Shall I answer what appears to me to be short enough, or what appears to
you to be short enough?
I have heard, I said, that you can speak and teach others to speak about
the same things at such length that words never seemed to fail, or with
such brevity that no one could use fewer of them. Please therefore, if
you talk with me, to adopt the latter or more compendious method.
Socrates, he replied, many a battle of words have I fought, and if I had
followed the method of disputation which my adversaries desired, as you
want me to do, I should have been no better than another, and the name
of Protagoras would have been nowhere.
I saw that he was not satisfied with his previous answers, and that he
would not play the part of answerer any more if he could help; and I
considered that there was no call upon me to continue the conversation;
so I said: Protagoras, I do not wish to force the conversation upon you
if you had rather not, but when you are willing to argue with me in such
a way that I can follow you, then I will argue with you. Now you, as
is said of you by others and as you say of yourself, are able to have
discussions in shorter forms of speech as well as in longer, for you are
a master of wisdom; but I cannot manage these long speeches: I only wish
that I could. You, on the other hand, who are capable of either, ought
to speak shorter as I beg you, and then we might converse. But I see
that you are disinclined, and as I have an engagement which will prevent
my staying to hear you at greater length (for I have to be in another
place), I will depart; although I should have liked to have heard you.
Thus I spoke, and was rising from my seat, when Callias seized me by the
right hand, and in his left hand caught hold of this old cloak of mine.
He said: We cannot let you go, Socrates, for if you leave us there will
be an end of our discussions: I must therefore beg you to remain, as
there is nothing in the world that I should like better than to hear you
and Protagoras discourse. Do not deny the company this pleasure.