Of course, as you well know, Achaeans, that’s the true and proper opinion of any Greek. And suddenly who should step out of the shadows but Agamemnon himself — not the least ashamed to be eavesdropping! — and he says: ‘Hold on, Thersites; the Trojans are good soldiers, Priam is a fine old man, and Hector is a hero.’ With that, he turned on his heel and was gone before I could dispose of him the way he had coming. Gentlemen, I stood there dumbfounded. Well, well, I said to myself, so that’s the way the wind blows! Now we know who’s behind the disruption, faint-heartedness, and enemy propaganda in our camp! How can we win the war when those despicable Trojans have their own people, their own backers in our midst? — no, worse than that, right in our HQ! And do you think, Achaeans, that a traitor like that does his subversive work for nothing? Not on your life, boys. The man’s not going to praise our nation’s enemies to the skies for free; the Trojans must have paid him plenty for it. Sort it out for yourselves: the war’s being deliberately prolonged, Achilles was offended by design, you hear nothing but complaints and grumbling from our troops, lack of discipline’s on the rise everywhere — in short, the whole thing’s a hotbed of thievery and skulduggery. Everyone you see is a traitor, a flunky, a foreigner, or a wheeler-dealer. And once a man catches on to their tricks, they say he’s a grouser and a disruptive element. That’s what a fellow-countryman like me gets when he’s only trying, come what may, to do his duty for the honor and glory of his people! To think that we, classical Greeks, have come to this! That we’re not suffocating in all this mire! Someday, they’ll write of our age as a time of deepest national disgrace and subjugation, infamy, pettiness and betrayal, duress and disruption, cowardice, corruption and moral decay — ”

“We’ll muddle through somehow,” Eupator yawned. “I’m off to bed. Good night, folks!”

“Good night,” Thersites said in a hearty, convivial tone, and he stretched himself out contentedly. “We’ve had a good, friendly chat this evening, haven’t we?”

November 22, 1931

Agathon, or Concerning Wisdom

The members of the Academy of Boeotia invited the Athenian philosopher Agathon to come lecture to them on philosophy. Although Agathon was not an eminent orator, he nonetheless accepted the invitation so that he might contribute thereby whatever lay within his powers to promote the study of philosophy, which, in the words of the historian, “appears to be in decline.” On the appointed day, Agathon arrived in Boeotia early; he therefore strolled around the city and delighted in the flight of swallows over the rooftops.

At the stroke of eight he presented himself at the lecture hall, but found it nearly empty; only five or six men were seated on the benches. Agathon sat down on the lecturer’s chair and decided to wait for a bit, until a greater number of listeners had assembled. In the meantime, he opened the scroll from which he intended to read, and immersed himself in it.

This scroll contained all the fundamental questions of philosophy: it began with the theory of cognition, defined truth, dismissed with crushing criticism all erroneous views — that is to say, all the philosophies of the world save that of Agathon — and furnished an outline of the most elevated ideas. When Agathon came back to the here and now, he raised his eyes; he saw that the listeners numbered nine in all, and he was overcome by anger and sorrow. Flinging the scroll onto the lectern, he began thus:

Ladies and gentlemen, or rather andres Boitikoi, it would seem that your city has little interest in the lofty questions before us on this evening’s program. I know, men of Boeotia, that you are occupied at the moment with elections to the city council, and at times such as this there is no room for wisdom, not even for reason; elections are an opportunity for cleverness.

Here Agathon stopped and reflected for a moment. Bear with me, he began again, but just now something escaped from my lips which I have never before considered. I spoke three words: cleverness — reason — wisdom. I spoke them in anger. All three denote a certain intellectual ability; I am aware that they have quite different meanings, but it would be difficult for me to say in what ways they differ. I beg your indulgence — and I will return to the evening’s program shortly — but first I must take a moment to clarify these three small words for myself.

It is clear, he continued after a pause, that the opposite of cleverness is stupidity, whereas the opposite of reason is madness. But what is the opposite of wisdom? There are ideas, gentlemen, which are not at all clever, for they are too modest, and which are not reasonable, for they resemble madness, and yet they are wise. Wisdom resembles neither cleverness nor reason.

Men of Boeotia, in the course of everyday life you don’t give a fig, as we say in Greek, for the definition of terms, and yet you obviously differentiate each from the other with precision. You say of someone that he is a clever thief, but you never say that he is a “sensible thief,” let alone a “wise thief.” You praise your tailor for having sensible prices, but you never say that his prices are wise. Clearly there are certain distinctions here which prevent you from confusing these words.

If you say of someone that he is a clever farmer, you obviously think that he knows well how to get good prices for his produce at market; if you say that he is a sensible farmer, no doubt you mean that he manages his farm very well indeed; but if you call him a wise farmer, I suspect you mean that he lives well, knows a great deal, and can give you serious, sympathetic advice.

Now, let us grant that a clever politician can, conceivably, be an utter scoundrel and do harm to the republic; but you call a politician sensible only if he conducts public affairs in a praiseworthy manner for the common good; whereas a wise politician, gentlemen, as surely all of you are aware, is the kind of man who is called “the father of his country” or the like — by this we see that wisdom is something that comes from the heart.

When I say of someone that he is clever, I am thinking of a unique and noteworthy characteristic; it is as if I said that a bee has a stinger or an elephant a trunk. It is quite different if I say that the bee is industrious or that the elephant is wondrously strong; in so saying, you understand immediately that I am appraising the strength and not the trunk. In like manner, I make an appraisal if I say of someone that he is sensible. But if I say that he is wise, that, my friends, is another matter entirely; it is as if I said that I love him.