Socrates: Then according to your statement, you and I, Laches, are not attuned to the Dorian mode, which is a harmony of words and deeds; for our deeds are not in accordance with our words. Anyone would say that we had courage who saw us in action, but not, I imagine, he who heard us talking about courage just now.
Laches: That is most true.
Socrates: And is this condition of ours satisfactory?
Laches: Quite the reverse.
Socrates: Suppose, however, that we admit the principle of which we are speaking to a certain extent.
Laches: To what extent and what principle do you mean?
Socrates: The principle of endurance. We too must endure and persevere in the enquiry, and then courage will not laugh at our faint-heartedness in searching for courage; which after all may, very likely, be endurance.
Laches: I am ready to go on, Socrates; and yet I am unused to investigations of this sort. But the spirit of controversy has been aroused in me by what has been said; and I am really grieved at being thus unable to express my meaning. For I fancy that I do know the nature of courage; but, somehow or other, she has slipped away from me, and I cannot get hold of her and tell her nature.
Socrates: But, my dear friend, should not the good sportsman follow the track, and not be lazy?
Laches: Certainly, he should.
Socrates: And shall we invite Nicias to join us? he may be better at the sport than we are. What do you say?
Laches: I should like that.
Socrates: Come then, Nicias, and do what you can to help your friends, who are tossing on the waves of argument, and at the last gasp: you see our extremity, and may save us and also settle your own opinion, if you will tell us what you think about courage.
Nicias: I have been thinking, Socrates, that you and Laches are not defining courage in the right way; for you have forgotten an excellent saying which I have heard from your own lips.
Socrates: What is it, Nicias?
Nicias: I have often heard you say that “Every man is good in that in which he is wise, and bad in that in which he is unwise.”
Socrates: That is certainly true, Nicias.
Nicias: And therefore if the brave man is good, he is also wise.
Socrates: Do you hear him, Laches?
Laches: Yes, I hear him, but I do not very well understand him.
Socrates: I think that I understand him; and he appears to me to mean that courage is a sort of wisdom.
Laches: What can he possibly mean, Socrates?
Socrates: That is a question which you must ask of himself.
Laches: Yes.
Socrates: Tell him then, Nicias, what you mean by this wisdom; for you surely do not mean the wisdom which plays the flute?