picture of duality it is!

Socrates gave up his art; because art was no longer useful as an
immediate lever for the age. He knew poetry well, but insisted,
as Professor Murray I think says, on always treating it as the
baldest of prose. There was poetry about, galore; and men did
not profit by it: something else was needed. His mission was to
the Athens of his day; he was going to save Athens if he could.
So he went into the marketplace, the agora, and loafed about (so
to say), and drew groups of young men and old about him, and
talked to them. The Delphic Oracle had made pronouncement:
_Sophocles is wise; Euripides is wiser; but Socrates is the
wisest of mankind._ Sometimes, you see, the Delphic Oracle could
get off a distinctly good thing. But Socrates, with his usual
sense of humor, had never considered himself in that light at
all; oldish, yes; and funny, and ugly, by all means;--but wise!
He thought at first, he used to say, that the Oracle must be
mistaken, or joking; for Athens was full of reputed wise men,
sophists and teachers of philosophy like Prodicus and Protagoras;
whereas he himself, heaven knew--. Well, he would go out and make
a trial of it. So he went, and talked, and probed the wisdom of
his fellow-citizens; and slowly came round to the belief that
after all the Delphic Oracle might not have been such a fool. For
he knew his ignorance; but the rest were ignorant without
knowing it. This was his own way of telling the story; and you
can never be sure how much camouflage was in it;--and yet, too,
he was a giant humorist. Anyhow, he did show men their ignorance;
and you all know his solemn way of doing it. He drew them on
with sly questionings to see what idiots they were; and then drew
them on with more sly questionings to perceive at least a few