192a
Soc.
I mean in this way: suppose, for instance, I were asking you what is quickness, as we find it in running and harping, in speaking and learning, and in many other activities, and as possessed by us practically in any action worth mentioning, whether of arms or legs, or mouth or voice, or mind: or do you not use the word so?
Lach.
Yes, to be sure.
Soc.
Well then, suppose someone asked me: Socrates, what do you mean by this thing which in all cases you term quickness?
192b
My reply would be: The faculty that gets a great deal done in a little time is what I call quickness, whether in a voice or in a race or in any of the other instances.
Lach.
Your statement would be quite correct.
Soc.
So now try and tell me on your part, Laches, about courage in the same way: what faculty is it, the same whether in pleasure or in pain or in any of the things in which we said just now it was to be found, that has been singled out by the name of courage?
Lach.
Well then, I take it to be a certain endurance of the soul, if I am to speak of the natural quality that appears in them all.
192c
Soc.
Why, of course we must, if we are each to answer the other’s actual question. Now it appears to me that by no means all endurance, as I conceive it, can appear to you to be courage. And my grounds for thinking so are these: I am almost certain, Laches, that you rank courage among the nobler qualities.
Lach.
Nay, among the noblest, you may be quite certain.
Soc.
And endurance joined with wisdom is noble and good?
Lach.
Very much so.
192d
Soc.
But what of it when joined with folly? Is it not, on the contrary, hurtful and mischievous?
Lach.
Yes.
Soc.
And can you say that such a thing is noble, when it is both mischievous and hurtful?
Lach.
Not with any justice, Socrates.
Soc.
Then you will not admit that such an endurance is courage, seeing that it is not noble, whereas courage is a noble quality.
Lach.
That is true.
Soc.
So, by your account, wise endurance will be courage.
Lach.
Apparently.
192e
Soc.
Now let us see in what it is wise. In all things, whether great or small? For instance, if a man endures in spending money wisely, because he knows that by spending he will gain more, would you call him courageous?
Lach.
On my word, not I.
Laches. Plato. Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1924.
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