Gold for Bronze
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Socrates — ὄντι χρύσεα χαλκείων διαμείβεσθαι νοεῖς. ἀλλʼ, ὦ μακάριε, ἄμεινον σκόπει, μή σε λανθάνω οὐδὲν ὤν. ἥ τοι τῆς διανοίας ὄψις ἄρχεται ὀξὺ βλέπειν ὅταν ἡ τῶν ὀμμάτων τῆς ἀκμῆς λήγειν ἐπιχειρῇ· σὺ δὲ τούτων ἔτι πόρρω.
Alcibiades — κἀγὼ ἀκούσας, τὰ μὲν παρʼ ἐμοῦ, ἔφην, ταῦτά ἐστιν, ὧν οὐδὲν ἄλλως εἴρηται ἢ ὡς διανοοῦμαι· σὺ δὲ αὐτὸς οὕτω βουλεύου ὅτι σοί τε ἄριστον καὶ ἐμοὶ ἡγῇ.
Socrates — ἀλλʼ, ἔφη, τοῦτό γʼ εὖ λέγεις· ἐν γὰρ τῷ ἐπιόντι χρόνῳ
In truth, you plan to trade gold for bronze. But, blessed one, look harder, lest you fail to notice I am worth nothing. The mind’s sight begins to see keenly just when the eyes’ sight starts to fade from its peak, and you are still far from that. Hearing this, I said, ‘As for what comes from me, that is so; none of it has been said otherwise than as I think. But you yourself must decide, then, whatever you deem best both for you and for me.’ ‘Well,’ he said, you put that well indeed; for in the time to come…
Concluding the appeal he began in 218e, Socrates names the trade Alcibiades is offering with Homer's own phrase for Glaucus's disastrous swap of armor (Iliad 6.236) — gold given away for bronze — and adds that the mind's sight only sharpens as the eyes' sight starts to fail, a stage Alcibiades has not reached. Alcibiades answers that he has said nothing but what he actually thinks and turns the decision over to Socrates; Socrates' reply, agreeing readily, breaks off mid-sentence and is completed at 219b.
Socrates completes the trade he started describing in 218e by naming it outright: chrýsea chalkeíōn, gold for bronze, Homer's own phrase for Glaucus's disastrous swap with Diomedes (Iliad 6.236), where the poet says the gods had taken away his good sense and let him give up armor worth a hundred oxen for armor worth nine. The grammar carries the accusation: the accusative marks what is given away, the genitive what comes back in exchange. If the proportion holds, it is Alcibiades who stands to make Glaucus's mistake, handing over something of real, present value for a wisdom Socrates immediately disclaims — "lest I go unnoticed being nothing." The remark about eyesight that follows uses the same logic without softening it. The mind's sight, hē tês dianoías ópsis, only starts to see keenly once the eyes' sight has begun to fail from its akmē, its peak — and Socrates places Alcibiades, pointedly, still far from that turn.
Alcibiades' answer does not defend the trade or ask what Socrates thinks he actually has to offer. He repeats only that he has said nothing other than what he thinks, then hands the decision back: you yourself decide what is best for both of us. The verb is bouleúou, the same one Athenian assemblies used for public deliberation, now aimed at a decision for two people alone in the dark. Socrates' reply breaks off mid-sentence — 'well, you put that well; for in the time to come…' — and what actually happens between them is not told until 219b. The image of a sight that sharpens only as an earlier sight fails is not unique to this scene: Diotima's ladder, later in this same dialogue, and the charioteer of the Phaedrus both describe understanding replacing perception in stages. Here Socrates applies that pattern to himself, on the spot, about his own aging eyes.
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