Dialogue Analysis Of Gyro

Gyro GYRO: My dear Socrates, what has come to pass to make you leave your abode in the delicatessen district, to delve about here at the king-boulanger’s high court? Certainly you are not prosecuting anyone such as I? SOCRATES: No indeed. I am troubled to say that I have been summoned to the courts by someone of the name Meletus, a young man unknown to me. GYRO: On what grounds does he bring this charge against you? SOCRATES: He says that I corrupt the young men through my teachings; corrupting them with my understanding about the wrap. GYRO: The wrap, Socrates? SOCRATES: Precisely, the sandwich with but one piece of bread. Some call it not a sandwich and mock me of my insights about its form, but I know it to be the truth.
For my father committed one of the most unforgettable crimes possible by one’s own lips. The slander he perpetrated was in stating that a sandwich can still be labeled a sandwich when it consists of more than two slices of bread. This slander pollutes not only myself, but my family all the same. The impiety of his ludicrous act must be purged by means of prosecution. SOCRATES: Then it is without a doubt, Gyro, that your knowledge of sandwiches and that which comprises them is unchallenged. GYRO: It would appear to be so. For I would not be superior to the majority of citizens if I did not possess such knowledge of sandwiches. SOCRATES: So you think your decision to be the pious one? Are you certain that you are in the right in this situation? GYRO: Yes, I do. SOCRATES: And you believe your fathers statements to be false? GYRO: I think so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Tell me then what exactly the impious statements are, as your father spoke them. GYRO: If that is what you want, Socrates, then I will tell you. SOCRATES: That is what I want, my
It defies both logic and the condition set forth by men and gods alike. SOCRATES: Splendid, Gyro! You have answered in the way I wanted. Whether you are correct we have yet to see, but now we may examine precisely what we mean. You have stated that the slander committed was that sandwiches may have more than two pieces of bread, and that this is an impious statement. Am I correct in saying this? GYRO: You are right. SOCRATES: With the previous statement in mind, Gyro, would it be appropriate to say that, of an object, it is the pieces that make up the whole, or that the whole comprises the pieces? GYRO: I don’t know what it is that you mean, Socrates. SOCRATES: I shall try to explain this more clearly in another manner: consider, for instance, the trireme Paralus. The pieces of such a magnificent vessel would be the wood that supports it, while the whole would be the ship itself, would you not agree? GYRO: Most certainly. SOCRATES: Now, Gyro, would you proclaim that the wood is what makes up the ship, or that the ship constitutes the wood planks? GYRO: It undoubtedly would be the former, the wood forms the ship. SOCRATES: And would but one extra plank of wood change the whole of the