Note 729 — Chapter LXVIII · SOKRATES.

The effect of the interrogatory procedure of Sokratês, in forcing on the minds of youth a humiliating consciousness of ignorance and an eager anxiety to be relieved from it, is not less powerfully attested in the simpler language of Xenophon, than in the metaphorical variety of Plato. See the conversation with Euthydêmus, in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, iv, 2; a long dialogue which ends by the confession of the latter (c. 39): Ἀναγκάζει με καὶ ταῦτα ὁμολογεῖν δηλονότι ἡ ἐμὴ φαυλότης· καὶ φροντίζω μὴ κράτιστον ᾖ μοι σιγᾶν· κινδυνεύω γὰρ ἁπλῶς οὐδὲν εἰδέναι. Καὶ πάνυ ἀθύμως ἔχων ἀπῆλθε· καὶ νομίσας τῷ ὄντι ἀνδράποδον εἶναι: compare i, 1, 16.

This same expression, “thinking himself no better than a slave,” is also put by Plato into the mouth of Alkibiadês, when he is describing the powerful effect wrought on his mind by the conversation of Sokratês (Symposion, c. 39, p. 215, 216): Περικλέους δὲ ἀκούων καὶ ἄλλων ἀγαθῶν ῥητόρων εὖ μὲν ἡγούμην, τοιοῦτον δ᾽ οὐδὲν ἔπασχον, οὐδὲ τεθορύβητό μου ἡ ψυχὴ οὐδ᾽ ἠγανάκτει ὡς ἀνδραποδωδῶς διακειμένου. Ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὸ τούτου τοῦ Μαρσύου πολλάκις δὴ οὕτω διετέθην, ὥστε μοι δόξαι μὴ βιωτὸν εἶναι ἔχοντι ὡς ἔχω.

Compare also the Meno, c. 13, p. 79, E, and Theætet. c. 17, 22, p. 148, E, 151, C, where the metaphor of pregnancy, and of the obstetric art of Sokratês, is expanded: πάσχουσι δὲ δὴ οἱ ἐμοὶ ξυγγιγνόμενοι καὶ τοῦτο ταὐτὸν ταῖς τικτούσαις· ὠδίνουσι γὰρ καὶ ἀπορίας ἐμπίμπλανται νυκτάς τε καὶ ἡμέρας πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ ἐκεῖναι. Ταύτην δὲ τὴν ὠδῖνα ἐγείρειν τε καὶ ἀποπαύειν ἡ ἐμὴ τέχνη δύναται.—Ἐνίοτε δὲ, οἳ ἄν μὴ μοι δόξωσιν πως ἐγκύμονες εἶναι, γνοὺς ὅτι οὐδὲν ἐμοῦ δέονται, πάνυ εὐμενῶς προμνῶμαι, etc.