Section 6, Lines 344-352 Summary and Analysis

Socrates continues that actually, to be good is impossible, since only the gods are good all the time. The important thing is to become good as much as possible, because nobody is faultless. Becoming good is hard, but it is necessary to continue to become good. Being good is not possible because it is perfection. At this point, Socrates ends his talk on the poem. Socrates tells Protagoras that he would rather stop talking about poems because that is second-rate entertainment for wine parties, he says. The men there want to have singers and dancing girls, because they are not intelligent enough to have a decent conversation. Also, the problem is that you cannot grab poets, especially those that are dead, and interrogate them on what exactly they mean in their poems. Protagoras becomes ashamed of playing...