I wouldn't recommend the Parmenides as one's first step into Plato, it's one of his hardest dialogues. I'd suggest the Alcibiades as the best Plato intro. It's lighthearted to the point of pleasure reading, yet at the same time deep and profound. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1676
Thank you for sharing an easier start to Plato. And yes, Parmenides is typically treated as one of the hardest dialogues. Nevertheless, the core of the dialogue is quite simple, where Parmenides discusses the relationship between the One and the Many. It’s really quite simple, yet it is fascinating and a great example of Platonic dialectic — it ends in mystery, but along the way makes you think really deeply.
Here’s a short segment from the dialogue:
“Then the one cannot have parts, and cannot be a whole?
Why not?
Because every part is part of a whole; is it not?
Yes.
And what is a whole? would not that of which no part is wanting be a whole?
Certainly.
Then, in either case, the one would be made up of parts; both as being a whole, and also as having parts?
To be sure.
And in either case, the one would be many, and not one?
True.
But, surely, it ought to be one and not many?
It ought.
Then, if the one is to remain one, it will not be a whole, and will not have parts?
No.
But if it has no parts, it will have neither beginning, middle, nor end; for these would of course be parts of it…”
I read those names correctly and wondered why, when I realized I'd listened the memory of them was from listening to the first episodes of The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps[0] over a decade ago.
