Upon which he said, blushing, (for the day was now beginning to dawn, so that I could see him,) “If this case is at all like the former, it is evident that I expect to become a sophist.” “But, by the gods,” said I, “should you not be ashamed to shew yourself as a sophist before the Greeks?” “By Jupiter, I should, Socrates, if I must say what I think.” “Do you suppose, then, Hippocrates, that the instruction of Protagoras will not be of this kind, but such as you received from a grammarian, a musician, or a teacher of gymnastics? for you were not instructed in each of these for the sake of the art, meaning to become a professor yourself, but by way of accomplishment, as is proper for a private person and a freeman.” “Just so,” he said, “such rather appears to me to be the instruction given by Protagoras.” “Do you know, then,” said I, “what you are about to do, or does it escape you?” “About what?” “That you are about to entrust your soul to the care of a man, who, as you admit, is a sophist; and yet I should wonder if you know what a sophist is. Though, if you are ignorant of this, neither do you know to what you are confiding your soul, whether to a good or a bad thing.” “But I think I know,” he said. “Tell me, then, what you think a sophist is.” “I think,” said he, “as the name imports, that he is one learned in wisdom.” “This, however,” I replied, “may be said of painters and architects, that they too are learned in wisdom. And if any one should ask us in what wisdom painters are learned, we should surely say to him, in that which relates to the production of pictures, and so on with respect to the rest. But if any one should ask this question, ‘In what wisdom is a sophist learned?’ what answer should we give him? of what production is he a master?” “What else should we say he is, Socrates, but a master of the art that makes men able speakers?” 10. “Perhaps,” said I, “we should say truly, yet not sufficiently. For this answer requires from us another question, about what a sophist makes men able speakers; just as the musician, surely, makes a man speak ably on the subject in which he is learned, on music. Is it not so?” “Yes.” “Well; on what subject, then, does a sophist make a man an able speaker? clearly on that in which he is learned?” “Apparently.” “What then is that in which the sophist is both learned himself and makes his pupil learned?” “By Jupiter,” he replied, “I am unable to tell you.”