Stephanus 222

T: That's very much the case.

S: Up to that point, then, on the one hand, the sophist and the angler proceeded at the same time as a pair from the art of acquisition.

T: It is likely, at least, that the pair do that.

Not a lot of certainty here, just as there wasn't when the Stranger agreed to place the sophist into the category of someone having an art (at 221d5).

S: They turn aside, on the other hand, from animal hunting--the one to the sea, I suppose, and rivers and creeks, hunting animals in these things.

T: Of course.

S: The other to the earth and certain other rivers in turn--to the bounteous meadows, as it were, of wealth and youth, subduing (χειρωσόμενος) the creatures in these things.

T: What do you mean?

This is getting to be a bit of a stretch.

S: There arises as a pair a certain two big parts of hunting on land.

T: What sort of thing is each of the pair?

S: The one is of tame things, the other of wild.

T: Is there, then, a certain hunting of tame things?

S: If indeed a human being is a tame animal. But lay it down in whatever way makes you happy: either having laid it down that nothing is tame, or that, on the one hand, there is something else that is tame but, on the hand, a human being is savage; or you say in turn that, on the one hand, a human being is tame, but on the other hand you suppose there is no hunting of human beings. Whichever of these things is dear to you to have been said, determine this for  us.

This sounds awfully contrived. The Stranger wants to end up at a point where they can say that the sophist hunts human beings--which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Theaetetus is right to question whether there is such a thing as hunting tame things--almost by definition, one hunts wild things. So, the options the Stranger lays down is--either assume that there is no hunting of tame things and agree that human beings are savage; or that there is no hunting of human beings.

If you are laying things down "in whatever way makes you happy," are you still searching for the truth?

T: But, Stranger, I both suppose that we are a tame animal, and say that there is a hunting of human beings.

Well, apparently neither of the options the Stranger offered him made Theaetetus happy, so he came up with a third one of his own. Notice how he changes up the verbs--the Stranger speaks of saying and supposing and Theaetetus speaks of supposing and saying. Theaetetus is not following the Stranger's lead here, which I guess is fine, because they're clearly lost.

S: Let us speak, then, of tame-hunting as twofold.

T: Speaking according to what?

S: The piratical, on the one had, and enslaving and tyrannical and the warring--all as one--having defined it as violent hunting.

T: Beautifully.

S: The lawyer-like, on the other hand, the oratorical, the conversational, altogether in turn as one, addressing it as a certain persuasion producing (πιθανουργικήν) art.

T: Correctly.

S: Let's speak of two genera of persuasion producing.

T: Of what sort?

S: The one arising in private and the other arising in public.

T: Yes, each of the pair of species comes into being.

S: Isn't it the case, in  turn, that of hunting in private (ἰδιοθηρευτικῆς) there is the one that receive a wage and the one that brings gifts?

T: I don't understand (μανθάνω).

Which could also be translated, "I'm not learning (anything)." There seems to be less care in dividing--no care given to coming up with names, for example. At 220d4, Theaetetus said, "Let's not care about the name," and I'd say the Stranger has done as Theaetetus suggested. Who's in charge here?

S: You have not yet directed your attention (τὸν νοῦν), as is likely, to the hunting of lovers.

T: Concerning what?

S: That they give gifts to the ones who are hunted.

T: What you say is most true.

S: Let there then, on the one hand, be this species of the art of lovers.

T: It is very much the case.

S: But, on the other hand, of the one for pay (μισθαρνητικοῦ), the one associates through making people happy (διὰ χάριτος) and absolutely having made its bait through pleasure and making its wage only food--a flattering kind of hunting, as I at least think, all might affirm that it is a certain art of pleasing.

A bit earlier, the Stranger told Theaetetus to "lay it down in whatever way makes you happy" (at 222b8)--using the same word-- θὲς δὲ ὅπῃ χαίρεις). So, the Stranger is practicing the art of pleasing.

T: Of course.