106–107
Alcibiades
Alc. I should say, I suppose, it was something about which I knew better than they.
Socrates
Soc. Then you are a good adviser on things about which you actually know.
Alcibiades
Alc. To be sure.
Socrates
Soc. And you know only the things you have learnt from others or discovered yourself?
Alcibiades
Alc. What could I know besides?
15
Socrates
Soc. And can it be that you would ever have learnt or discovered anything without being willing either to learn it or to inquire into it yourself?
Socrates
Soc. Well then, would you have been willing to inquire into or learn what you thought you knew?
Alcibiades
Alc. No, indeed.
Socrates
Soc. So there was a time when you did not think that you knew what you now actually know.
20
Alcibiades
Alc. There must have been.
Socrates
Soc. Well, but I know pretty nearly the things that you have learnt: tell me if anything has escaped me. You learnt, if I recollect, writing and harping and wrestling; as for fluting, you refused to learn it. These are the things that you know, unless perhaps there is something you have been learning unobserved by me; and this you were not, I believe, if you so much as stepped out of doors either by night or by day.
Alcibiades
Alc. No, I have taken no other lessons than those.
Socrates
Soc. Then tell me, will it be when the Athenians are taking advice how they are to do their writing correctly that you are to stand up and advise them?
Alcibiades
Alc. Upon my word, not I.
Socrates
Soc. Well, about strokes on the lyre?
Alcibiades
Alc. Not at all.
Socrates
Soc. Nor in fact are they accustomed to deliberate on throws in wrestling either at the Assembly.
5
Alcibiades
Alc. No, to be sure.
