Socrates: Now let us imagine, Throcain, that we have an underground cave with people trapped within. Chained to the wall, unable to move even side to side, they have been there since birth. Can they know any other reality than such an existence?

Throcain: Indeed they could not.

Socrates: Let us further imagine that there is a fire far behind them, casting shadows upon the wall in front of these prisoners.

Throcain: Well...

Socrates: Now, between these humans and the fire are others carrying wooden and stone cut-outs of every shape imaginable, casting shadows onto the walls in front of the prisoners.

Throcain: Wait, so how did they eat?

Socrates: What?

Throcain: They need food, don't they? If they only see the shadows, and not real people, what do they eat?

Socrates: Look, that's not important. They've been there since birth and...

Throcain: I think you are a real fruitcake, Socrates.

Socrates dejected.

 

Herxenes: Socrates, what are you doing there by the window?

Socrates: It is of no concern to anyone but myself.

Herxenes: But it is my window, should I not know what happens in my own house?

Socrates: [angrily] I farted, alright?

 

Socrates: Do you have a stick of charcoal, Araxthanes, with which I may write?

Araxthanes: No, I do not.

Socrates: Okay, thanks.

 

Socrates: What do you men converse of here?

Thucydides: Nothing.

Eucalypto: Yeah, nothing.

[Awkward silence.]

Socrates: Well, I'll be outside if you need me.

 

Socrates: See, there are these Forms...

Larrymachus: What?

Socrates: Never mind.

 

Socrates: How much is this piece of bread?

Glaxona: Two coppers.

Socrates: Let us reason this through. A piece of bread is worth but two coppers to a normal man. However, to a man starving, it is worth much more, is it not?

Glaxona: Indeed it is.

Socrates: So it follows that a piece of bread that is worth two coppers to a normal man, is worth much less to a man who is not hungry at all, does it not?

Glaxona: It is as you say.

Socrates: Can you see by my smile that I am not a hungry man?

Glaxona: Indeed I can.

Socrates: To a man who is not hungry at all, a piece of bread is worth, say, half a copper, then.

Glaxona: Piss off, Socrates.