Soc.
And, he will say,
did the stranger from
Elis
say also that for Achilles it was beautiful to be buried later than his parents, and for his grandfather Aeacus, and all the others who were born of gods,
293a
and for the gods themselves?
Hipp.
What’s that? Confound it! These questions of the fellow’s are not even respectful to religion.
Soc.
Well, then, when another asks the question, perhaps it is not quite disrespectful to religion to say that these things are so?
Hipp.
Perhaps.
Soc.
Perhaps, then, you are the man, he will say,
who says that it is beautiful for every one and always to be buried by one’s offspring, and to bury one’s parents; or was not Heracles included in ’every one,’ he and all those whom we just now mentioned?
Hipp.
But I did not say it was so for the gods.
Soc.
Nor for the heroes either, apparently.
Hipp.
Not those who were children of gods.
Soc.
But those who were not?
Hipp.
Certainly.
Soc.
Then again, according to your statement, among the heroes it is terrible and impious and disgraceful for Tantalus and Dardanus and Zethus, but beautiful for Pelops
1
and the others who were born as he was?
Hipp.
I think so.
Soc.
You think, then, what you did not say just now, that to bury one’s parents and be buried by one’s offspring is sometimes and for some persons disgraceful;
293c
and it is still more impossible, as it seems, for this to become and to be beautiful for all, so that the same thing has happened to this as to the things we mentioned before, the maiden and the pot, in a still more ridiculous way than to them; it is beautiful for some and not beautiful for others. And you are not able yet, even today, Socrates, he will say,
to answer what is asked about the beautiful, namely what it is. With these words and the like he will rebuke me, if I reply to him in this way.
293d
For the most part, Hippias, he talks with me in some such way as that but sometimes, as if in pity for my inexperience and lack of training, he himself volunteers a question, and asks whether I think the beautiful is so and so or whatever else it is which happens to be the subject of our questions and our discussion.
Hipp.
What do you mean by that, Socrates?
Soc.
I will tell you.
Oh, my dear Socrates, he says,
stop making replies of this sort and in this way—for they are too silly and easy to refute; but see if something like this does not seem to you to be beautiful,
293e
which we got hold of just now in our reply, when we said that gold was beautiful for those things for which it was appropriate, but not for those for which it was not, and that all the other things were beautiful to which this quality pertains; so examine this very thing, the appropriate, and see if it is perchance the beautiful. Now I am accustomed to agree to such things every time for I don’t know what to say; but now does it seem to you that the appropriate is the beautiful?
Hipp.
Yes, certainly, Socrates.
Soc.
Let us consider, lest we make a mistake somehow.
Hipp.
Yes, we must consider.
Hippias Major. Plato. Harold North Fowler (Translator), ed. Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb. Cambridge, MA. 1926.
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