3–4
PYTHAGOREAN
I shall teach thee nothing, but make thee remember.Before centering upon its round of transmigrations, the soul was all-wise; learning is merely remembering. Socrates expounds this theory in Plato’s Jeno.
BUYER
How will you make me remember?
PYTHAGOREAN
First by making thy soul pure and purging off the filth upon it.
BUYER
Well, imagine that my purification is complete, what will be your method of making me remember?
PYTHAGOREAN
In the first place, long silence and speechlessness, and for five entire years no word of talk.
10
BUYER
My good man, you had better teach the son of Croesus!?One of the sons of Crocsus was mute: Herod. 1. 34, 85. I want to be talkative, not a graven image. However, what comes after the silence and the five years?
PYTHAGOREAN
Thou shalt be practised in music and geometry.
BUYER
That is delightful; I am to become a fiddler before being wise!
PYTHAGOREAN
Then, in addition to this, in counting.
BUYER
I know how to count now.
PYTHAGOREAN
How dost thou count?
BUYER
One, two, three, four—
PYTHAGOREAN
Lo! what thou thinkest four is ten, and a perfect triangle, and our oath.Four is ten, because it contains three, two and one, and 1 2 3 4 10. The perfect triangle is
5
BUYER
Well, by your greatest oath, by Four, I never heard diviner doctrines or more esoteric.
PYTHAGOREAN
Thereafter, my friend, thou shalt learn of earth and air and water and fire, what their flux is, and what form they have and how they move.
BUYER
Why, has fire form, or air, or water?
PYTHAGOREAN
Yea, very notably, for without shape and form there can be no motion. And in addition thou shalt learn that God is number and mind and harmony.
