Gorgias, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The Encomium of Helen is a defense — a speech I composed to free a woman from blame she does not deserve, and at the same time a demonstration of what logos can do when wielded with precision and art. The opening states the principle plainly: what is becoming to a city is manpower, to a body beauty, to a soul wisdom, to an action virtue, to a speech truth.1
From this it follows that to blame the praisable is as grave an error as to praise the blamable — and Helen has been blamed without justice. My purpose is to introduce reasoning into the case, to free the accused of blame, and to prove her detractors prevaricators.2 The defense proceeds through four causes. If the gods compelled her, the gods are stronger and she is not culpable.
If she was taken by force, the violator bears the crime. If love seized her — and love, when it is divine, has the divine power of the gods, so that no lesser being can reject or refuse it — then she came caught in the net of Fate, not by the plans of the mind.3 And if it was speech that persuaded her, hear what speech is. Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity. Sacred incantations merge with opinion in the soul and beguile it and alter it by witchcraft.4
On most subjects most men take opinion as counselor, and since opinion is slippery and insecure, it casts those who employ it into slippery and insecure successes.56 Helen, then, could no more resist the speech of Paris than she could resist physical force — for persuasion has the form of necessity.7 The mechanism I name at §14 is the heart of the doctrine: the effect of speech upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies.8
Just as different drugs dispel different secretions and some bring an end to disease while others bring an end to life, so different speeches distress or delight, cause fear or make the hearers bold, drug and bewitch the soul. Helen was acted upon. The persuader does the wrong; the persuaded is wrongly charged.9 The closing states what the speech is: I have by means of speech removed disgrace from a woman; I wished to write a speech which would be a praise of Helen and a diversion to myself.10
That last phrase — a diversion to myself — is not modesty. It is the declaration that the techne of logos is its own sufficient justification. The speech is simultaneously a defense of Helen, a demonstration of the four-cause forensic structure, a proof of the soul-affect doctrine, and an exhibition of what the art can do. All four at once. That is the Encomium.
What is becoming to a city is manpower, to a body beauty, to a soul wisdom, to an action virtue, to a speech truth, and the opposites of these are unbecoming.Gorgias chapter, pp. 21–22
by introducing some reasoning into my speech, I wish to free the accused of blame and, having reproved her detractors as prevaricators and proved the truth, to free her from their ignorance.Gorgias chapter, pp. 21–22
she came, as she did come, caught in the net of Fate, not by the plans of the mind, and by the constraints of love, not by the devices of art.Gorgias chapter, pp. 25–26
Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity.Gorgias chapter, pp. 23–24
Sacred incantations sung with words are bearers of pleasure and banishers of pain, for, merging with opinion in the soul, the power of the incantation is wont to beguile it and persuade it and alter it by witchcraft.Gorgias chapter, pp. 23–24
on most subjects most men take opinion as counselor to their soul, but since opinion is slippery and insecure it casts those employing it into slippery and insecure successes.Gorgias chapter, pp. 23–24
persuasion has the form of necessity, but it does not have the same power. For speech constrained the soul, persuading it which it persuaded, both to believe the things said and to approve the things done.Gorgias chapter, p. 24
The effect of speech upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies.Gorgias chapter, p. 24
The persuader, like a constrainer, does the wrong and the persuaded, like the constrained, in speech is wrongly charged.Gorgias chapter, p. 24
I have by means of speech removed disgrace from a woman; I have observed the procedure which I set up at the beginning of the speech; I wished to write a speech which would be a praise of Helen and a diversion to myself.Gorgias chapter, pp. 25–26