καὶ φερομένην πικρότητα, the words καὶ φερομένην read very like an interpolation, as an attentive consideration of the passage, we think, will show. In p. 161, A., we come upon some rather loose rendering. Theætetus asks Socrates whether he has not been all along speaking in irony, and whether, having proved that black is white, he is not prepared equally to prove that white is black. This, of course, is a playful satire on his skill in dialectics. The words ἀλλὰ πρὸς θεῶν εἰπὲ, ἦ αὖ οὐχ οὕτως ἔχει, literally mean, 'But tell me in heaven's name, is not all this, on the other hand, _not_ so?' And so just below, Socrates says, 'You are, indeed, a lover of arguments and a worthy good soul, my Theodorus, for thinking that I am a mere bag of words, and can easily bring them out when wanted, and prove that, on the other hand, these things are _not_ so.' In the very next words, τὸ δὲ γιγνόμενον οὐκ ἐννοεῖς, there is a joke, and not a bad one, on the doctrine, οὐδὲν ἔστιν ἀλλὰ πάντα γίγνεται. Mr. Jowett's version of the whole passage seems rather careless: 'But I should like to know, Socrates, by heaven I should, whether you mean to say that all this is untrue? Socrates: You are fond of argument, Theodorus, and now you innocently fancy that I am a bag full of arguments, and can easily pull one out which will prove the reverse of all this. But you do not see that in reality none of these arguments come from me. They all come from him who talks with me. I only know just enough to extract them from the wisdom of another, and to receive them in a spirit of fairness.' The last words, ἀποδέξασθαι μετρίως, more accurately mean, 'to take it from its parent fairly well,' _i.e._, as a theme for discussion. The phrase μητρόθεν δέχεσθαι, said of the nurse taking a newly-born infant, is playfully alluded to. In p. 161, C., Mr. Jowett's version but poorly represents the real sense of a keenly ironical passage:--'Then, when we were reverencing him as a god, he might have condescended to inform us that he was no wiser than a tadpole, and did not even aspire to be a man: would not this have produced an overpowering effect?' The exact words of Plato are these: 'In which case he would have commenced his address to us in grand style, and very contemptuously, by letting us see that we have been looking up to him, as to a god, for his wisdom, while he all the time was in no degree superior, in respect of intelligence, to a tadpole, not to say to any other man.' The point is, that if Protagoras had commenced his work entitled 'Truth,' with the proposition, 'A pig is the measure of all things' (_i.e._, the standard by which feelings and notions are to be tested), 'he would have well shown his contempt of men who foolishly took _him_ for an authority.' Of course the very object and heart's desire of Protagoras in writing such a book was to be thought supremely clever. Hence the irony is apparent.