had to ask.

SOCRATES: Truly, Hippias, you are to be congratulated, if at every Olympic
festival you have such an encouraging opinion of your own wisdom when you
go up to the temple. I doubt whether any muscular hero would be so
fearless and confident in offering his body to the combat at Olympia, as
you are in offering your mind.

HIPPIAS: And with good reason, Socrates; for since the day when I first
entered the lists at Olympia I have never found any man who was my superior
in anything. (Compare Gorgias.)

SOCRATES: What an ornament, Hippias, will the reputation of your wisdom be
to the city of Elis and to your parents! But to return: what say you of
Odysseus and Achilles? Which is the better of the two? and in what
particular does either surpass the other? For when you were exhibiting and
there was company in the room, though I could not follow you, I did not
like to ask what you meant, because a crowd of people were present, and I
was afraid that the question might interrupt your exhibition. But now that
there are not so many of us, and my friend Eudicus bids me ask, I wish you
would tell me what you were saying about these two heroes, so that I may
clearly understand; how did you distinguish them?

HIPPIAS: I shall have much pleasure, Socrates, in explaining to you more
clearly than I could in public my views about these and also about other
heroes. I say that Homer intended Achilles to be the bravest of the men
who went to Troy, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the wiliest.

SOCRATES: O rare Hippias, will you be so good as not to laugh, if I find a
difficulty in following you, and repeat my questions several times over?