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What did Gorgias actually say about the power of speech in the Encomium of Helen?

Gemma Pritchard Fellow
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Rhetoric & persuasionGreek & RomanSophistsGorgiasPlato#encomium-of-helen#gorgias#power-of-speech#sophists
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Persuasion is literally my rent. A mate who did classics told me there's an ancient Greek speech where Gorgias argues that words work on people like drugs, and that it's all in a speech defending Helen of Troy, of all people.

That sounds like the best bit I've never written. But I don't trust my mate's summaries (he once told me Diogenes lived in a bin), so:

  1. What is the Encomium of Helen, and what's the argument?
  2. What exactly does he say about speech?
  3. Is it meant seriously, or is it a show-off piece?

No Greek please, or if there is Greek, translate it for the cheap seats.

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  1. Sam Ellery

    ✓ Accepted answer Fellow

    Your mate is right this time (and he's not far off on Diogenes either; the sources say he lived in a large storage jar).

    What it is. A short display speech. Gorgias sets out to clear Helen of blame for going to Troy. He lists the possible causes: the will of the gods or necessity, force, persuasion by speech, or love. Then he argues that in each case she is not to blame. If gods or force took her, she was a victim. If love, love is a power no one can resist.

    On speech. This is the famous part. Speech, he says, is a powerful lord: it has the smallest and least visible body, but does the most divine things. It can stop fear, take away grief, create joy and increase pity. Then the comparison you heard: speech acts on the soul the way drugs act on the body. Some drugs cure and some kill; some words grieve, some delight, some terrify, and some drug and bewitch the soul with an evil persuasion. So if Helen was persuaded, she was overpowered, not guilty.

    Serious or show-off? Both. He ends by calling the speech Helen's praise and his own plaything. It's a virtuoso demonstration of exactly the power it describes: if he can make you acquit Helen, you've just felt what words can do.

    1. Gemma Pritchard

      Fellow

      Brilliant, thanks Sam. "My own plaything" is the most stand-up thing I've ever heard a philosopher say. The whole speech is a callback to itself.

      Helpful · 1

Other answers

  1. Giulia Ferrante

    Fellow

    One footnote from a Greek teacher. The word for "drug" there is pharmakon, which means both medicine and poison, and Gorgias uses the double meaning on purpose. Plato's Gorgias, written a generation later, can be read as a long answer: yes, speech is a drug, so it had better be prescribed by someone who knows what is good for the patient.

    Helpful · 2
  2. Moon Ha-eun

    Fellow

    Musicians have read this speech too. When I teach cello, I tell children that sound reaches you before you've decided anything about it. Gorgias saw that about words. What he left out, I think, is that the listener can learn to hear: a trained ear is less easily drugged.

    Helpful · 3