Then, said the other, you do not learn that which he dictates; but he only
who does not know letters learns?
Nay, said Cleinias; but I do learn.
Then, said he, you learn what you know, if you know all the letters?
He admitted that.
Then, he said, you were wrong in your answer.
The word was hardly out of his mouth when Dionysodorus took up the
argument, like a ball which he caught, and had another throw at the youth.
Cleinias, he said, Euthydemus is deceiving you. For tell me now, is not
learning acquiring knowledge of that which one learns?
Cleinias assented.
And knowing is having knowledge at the time?
He agreed.
And not knowing is not having knowledge at the time?
He admitted that.
And are those who acquire those who have or have not a thing?
Those who have not.
And have you not admitted that those who do not know are of the number of
those who have not?
He nodded assent.
Then those who learn are of the class of those who acquire, and not of
those who have?
He agreed.
Then, Cleinias, he said, those who do not know learn, and not those who
know.
Euthydemus was proceeding to give the youth a third fall; but I knew that
he was in deep water, and therefore, as I wanted to give him a respite lest
he should be disheartened, I said to him consolingly: You must not be
surprised, Cleinias, at the singularity of their mode of speech: this I
say because you may not understand what the two strangers are doing with
you; they are only initiating you after the manner of the Corybantes in the
mysteries; and this answers to the enthronement, which, if you have ever
been initiated, is, as you will know, accompanied by dancing and sport; and
now they are just prancing and dancing about you, and will next proceed to
initiate you; imagine then that you have gone through the first part of the
sophistical ritual, which, as Prodicus says, begins with initiation into
the correct use of terms.
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