595A–614B Socrates and Glaucon
614B–621D Socrates tells a story
Note
Socrates takes a step back from the portrait of the best city to revisit the topic of poetry. Within the city, the emphasis had been on its role in early education, with a view to permitting the formation of good character. It was argued that the seductive power of imitation over the imagination in youth can be impossible to overcome once the power of choice is present in adulthood. Now Socrates looks at poetry from the point of view of an adult who lives not in but in accord with the best city. The question he raises now is how seriously the works of Homer and the tragic poets should be taken, and this leads eventually to the question of whether the soul is immortal. The immortality of the soul, in turn, introduces a new look at what the soul might be. The three-part structure suggested by ordinary experience and suited to the analogy with a city now seems inadequate. Philosophy too appears now in a different light, not as the power that makes it possible to govern a complex community of desires, but as the central impulse that might determine a human being’s destiny. Socrates ends the discussion with a story about the journey of a human soul, and the balance of chance, necessity, and choice that make it be what it is.
[595A] “I think more than ever that we founded the city the right way,” I said, “for many other things about it too, but I say it not least as I reflect on what has to do with poetry.”
“What do you have in mind?” he said.
“Not allowing any of it that’s imitative in at all. Because now more than ever it shows up even more clearly that it shouldn’t be allowed in, it [595B] seems to me, when each of the forms present in the soul has been separated out as distinct.”
“How do you mean?”
“Speaking among you folks here, since you won’t inform on me to the tragic poets and all the other imitators,180 everything like that appears to be a corruption of the thinking of the people who hear it, all those who don’t have the knowledge of how the things themselves are as an antidote.”
“What in particular are you thinking of when you say that?” he said.
“It has to be spoken,” I said, “and yet a certain love and reverence for [595C] Homer, that’s had me in its grip since I was a child, holds me back from speaking, because he appears to have been the first to educate and lead the way in all these beautiful tragic things. Still, a man shouldn’t be honored above the truth, and, as I say, it has to be spoken.”
“Very much so,” he said.
“Listen, then, or better, answer.”
“Ask.”
“As for imitation as a whole, could you tell me what in the world it is? Because I myself certainly don’t comprehend anything at all about what it’s meant to be.”
“Oh, well then, no doubt I’ll understand it,” he said.
“There wouldn’t be anything strange about that,” I said, “since people with dimmer sight surely see [596A] many things before those with sharper vision do.”
“It’s possible for that to happen,” he said, “but with you present, I couldn’t be confident about speaking if anything does appear to me, so look yourself.”
“Then do you want us to begin examining it from this starting point, following our usual approach? Presumably we’re accustomed to take some one particular form for each group of many things to which we apply the same name, or do you not understand?”
“I understand.”
“So now let’s take whatever group of many things you want; for instance, if it’s okay with you, there are no doubt many couches and tables.”
“Of course.”
[596B] “But presumably there are two looks to these artifacts, one for a couch and one for a table.”
“Yes.”
“And aren’t we also accustomed to say that it’s with his eye on the look of either artifact that a craftsman makes couches in one case and tables in the other, the ones we use, and the same way in other cases? Because presumably none of the craftsmen crafts the look itself.”
“How could he?”
“In no way. But now see what you call this craftsman.”
[596C] “What sort?”
“One who makes everything, all the things that every single artisan does.”
“You’re talking about some amazing and formidable man.”
“Yet that’s not all; you’ll soon say so even more. Because this same artisan is not only able to make artifacts, but also makes all the things that grow out of the earth, and fashions all the animals, both the others and himself, and on top of these things, he fashions the earth and the heavens and the gods, and the things in the heavens and under the earth in Hades.”
[596D] “You’re talking about a totally amazing mastermind,” he said.
“Are you skeptical?” I said. “And tell me, does it seem to you there’s absolutely no such craftsman, or that in a certain way there could be a maker of all these things, but in a certain way not? Or don’t you notice that you yourself would also be able to make all these things, in a certain way at least?”
“And what would that way be?” he said.
“It’s not hard,” I said, “and there’s more than one way for you to craft them quickly, but no doubt the quickest, if you want that, is for you to take a mirror and [596E] carry it around everywhere; you’ll instantly make the sun and the things in the heavens, and instantly the earth, and instantly yourself and the rest of the animals and artifacts and plants and all the things we were just talking about.”
“Sure,” he said, “appearances of them, but they’re certainly not things that are that way in truth.”
“A beautiful point,” I said, “and you’re getting at something essential to the discussion, because I imagine a painter is one of the craftsmen of this kind, isn’t he?”
“Of course.”
“But I imagine you’ll claim he doesn’t make the things he makes as true things, even though in a certain manner the painter too makes a couch, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” he said, “he too makes an appearance of one.”
[597A] “But what about the couchmaker? You were surely saying just now that he doesn’t make the form, weren’t you? Isn’t that precisely what we’re claiming is the couch? Isn’t what he makes just a particular couch?”
“I was saying that.”
“Well, if he doesn’t make the one that is a couch, he wouldn’t be making something that is, would he, but something that’s like a thing that is without being that? And if anyone were to claim that the work produced by the couch-workman or by any other artisan is something that is in the full sense, he’s liable to be saying something that’s not true.”
“Not as it would seem to people who spend their time involved in discussions like these,” he said.
“So let’s not be surprised if that couch too is something pale in comparison to the truth.”
“No.”
[597B] “Then do you want us to inquire on the basis of these very things what in the world that imitator is?” I said.
“If that’s what you want,” he said.
“Don’t there turn out to be three varieties of couch, one being the one in nature,181 which I imagine we’d claim a god fashioned—who else?”
“No one, I imagine.”
“And one that the carpenter did.”
“Yes,” he said.
“And one that the painter did. Isn’t that how it is?”
“Let it be that way.”
“So a painter, a couchmaker, a god—these three—are in charge of three forms of couches.”
“Three, yes.”
[597C] “Now the god, whether he didn’t want to, or whether there was some necessity on him not to turn out more than one couch in nature, made only one, that very one that is a couch; two of that sort, or more, were not generated by the god and could not be brought into being.”
“How’s that?” he said.
“Because,” I said, “if he were to make only two, one would show up again and both of the others would have its form, and that, not those two, would be what is a couch.”
“That’s right,” he said.
“So I imagine the god, knowing these things and wanting to be in his very being [597D] a maker of a couch that is in its very being, not just some particular couchmaker or the maker of some particular couch, brought it into being as one by nature.”
“It looks that way.”
“Then do you want us to call him its nature-crafter or something like that?”
“That would be a just title anyway,” he said, “seeing as how by nature he’s made that and everything else.”
“And what about the carpenter? Isn’t he a craftsman of a couch?”
“Yes.”
“And is the painter a craftsman and maker of such a thing?”
“By no means.”
“But what will you claim he is in relation to a couch?”
[597E] “This seems to me the most even-handed thing to call him,” he said: “an imitator of that of which those others are craftsmen.”
“Okay,” I said; “you’re calling the person involved with the third generation starting from nature an imitator?”
“Quite so,” he said.
“Therefore the maker of tragedies will be in that position too, if in fact he’s an imitator; he and all other imitators are by nature third from a king, so to speak, that is, third from the truth.”
“They may well be.”
[598A] “So we’re in agreement about imitators. And tell me this about the painter: does it seem to you he tries to imitate each thing itself in nature, or the works of craftsmen?”
“The works of craftsmen,” he said.
“The way they are, or the way they appear? Make that further distinction.”
“How do you mean it?” he said.
“Like this: whether you look at it from the side or straight on or from anywhere at all, is a couch itself any different from itself? Or, the same way as everything else, does it look different while it’s no different at all?”
“That’s how it is,” he said; “it looks that way, but isn’t any different at all.”
[598B] “Then consider that very point: in relation to which of them does painting make each thing it’s about? Is that thing imitated from its being as it is or from its appearing as it appears? Is it an imitation of an appearance or of truth?”
“Of an appearance,” he said.
“Therefore imitative art is somewhere far removed from what’s true, and it looks like that’s why it can produce everything, because it gets hold of some little piece of each thing, and a phantom at that. We’re claiming, for instance, that a painter will paint us a leathercrafter, a carpenter, the other [598C] craftsmen, without understanding anything about any of these arts, but still, if he happens to be a good painter, and paints a carpenter by showing him from far removed, he might mislead children and foolish people into thinking it’s truly a carpenter.”
“Certainly.”
“But, my friend, I imagine that this is what ought to be thought about everything of that sort: whenever anyone declares to us, about anyone, that he has come across a human being who knows every craft [598D] and everything else every single person knows, and that there’s nothing he doesn’t know more precisely than anyone, one ought to reply to the maker of such a declaration that he’s some gullible fellow, and it appears he’s met up with some trickster of an imitator and been fooled. So, since he himself is unable to assess the difference between knowledge, ignorance, and imitation, the trickster seemed to him to be all-wise.”
“Very true,” he said.
“Next,” I said, “doesn’t tragedy, along with its leader Homer, need to be examined, since we hear it said [598E] by some182 that these people know all the arts and all human matters that have to do with virtue and vice, and all divine matters as well? They say it’s necessary for a good poet, if he’s going to do a beautiful job of composing poetry about the things he’s writing about, to write with knowledge or not be able to write. So there’s a need to consider whether they ran across those [599A] imitators and got tricked by seeing their works and not perceiving that they’re at a third remove from what is, and easy to make for someone who doesn’t know the truth, since they’re making appearances and not beings, or whether there’s something in what they say, and good poets genuinely know what they’re talking about when they seem to most people to speak well.”
“There’s a very great need for that to be assessed,” he said.
“Do you imagine, then, that if someone was capable of making both the thing that’s going to be imitated and the phantom, he’d allow himself to take the crafting of phantoms seriously, and give that [599B] the primary place in his life as the best thing he has?”
“I don’t.”
“But if he was in fact knowledgeable about the truth of those things that he imitates, I imagine he’d give far greater precedence in seriousness to deeds than to imitations, and he’d strive to leave behind many beautiful deeds as memorials of himself, and be more eager to be the one praised than the one doing the praising.”
“I imagine so,” he said, “since there’s no comparison in terms of the honor or the benefit.”
“Well then, let’s not demand an account about anything else from Homer or [599C] any of the other poets by asking, in case any of them was a doctor and not just an imitator of medical talk, what people any of the old or new poets is reported to have made healthy the way Asclepius did, or what students of medical art he left behind the way the latter left his offspring; let’s not ask them about the other arts either—let’s set that aside. But about the most important and most beautiful things Homer undertakes to speak of, about wars and [599D] commanding armies and running cities, and about the education of a human being, it would surely be a just thing to ask, in order to find it out from him, ‘Dear Homer, if you’re not in fact third from the truth about virtue, a craftsman of a phantom exactly the way we defined an imitator, but even second, and capable of discerning what activities make human beings better or worse in private and public life, tell us, which one of the cities was better governed on account of you the way Sparta was on account of Lycurgus, and many cities large and small [599E] on account of many other people? What city credits you with having been a good lawgiver and having been of benefit to them? Italy and Sicily credit Charondas, and we credit Solon, but who credits you?’ Will he have any to mention?”
“I don’t imagine so,” said Glaucon; “none is spoken of by Homer’s own followers anyway.”
[600A] “But then is any war in Homer’s time remembered for being well conducted with his leadership or advice?”
“None.”
“But then are a lot of ingenious ideas for the useful arts or for any other practical endeavors reported of him, the sorts of things involved in the actions of a wise man, the way they’re reported about Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian?”183
“Nothing of the kind at all.”
“But then if not in public life, is Homer reported to have been a guide in education for any people in private when he was alive, people who loved him for his company and passed down to later generations a certain Homeric [600B] way of life, as Pythagoras was himself exceptionally beloved for, so that later generations that still give his name even now to a Pythagorean manner of living seem in some way to be distinguished from everyone else?”
“Nothing like that is spoken of either,” he said. “Because, Socrates, Homer’s comrade Creophylus would probably seem even more preposterous for his education than for his name184 if the things said about [600C] Homer are true, since it’s reported that there was great neglect of him by that friend of his when he was alive.”
“That is what’s reported,” I said. “But do you imagine, Glaucon, that if Homer was genuinely able to educate people and make them better because he had the capacity not to make imitations of those things but to know about them, he wouldn’t have made comrades of many people and been honored and loved by them? After all, Protagoras the Abderite and Prodicus the Cean and a great many others [600D] are able to get the idea across to those around them, when they associate with them in private, that they won’t be capable of managing either their household or their city if they themselves don’t take charge of their education, and for this wisdom they’re loved so ardently that the only thing their comrades don’t do is carry them around above their heads. So if Homer had really been able to help people toward virtue, would the people of his time have allowed him or Hesiod to be itinerant reciters of poetry, and not have hung onto them more tightly than to gold, and made them [600E] stay in their homes with them, or, if they couldn’t persuade them to, have shadowed them like tutors185 wherever they might be until they’d gotten an adequate education?”
“You seem to me, Socrates,” he said, “to be telling the absolute truth.”
“Then shouldn’t we take it that all those skilled at poetry, starting from Homer, are imitators of phantoms of virtue and of the other things they write about, and don’t get hold of the truth? Isn’t it the same with them as what we were just saying, that a painter will make what seems to be a [601A] leathercrafter, when he himself understands nothing about leathercraft, for people who understand nothing about it but take their view of it from colors and shapes?”
“Very much so.”
“So I imagine we’ll claim someone skilled at poetry also colors in the arts with certain colors that belong to each of them, by the use of words and phrases, though he himself understands nothing other than how to imitate in a way that makes it seem, to others like him who look at things through his words, that a character speaking metrically, rhythmically, and melodically seems to be speaking very well, whether he’s talking about leathercraft, about commanding an army, or about anything [601B] else whatever. Thus these things by themselves have in them by nature some great enchantment, because, when the words of the poets are stripped of their musical colorings and they themselves are spoken by themselves, I imagine you know what sort of appearance that makes, since no doubt you’ve observed it.”186
“I have,” he said.
“Aren’t they like the faces of people in their prime who aren’t beautiful,” I said, “the way they start to look when the glow of youth leaves them?”
“Absolutely,” he said.
“Keep on going then and consider this: we’re claiming that the poet, the imitator who makes the [601C] phantom, understands nothing about what is but its appearance, isn’t that so?”
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s not leave it half-spoken; let’s get an adequate view of it.”
“Speak on,” he said.
“Do we claim that a painter will paint reins and a bridle?”
“Yes.”
“But a leathercrafter and a blacksmith will make them?”
“Quite so.”
“Well, does the painter understand how reins and a bridle need to be? Or is that something that not even the maker understands, the blacksmith or leatherworker, but only the person who knows how to use them, the horseman?”
“Very true.”
“And won’t we claim it’s that way with everything?”
“What way?”
[601D] “For each thing there are these three particular arts, of using, of making, and of imitating?”
“Yes.”
“And isn’t it the case that the excellence, beauty, and rightness of each implement, animal, and action is related to no other thing than the use for which each has either been made or been naturally adapted?”
“That’s how it is.”
“Therefore it’s utterly necessary for the one who uses each thing to be the most experienced with it, and to be the one who reports to the maker what good or bad features the thing he uses has in its use; a fluteplayer, for instance, presumably reports [601E] to the flutemaker about which of his flutes are serviceable in his fluteplaying, and he’ll prescribe what sorts of flutes he needs to make, while the other does his bidding.”
“How could it be otherwise?”
“So the one reports about worthy and worthless flutes because he has knowledge, and the other will make them because he has trust?”
“Yes.”
“Therefore, for the same implement, the one who makes it will have rightful trust about its beauty or worthlessness by being around someone who knows and being [602A] obliged to listen to the knower, while the one who uses it will have knowledge.”
“Entirely so.”
“And will the imitator, by using them, have knowledge about whether the things he depicts are beautiful or right or not, or will he have right opinion from being obliged to be around someone who knows and being given directions about the sorts of things he ought to depict?”
“Neither.”
“So the imitator will have neither knowledge nor right opinion about the things he imitates as to their beauty or worthlessness.”
“It looks like he won’t.”
“Someone whose skill in making is imitative would be a highly accomplished fellow when it comes to wisdom about the things he makes.”
“Not quite.”
[602B] “But he’ll imitate nonetheless, without knowing what makes each thing worthless or worthy; it seems likely what he’ll imitate will be the sort of thing that appears to be beautiful to most people, who have no knowledge at all.”
“What else could it be?”
“So it appears that we’re tolerably well agreed on these points: that the skilled imitator knows nothing worth mentioning about the things he imitates, that imitation is a kind of amusement and not serious, and that those who dabble in tragic poetry, whether in iambic or epic verse, are all imitators as much as it’s possible to be.”
“Very much so.”
[602C] “Before Zeus,” I said, “this imitating just deals with something third from the truth, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“So what sort of thing in a human being is it on which it has the power that it has?”
“What sort of thing are you talking about?”
“This sort of thing: presumably the same magnitude doesn’t appear equal to us by sight from nearby and far off.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“And the same things appear bent and straight to those looking at them in water and out of it, and also concave and convex by an optical illusion [602D] having to do with colors, and every sort of confusion like this is manifestly present in our soul; it’s by exploiting this susceptibility of our nature that perspective painting, and puppetry, and many other ingenious contrivances like that are nothing short of witchcraft.”
“True.”
“And haven’t measuring and counting and weighing shown themselves to be most gracious helpers with these things, so that something’s appearing larger or smaller or more in number or heavier doesn’t hold sway in us, but what has calculated and measured or even weighed does?”
“Certainly.”
[602E] “But this would surely be the work of the reasoning part in a soul.”
“Of that, for sure.”
“And when it has measured and indicated that certain things are larger or smaller than others or equal to them, there are often contrary things appearing to it at the same time about the same things.”
“Yes.”
“Weren’t we claiming that it’s impossible for the same thing to hold contrary opinions about the same things at the same time?”
“And we were right in claiming it.”
[603A] “Therefore the part of the soul that holds opinions contrary to the measures couldn’t be the same as the part that holds opinions in accord with the measures.”
“No, it couldn’t.”
“But surely the part that puts its trust in measure and calculation would be the best part of the soul.”
“What else?”
“So the part that opposes this would be one of the inferior things in us.”
“Necessarily.”
“Well that’s what I wanted to get agreement about when I was saying that painting and imitative art in general are far removed from the truth as [603B] they carry out their work, and they’re also joined with the part in us that’s far removed from thoughtfulness, and is a companion and friend that can lead to nothing healthy or true.”
“Absolutely,” he said.
“So imitative art, an inferior thing consorting with an inferior thing, gives birth to inferior progeny.”
“It looks that way.”
“Only the kind that pertains to sight,” I said, “or also the kind that pertains to hearing, to which we give the name poetry?”
“Very likely that too,” he said.
“Well let’s not just put our trust in a likelihood based on painting,” [603C] I said; “let’s also go up to that part of our thinking with which the imitative art of poetry is joined and see whether it’s a trifling or serious thing.”
“We should.”
“Let’s set it out like this: we’re claiming that imitative art imitates human beings in action, engaged in forced or willing acts and imagining they’ve come out well or badly from doing so, and feeling pain or joy in all this. There’s nothing else besides that, is there?”
“Nothing.”
“Well is a human being in a consistent state of mind through all these things? [603D] Or, the same way he was divided about what came from sight, and held opposite opinions within himself at the same time about the same things, is he divided in that way and at war himself with himself in his actions as well? But I’m recollecting that there’s no need for us to come to agreement about that now, because we agreed well enough about all those things in the earlier discussion, that our soul is filled with tens of thousands of oppositions of that kind that arise at the same time.”
“That’s right,” he said.
[603E] “Yes, it’s right,” I said, “but it seems to me that it’s necessary now to go through something we skipped over then.”
“What’s that?” he said.
“We had also said then, presumably, that a decent man will bear it more easily than others when he gets a share of some such misfortune as losing a son, or anything else he holds dear.”
“Quite so.”
“But now let’s examine this point: whether he won’t feel any grief at all, or whether that’s impossible, but he’ll somehow keep his balance about his pain.”
“The truth is more like that,” he said.
[604A] “Now tell me this about him: do you imagine he’ll fight down the pain and resist it more when he’s seen by his peers, or when he’s alone by himself in solitude?”
“No doubt he’ll bear up under it much more when he’s seen,” he said.
“But I imagine that when he’s left alone he’ll allow himself to utter many things he’d be ashamed of if anyone were to hear him, and he’ll do many things that he wouldn’t let anyone see him doing.”
“That’s how it is,” he said.
“Aren’t reason and law the things that encourage him to resist, while the suffering itself is what draws him to the pains?”
“That’s true.”
[604B] “But when a pull in opposite directions arises in a human being about the same thing at the same time, we’re claiming there are necessarily two things in him.”
“How could there not be?”
“Isn’t one of them ready to be persuaded by the law, the way the law leads it?”
“How so?”
“No doubt the law says that the most beautiful thing is to keep calm as much as is possible in misfortunes and not get worked up, since the good and bad in such things aren’t obvious, and there’s nothing that gets anyone forward when he takes it hard, and because nothing among [604C] human things is worthy of great seriousness, and being in pain becomes an obstacle to that very thing we need to come to us as quickly as possible in these circumstances.”
“What are you referring to?” he said.
“Deliberating with oneself,” I said, “about what’s happened, and, as in the fall of dice, arranging one’s affairs to suit the way things have fallen out, in whatever way reason decides it would be best, and not to go on like children who’ve stumbled, holding the place that was bumped and wasting time in howling, but to get the soul accustomed always, as quickly as possible, to get on toward healing and righting what’s fallen and [604D] sick, doing away with lamentation by the use of medical art.”
“That’s certainly the way anyone could deal with misfortunes most rightly,” he said.
“Aren’t we claiming the best part is willing to follow this reasoning?”
“Clearly so.”
“And won’t we claim the part that leads to memories of the suffering and to laments and is insatiable for them is irrational and lazy, and beloved by cowardice?”
“We’ll claim that for sure.”
[604E] “Doesn’t the petulant part of us have a lot of variety in it for imitation, while the thoughtful and calm state of character, which is always much the same as itself, is neither easy to imitate nor readily understood when it is imitated, especially by a festive crowd with all the assortment of people gathered together in a theater? Because, no doubt, the imitation is of something that comes as foreign to them.”
[605A] “Absolutely so.”
“So it’s obvious that the imitative poet isn’t naturally drawn toward a part of the soul such as that, and his wisdom isn’t built for pleasing it, if he intends to get a good reputation among most people; he’s drawn instead toward the petulant and variable character because it’s easy to imitate.”
“Obviously.”
“So at this point couldn’t we justly take hold of him and set him out as a counterpart to the painter? Because he’s like him in making things that are trifles in comparison to the truth, and they’re also alike in consorting with a part of the soul that’s another trifling thing, rather than with [605B] the best part. Thus, at this point, we’d be in the right in not admitting him into a city that’s going to have good laws, because he stirs up this part of the soul and feeds it, and by making it strong he destroys the reasoning part; that’s what happens in a city when, by making worthless people powerful, one turns the city over to them and ruins the more refined people. In the same way, shall we claim the imitative poet also introduces a bad polity in the soul of each person in private, by gratifying the foolish part of it that can’t [605C] distinguish the greater from the lesser but regards the same things as now great, now small—that he’s a phantom-maker making phantoms very far removed from the truth?”
“Very much so.”
“But we haven’t yet made the most important charge against imitative poetry. Because the fact that it’s strong enough to corrupt even decent people, outside of some slight few, is surely wholly appalling.”
“How’s it not going to be, if it really does that?”
“Listen on and consider. Presumably, when the best of us hear Homer or any of the others, the tragic poets, imitating one [605D] of the heroes when he’s in grief and indulging in a long extended speech of lamentations, or even singing a lament and beating his chest, you know that we enjoy it, give ourselves up to it, and follow along in empathy, taking it seriously, and we praise as a good poet whoever puts us in this condition the most.”
“I do know that; how could I not?”
“But whenever sorrow comes to any of us personally, you realize that we pride ourselves, on the contrary, if we’re able to stay calm and bear it, feeling this to be what belongs to a man, while the other response, which we were praising before, [605E] is that of a woman.”
“I realize that,” he said.
“Well that’s a beautiful sort of praise, isn’t it,” I said, “for anyone not to be disgusted but to enjoy it and praise it when he sees a man of that sort, when he’d consider it unworthy of himself to be like such a person but would be ashamed?”
“No, by Zeus,” he said; “it doesn’t seem to make sense.”
[606A] “It does, though,” I said, “if you look at it another way.”
“How?”
“If you take to heart the fact that the part that’s held down by force at the time of our personal misfortunes and has been hungering to shed tears and get enough of lamenting and be satisfied, being by nature of such a kind as to crave these things, is the part that’s now being given its fill by the poets and enjoying it; but the part of us that’s by nature best, not having been adequately educated by reason or by habit, lets down its guard over [606B] this doleful part because it’s watching someone else’s suffering and there’s no shame to itself, if some other person who purports to be a good man grieves inappropriately, in praising and pitying that person. Instead, it considers its other part as gaining in pleasure, and wouldn’t accept its being deprived of that as the price of holding the whole poem in contempt. I imagine only some few people have it in them to reason out that the enjoying necessarily moves from the realm of other people to that of oneself, because the part that feels pity is not easy to hold down during one’s own sufferings when it’s strong from feeding on those of others.”
[606C] “Very true,” he said.
“Doesn’t the same argument also apply to the part that laughs? Because, if there are jokes you’d be ashamed to make yourself, but that you greatly enjoy hearing in comic imitation or in private, and don’t detest as vile, aren’t you doing exactly the same thing as with the pitiable things? Because you held down by reasoning the part of yourself that wanted to make the jokes, fearing a reputation for buffoonery, but now you let it loose, and don’t realize that once you’ve made it vigorous in one place you often get so carried away that you become a comedian among your friends and family.”
“Very much so,” he said.
[606D] “And the same argument also applies to sexual desires and spirited anger, and to all the feelings of desire as well as pains and pleasures in the soul that we claim accompany us in every action, because poetic imitation works up things of those sorts in us. It nourishes them, watering what needs to be made more dry, and sets up as ruling in us the very things that need to be ruled if we’re to become better and happier instead of worse and more wretched.”
“I can’t say any different,” he said.
[606E] “Well then, Glaucon,” I said, “whenever you run into admirers of Homer saying that this poet has educated Greece and that, for managing human affairs and becoming educated about them, this poet is worthy for someone to take up to learn from and to live by organizing his whole life in accordance with, [607A] shouldn’t you be kind to them and be glad they’re being the best they can possibly be, and agree with them that Homer is the most poetic of tragic poets and first among them, while you still know that only as much poetry as consists of hymns to the gods and praise of good people is to be admitted into a city? But if you’re going to let in the pleasure-laden Muse in lyric or epic poetry, pleasure and pain as a pair will hold the kingship in your city instead of law and the reasoning that seems best in each case to all in common.”
[607B] “Very true,” he said.
“So let that be our justification, now that we’ve brought back to mind the things having to do with poetry, that since it’s like that, it was appropriate after all for us to turn it away from our city; the argument won us over. And let’s explain to her, so she won’t be able to blame us for any insensitivity or incivility, that the quarrel between philosophy and poetry is an ancient one. There’s a lot of evidence187 of the old opposition between them: ‘that yelping bitch, howling at her master,’ and [607C] ‘great in the empty assemblies of fools,’ and ‘the prevailing crowd of the oh-so-wise,’ and ‘those who come to the subtle conclusion that they’re poor,’ and tens of thousands more. Nevertheless, let it be said that if poetic imitation aiming at pleasure should have any argument to make to the effect that she should be present in a city with good laws, we’d gladly take her back in, since we’re well aware that we ourselves are enchanted by her; but it’s not a pious thing to betray what seems true. Aren’t you too enchanted [607D] by her, my friend, especially when you look at her through Homer’s eyes?”
“Very.”
“Wouldn’t it be a just thing for her to come back in that way, when she’s made her defense in lyric verse or in some other meter?”
“Very much so.”
“And surely we’d also allow her champions, all those who aren’t poets but lovers of poetry, to make an argument in her defense without meter, to the effect that she’s not only pleasant but also beneficial to polities and to human life,188 and we’ll listen [607E] in a favorable spirit, because assuredly we’ll be the ones to gain if she’s shown to be not only pleasant but beneficial as well.”
“How could we not come out the gainers?” he said.
“But if not, dear comrade, then the same way people who once fell in love with someone, if they come to regard their love as not being beneficial, keep away from it even if that takes force, we too, on account of the love for such poetry that’s arisen in us from our rearing at the hands of our lovely [608A] polities, we’ll be rooting for her to be shown to be best and truest, but as long as she’s not able to give her defense, we’ll listen to her while chanting to ourselves this argument that we’re making; that will be our counter-charm to ward off our falling back again under the spell of the love that’s childish and belongs among the masses. We recognize that it’s necessary for anyone who listens to this sort of poetry not to take it seriously as a serious effort to reach the truth, [608B] but to be cautious, fearing for the polity within himself, and to believe the things we’ve said about poetry.”
“I absolutely agree,” he said.
“Because it’s a great struggle, dear Glaucon,” I said, “though it doesn’t seem as great as it is, to become a reliable or worthless person, so it’s not worth it to be enticed by honor or money or any ruling power or even by poetry into being careless about justice and the rest of virtue.”
“I agree with you,” he said, “based on the things we’ve gone through, and I imagine anyone else at all [608C] would too.”
“And we haven’t even gotten to the greatest rewards and prizes that lie ahead for virtue,” I said.
“That’s some incredible greatness you’re talking about,” he said, “if there are others greater than the ones mentioned.”
“What great thing could come about in a little stretch of time?” I said. “Because this whole time from childhood to old age would surely be a little one compared to all time.”
“No time at all,” he said.
“What about an immortal thing, then? Do you imagine it needs to be seriously concerned about that amount of time and not about the whole of it?”
[608D] “I imagine you’re right,” he said; “but what’s this thing you’re talking about?”
“Haven’t you noticed that our soul is immortal and never perishes?” I said.
And he stared at me and said in astonishment, “No, by Zeus, I haven’t; can you explain that?”
“If not I’d be doing an injustice,” I said. “And I imagine you can too, since there’s nothing difficult about it.”
“For me there is,” he said, “but I’d be delighted if I could hear this undifficult thing from you.”
“You could hear it,” I said.
“Just speak,” he said.
“Do you call anything good or bad?”
[608E] “I do.”
“And do you think about them the same way I do?”
“How’s that?”
“Everything that destroys or corrupts something is bad and everything that preserves or benefits it is good.”
“That’s what I think,” he said.
“And what about this? Do you say there’s something bad and something good for each thing, such as inflammation [609A] for eyes, and disease for the body as a whole, blight for grain, rot for wood, corrosion for bronze and iron, and, as I’m saying, for pretty much everything, something that’s innately bad and a disease for each?”
“I’d say so,” he said.
“And whenever any of these attacks anything, doesn’t it make the thing it attacks bad, and finally dissolve and destroy the whole thing?”
“How could it not?”
“Therefore, what’s innately bad for each thing and is its particular badness is what destroys each thing, or if that doesn’t destroy it, there’s no other thing that [609B] could still corrupt it. Certainly what’s good could never destroy it, and neither could something that’s neither bad nor good.”
“How could they?” he said.
“So if we can find anything there is such that what’s bad for it makes it defective but can’t dissolve and destroy it, won’t we know already that there is no destruction for anything of that nature?”
“Most likely that’s how it would be,” he said.
“What about the soul, then?” I said. “Doesn’t it have something that makes it bad?”
“And how,” he said; “all the things we’ve just been going over—injustice, intemperance, cowardice, and ignorance.”
[609C] “And does any of these dissolve and destroy it? And think carefully so we don’t get misled into imagining that an unjust, foolish person, when he’s caught committing an injustice, has then been destroyed by his injustice, which is a badness of the soul. Go about it this way instead: just as the body’s badness, which is disease, makes a body waste away and utterly destroys it and brings it to the point of not even being a body, all the things we were just speaking of also get to the point, [609D] each by the action of its own particular badness, by the settling in and presence of what corrupts it, of not being. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes.”
“Keep going, then, and examine soul in the same way. When injustice, or other badness, is present in it, does it, by its presence and by settling in, corrupt the soul and make it wither until, by bringing it to its death, it takes it away from the body?”
“Not at all,” he said; “not that anyway.”
“But surely the other possibility is illogical,” I said, “that the badness of something else could destroy it in any way when it’s own badness can’t.”
“That is illogical.”
[609E] “Consider, Glaucon,” I said, “that we don’t imagine a body has to be destroyed by the badness of foods, or by anything that belongs to the foods themselves, whether it’s staleness or rancidness or whatever it might be; but if the badness of the foods themselves instills in the body a badness of a body, we’ll claim it gets destroyed by those other things through the action of its own badness, which is disease. We’d never think it right [610A] to say that the body, which is a different thing, is corrupted by the action of the badness of foods, which differ from it, unless its innate evil is instilled by the action of the extraneous evil.”
“You’re speaking quite correctly,” he said.
“By the same argument, then,” I said, “if the badness of a body doesn’t instill badness in a soul, we’d never think it right to say a soul is destroyed by the action of an extraneous evil in the absence of its own particular badness, one thing by the evil of another.”
“That does make sense,” he said.
“Well then, let’s either prove that we aren’t saying these things in a beautiful way, or until [610B] they’re refuted, let’s not claim that by a fever or by any other disease, or by cutting a throat or even if someone cuts a whole body up into the tiniest possible pieces, a soul is any more subject to being destroyed on account of these things, until someone proves that by these things that are done to the body, a soul itself becomes more unjust or more impious. But if an extraneous evil comes into a different thing, while a particular thing’s own particular evil doesn’t arise in it, let’s not allow anyone to claim that either [610C] a soul or anything else is destroyed.”
“Well it’s for sure,” he said, “that no one’s ever going to show that the souls of dying people become more unjust on account of death.”
“But if anyone has the nerve to tackle the argument,” I said, “just so he won’t be forced to agree that souls are immortal, and says that a dying person does become worse and more unjust, we’ll no doubt think it right to point out that if the one who says that is telling the truth, injustice would be fatal to anyone who has it, just like a disease, and those [610D] who catch it would be killed by it, since it’s a killer by its nature. Those who get it most would die quickly, and those who get it less would die at a more leisurely rate, but unjust people wouldn’t die of it the way they do now, at the hands of other people who impose it as a penalty.”
“By Zeus,” he said, “injustice doesn’t look all that terrible in that case, if it’s going to be fatal to someone who takes it up, since it would be a release from troubles. But I imagine instead it’s going to look exactly the opposite, [610E] like something that kills other people if it can but leaves the one who has it very much alive, and still more than alive, unable to get any sleep. That’s how far away it’s located from being fatal, as it seems anyway.”
“You’re putting it beautifully,” I said. “When its own particular badness and its own particular evil aren’t enough to kill and destroy a soul, an evil designed for the destruction of something else is hardly going to destroy a soul or anything else except the thing it’s designed to destroy.”
“It seems hardly likely, anyway,” he said.
“So when something isn’t destroyed by any single evil, either its own [611A] or an extraneous one, isn’t it clearly necessary that it always is, and if it always is, it’s immortal?”
“It’s necessary,” he said.
“Well then, let that be how it stands,” I said. “And if it is that way, you understand that there would always be the same souls. Because there certainly couldn’t get to be any fewer if none is destroyed, and there couldn’t get to be any more either, since if there got to be any more of any immortal things whatever, you know they’d be coming from something mortal, and everything would finally be immortal.”
“What you say is true.”
“But let’s not imagine that either,” I said, “since the argument doesn’t [611B] allow it, and let’s certainly not imagine that in its truest nature a soul is the sort of thing that’s filled with lots of variety, non-uniformity, and difference within itself.”
“How do you mean?” he said.
“It’s not easy for something to be everlasting,” I said, “if it’s composed of many parts, as the soul now appears to us to be, and doesn’t have a perfectly beautiful composition.”189
“Likely not.”
“Well now, the present argument and others as well would force us to the conclusion that the soul is immortal, but it has to be seen the way it is in truth, not deformed by its association with the body [611C] and other evils, the way we see it now; the way it is when it becomes pure has to be looked into adequately by reasoning. One will find it a far more beautiful thing, and will see through the various conceptions of justice and injustice, and all the things we’ve gone over now, to something more clear. We were telling the truth about it now as it appears at present; with the condition it’s in, however, we’ve been looking at it like people who, when they catch sight of Glaucus190 at sea, can’t easily see his original nature [611D] any more, because some of the old parts of his body have been broken off by the waves, and others worn down and completely deformed, while other things have grown on him, shells and seaweed and rocks, so that he looks more like any sea-monster than what he was by nature. And we too are looking at the soul when it’s in a condition like that, as a result of myriads of evils. But, Glaucon, one needs to look in a different place.”
“Where?” he said.
“At its philosophic desire, to get an idea of what it reaches for and what sorts of things [611E] it strives to be in company with, since it’s akin to what’s divine, immortal, and always in being, and to consider what would become of it if the whole of it pursued that sort of thing, and it was lifted by that impulse out of the sea it now inhabits and had the rocks and shells that are now on it knocked [612A] off, the many encrustations of earth and rock that grow wild all over it as a result of its allegedly happy feasts, since what it feasts itself on is earth. Then one could see its true nature, whether its form is multiple or single, or in what respect and what manner it is that way, but for now, as I imagine, we’ve done a decent job of going through the attributes and forms it has in its human life.”
“Absolutely so,” he said.
“And as for the other things in our discussion,” I said, “didn’t we rescue justice without bringing up the wages or reputations for it [612B] the way you folks claimed Hesiod and Homer do? Instead, didn’t we find justice itself to be best for the soul itself, and that just things need to be done by it whether it has Gyges’ ring or not, and besides such a ring, Hades’ cap191 too?”
“What you say is entirely true,” he said.
“Well then, Glaucon, isn’t it now at this point unobjectionable, in addition to that, to give back to justice and the rest of virtue [612C] all the wages of all the kinds that they secure for the soul from humans and gods, both while a human being is still living and when he’s dead?”
“Absolutely so,” he said.
“And will you folks give me back what you borrowed in the discussion?”
“What in particular?”
“I granted you the just person’s seeming to be unjust and the unjust person’s seeming to be just, because you two asked for it. Even if it wouldn’t be possible for these things to go undetected by gods and human beings, it still had to be granted [612D] for the sake of argument, so justice itself could be judged in comparison with injustice itself. Or don’t you remember?”
“I’d surely be doing an injustice if I didn’t,” he said.
“Now since they have been judged,” I said, “I’m asking on justice’s behalf for its reputation back again, and for you folks to agree that the reputation it has is exactly the one it does have with gods and human beings, so that it may carry off the prizes it gains and confers on those who have it for the way it seems, since it has also made it obvious that it confers the good things that come from what it is and doesn’t deceive those who take into their very being.”
[612E] “The things you’re asking for are just,” he said.
“So will you give this back first,” I said, “that it doesn’t escape the notice of the gods, at least, that each of them is the sort of person he is?”
“We’ll give it back,” he said.
“And if it’s not something that escapes their notice, the one would be loved by the gods and the other hated, just as we agreed at the start.”
“There is that.”
“And won’t we agree that everything that comes to someone loved by the gods [613A] is the best possible, at least with everything that comes from the gods, unless there was already some necessary evil for him stemming from an earlier mistaken choice?”
“Very much so.”
“Therefore, in accord with that, the assumption that has to be made about a just man, if he falls into poverty or diseases or any other apparent evils, is that these things will finally turn into something good for him while he lives or even when he dies. Because someone is certainly never going to be neglected by the gods when he’s willing to put his heart into becoming just and pursuing virtue [613B] to the extent of becoming like a god as much as is possible for a human being.”
“It’s not likely anyway,” he said, “that someone like that would by neglected by his own kind.”
“And shouldn’t we think the opposite of that about an unjust person?”
“Emphatically so.”
“So the prizes from the gods for a just person would be something of that sort.”
“To my way of thinking at any rate,” he said.
“And what about from human beings?” I said. “Isn’t it like this, if one ought to tell it the way it is? Don’t clever unjust people do exactly the same thing as people who run well up the track but not back down it? [613C] They go leaping off sharply at first, but become comical when they’re finishing, wearing their ears on their shoulders as they run off uncrowned. But those who are truly skilled at running get to the end, take the prizes, and wear the crowns. Doesn’t it most often turn out that way with just people too? Toward the end of each action and interaction, and of life, aren’t they well regarded and don’t they carry away the prizes given by human beings?”
“Very much so.”
“So will you put up with it if I say the very things about them that you said [613D] about unjust people? Because I’m going to say that just people, when they get older, are rulers in their cities if they want the offices, and take wives from wherever they want, and give their daughters in marriage to whomever they wish; and everything you said about the others, I now say about these. And about unjust people in turn, I’ll say that most of them, even if they get away with it when they’re young, are comical figures when they get caught at the last stage of the race, and when they come to a miserable old age they’re treated with abuse by foreigners and townspeople, whipped, and as for the things you called crude—and you were telling [613E] the truth—imagine you’ve also heard me say that they suffer all those things. But as I say, see if you’ll put up with that.”
“Completely so,” he said, “since you’re saying just things.”
“These, then, would be the sorts of prizes and wages and gifts that come [614A] to a just person during his life from gods and human beings,” I said, “in addition to the good things that justice itself provided.”
“And very beautiful and reliable they are,” he said.
“Well, these are nothing,” I said, “in multitude or magnitude, compared to those that are in store for each sort of person after death. It would be right to hear them, so that in the hearing each of them may be paid in full the debt he’s owed by the argument.”
[614B] “You should tell them,” he said, “since there aren’t many other things anyone could hear with more pleasure.”
“I’m not going to tell you a tale of Alcinous, though,” I said, “but it is a tale of a stalwart man, Er, son of Armenius, of the Pamphylian race.192 At the time he was killed in a war, when the bodies gathered up on the tenth day were already decaying, his was taken up in sound condition; when he was brought home, and was about to be cremated on the twelfth day, while he was lying on the funeral pyre he came back to life, and once he’d revived he told what he saw in the other place.
“When the soul went out of him, he said, it traveled with [614C] many others, and they reached a certain mysterious place where there were two chasms in the earth bordering on each other, and two others in the heavens directly above them. There were judges seated between them, who, once they’d passed judgment, told the just to proceed to the right and up through the heavens, and hung signs on them in front indicating their judgments; but the unjust they told to go to the left and down, and these too were wearing signs, in back, indicating all the things [614D] they’d done. But when he himself came forward, they said he had to become a messenger to human beings about the things over there, and told him to listen to and look at everything in the place.
“There he saw souls going out at each chasm, one in the heavens and one in the earth, when judgment was passed on them, and at the other pair, from one of them souls coming up out of the earth full of dirt and dust, and from the other, others coming down from the heavens [614E] clean. Those that were constantly arriving looked like they were returning from a long journey, and went off with relief into the meadow to rest the way they would at a festival; all those that were acquainted greeted one another and the ones returning out of the earth asked the others about the things in the other place while those coming from the heavens asked them about the things that happened to them. And they told their stories to each other, the ones lamenting [615A] and weeping as they recollected all the things of all the sorts that they experienced and saw in their journey under the earth, which is a journey of a thousand years, and those from the heavens in their turn described delights and sights of beauty beyond belief.
“The many things they told would take a long time to repeat, Glaucon, but he said the chief point was this: for all the injustices they’d ever done in any way, and all the people they’d done them to, each of them had paid the penalty for all of them in turn, tenfold for each. That is, for every hundred year period, taking a human life to last that long [615B] in order to make it be ten times over, they paid the price for each injustice, and if, for example, any were responsible for the deaths of many people, by betraying either cities or armies and plunging people into slavery, or had any part of the responsibility for any other evildoing, for all those things they’d get back sufferings ten times over for each one. On the other hand, if they’d been just and pious and had done any good deeds, they got the rewards they deserved at the same rate. About those who died right at birth or lived [615C] a short time, he said other things not worth remembering. But for impiety and piety toward gods and parents, and for murder committed by one’s own hand, he recounted still greater repayments.
“For instance, he said he was present when one person was asked by another where Ardiaeus the Great was. This Ardiaeus had become tyrant of a certain city in Pamphylia just a thousand years before that time, and it was said he’d killed his aged father [615D] and older brother, and done many other impious things. He said the person who was asked replied, saying ‘He hasn’t arrived, and he won’t be coming up here, because that was one of the horrible sights we saw; when we had undergone everything else and were near the mouth of the chasm, about to go up, we suddenly caught sight of him and others—most of them tyrants, just about all, but there were some among them who’d been guilty of great transgressions [615E] as private citizens. At the point when they were imagining they’d be going up, the mouth didn’t let them through, but roared whenever anyone in such an incurable state of depravity, or who hadn’t paid a sufficient penalty, tried to go up. There were men there,’ he went on, ‘savage and all fiery to look at, standing by and paying close attention to the sound, who grabbed some and led them off, but Ardiaeus and others they roped, [616A] hands, feet, and head, threw them down and skinned them, and dragged them beside the outer road, scraping them on thornbushes, always telling people who passed by why they were taking them away and that they’d be thrown into Tartarus.’193 And he said that though many fears of all sorts had come over them there, the fear of each that this roaring might come for him when he came up surpassed them all, and when it was silent each one went up with the greatest relief. So some of the penalties and punishments were of these kinds, and the [616B] rewards were their corresponding opposites.
“And when those of each kind had been in the meadow seven days, they had to get up and go out of there on the eighth day, and reach a place after four days where they could see a straight shaft of light, like a pillar, stretching from above through all the heavens and earth, most nearly resembling a rainbow, but of greater brightness and clarity. They reached it when they’d gone forward a day’s march, and at that spot they saw in [616C] the middle of the light the ends of binding cords that stretched from the heavens to hold them, because that light is what binds the heavens, like the ropes under a warship, holding their whole circumference together in that way. Between the ends of the cords stretched the spindle of Necessity, by which all the revolutions are turned; its shaft and hook were diamond-hard, and its knob was a mixture of that and other materials.194
[616D] “The nature of the knob is of the following sort. The shape is like that of one here, but from what he said, it’s necessary to think of it as being this way: as if in one big hollow knob, completely emptied out, another smaller one was inserted, fitted in just like bowls nested into one another, with another, third one the same way, and a fourth, and four more. Because there are eight knobs in all, inserted [616E] one within the next, with their rims showing as circles from above, ending in back in a continuous surface of a single knob around the shaft, which was driven all through them through the center of the eighth.
“The first and outermost knob has the widest edge on the circle of its rim, the second widest is that of the sixth, third that of the fourth, fourth that of the eighth, fifth that of the seventh, sixth that of the fifth, seventh that of the third, and eighth that of the second. The rim of the largest knob is speckled, that of the seventh is the brightest, that of the eighth gets its color from the seventh, [617A] which shines on it, those of the second and fifth are about the same as each other, yellower than the others, the third has the whitest color, the fourth is a little reddish, and the sixth is second in whiteness.195 The whole spindle turns in a circle with the same rotation, but within the whole as it goes around, the seven inner circles go around gently in the direction opposite to the whole. In these latter motions the eighth goes at the fastest rate among them, [617B] and the seventh, sixth, and fifth, at the same rate as one another, are second fastest; coming third in the rate at which it was circling back, as it appeared to them, was the fourth rim, fourth fastest the third, and fifth the second.196 And it turns in the lap of Necessity.197
“On its circles, one standing atop each, a Siren is carried around with it, each emanating one sound, a single tone, and from all eight sounding together there is one harmonious sound. And three [617C] others are seated at equal intervals around it, each on a throne, three daughters of Necessity robed in white and wearing garlands on their heads, the Fates, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, singing in harmony with the Sirens, Lachesis of what was, Clotho of what is, and Atropos of what is to be. And Clotho helps to turn the outer shell of the spindle by putting her right hand to it from time to time, while Atropos does the same to the inner ones with her left, and [617D] Lachesis puts each hand to each in turn.
“When the souls got there, they were required to go directly to Lachesis. A certain attendant first lined them up in rows and then withdrew lots, and patterns of lives, from Lachesis’ lap, went up on a high platform, and spoke. ‘The word of Lachesis, maiden daughter of Necessity: Souls, creatures of a day, at the beginning of another death-bearing cycle for a mortal [617E] race, no guardian deity will be assigned to you by lot; you will choose a guardian deity. He who draws the first lot, let him be first to choose a life to which he will be bound by necessity. Virtue has no master; each will have more or less of it by honoring or dishonoring it. The blame belongs to the one who chooses; the god is blameless.’
“When he’d spoken these words, he flung the lots at them, and each picked up one that fell beside him except Er himself, who wasn’t allowed to. And [618A] that made clear to each one who picked one up where in numerical order he would make his choice. After that, he next put the patterns of lives on the ground in front of them, far more than the souls who were present. And they were of all sorts, because there were lives of all the animals as well as every human kind. There were tyrannies among them, some fully realized and others wiped out midway, ending in poverty and exile or in begging; and there were lives of men with good reputations, some for looks and beauty and [618B] strength, in athletic contests and otherwise, others for their birth and the virtues of their ancestors, and lives of men disreputable on the same grounds, and of women in like manner. An ordering of the soul was not present in them, because it’s necessary for the soul doing the choosing to become different when a different life is chosen, but all other attributes were, mixed with one another in lives both rich and poor, some with sick ones and others with healthy ones, and still others in between these.
“So, dear Glaucon, it looks like everything is at stake for a human being here, and for that reason each of us needs to pay the utmost attention, [618C] neglecting all other studies so that he may be a seeker and student of this study, if there’s anywhere it’s possible for him to learn and find out what will make him capable and knowledgeable for distinguishing a worthwhile life from a worthless one, in order at all times and places to choose the life that’s better from among those that are possible. When anyone reckons up all the things just mentioned, both in combination with one another and separately, for how they stand in relation to the virtue in a life, in order to know what harm or good beauty will do when it’s blended with poverty or wealth and accompanied by [618D] any particular condition of the soul, and what high and low births will do, and private lives and ruling offices, and bodily strengths and weaknesses, and capacities to learn easily and difficulties in learning, and everything of the sort that has to do with a soul by nature as well as the things that are acquired, and what they’ll do when blended together with one another—from all these things, one will be capable of coming to a conclusion in order to make a choice, with a view to the nature of the soul, [618E] between a worse and a better life, and he’ll call a life worse that will lead the soul to the point of its becoming more unjust, and call better one that will lead to its being more just. He’ll let everything else go, because we’ve seen that, for the living and for the dead, this choice is [619A] the most powerful one. So he needs to go off to Hades holding adamantly to this opinion, so that even there he won’t be knocked off course by riches and other evils of that kind, and fall into tyrannies and other actions like it so that he’ll do many evils that can’t be undone, and suffer even greater ones himself. He’ll know instead always to choose the life at the mean between those things and avoid the extremes on either side, both in this life, as far as possible, and in all [619B] the next life. That’s the way a human being becomes happiest.
“So then the messenger from that place reported that the attendant spoke as follows: ‘Even for the one who comes up last, if he chooses with intelligence, there’s a life to be satisfied with, not a bad one, lying here for someone who’ll put effort into living it. Let the one who’s first to choose not be hasty, and let the one who’s last not be dispirited.’
“As soon as these words were spoken, he said, the one who drew the first lot immediately came up and chose the biggest tyranny, choosing out of thoughtlessness [619C] and gluttony without looking everything over carefully enough, but he failed to notice that eating his own children was included in what was allotted, as were other evils. And when he’d looked over it at leisure, he beat his breast and lamented his choice; but he didn’t stick to the advice the attendant had given beforehand, because he didn’t blame himself for the evils, but luck and divine beings and everything else but himself. He was one of those who’d come from the heavens, after he’d lived in an orderly polity in his previous life, participating in virtue by habit, without [619D] philosophy. And one might well say it wasn’t the lesser number of those caught in such a situation who’d come from the heavens, because they were out of training for taking pains; most of those who came out of the earth didn’t make their choices right off the bat, because they’d suffered themselves and seen others suffer. For this reason, as well as from the luck of the draw, there was an exchange of evils and goods for most of the souls. It’s always the case, though, whenever anyone arrives at [619E] the life here, that if he engages in philosophy in a healthy way and the lot for his choice doesn’t fall among the last ones, he stands a good chance, based on the reports from the other place, not only of being happy here but also that his journey from here to there and back again will not be traveled underground on a rough road but on a smooth one through the heavens.
“He said this in particular was a sight worth seeing, how the different souls [620A] each chose their lives, because it was pitiful and funny and wondrous to see.198 Mostly they chose according to what they were accustomed to in the previous life. He said he saw a soul that had once been Orpheus choose the life of a swan out of hatred of womankind, since because of his death at their hands he was unwilling to be born by being conceived in a woman. And he saw the soul of Thamyris choose the life of a nightingale. And he saw a swan changing over into a choice of a human life, and other musical animals doing the same. [620B] The soul that drew the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion; it was that of Ajax, son of Telamon, who rejected becoming a human being, because he held in memory the judgment over the armor. The next soul was that of Agamemnon; in hatred of the human race on account of its sufferings, it too changed to another life, of an eagle. Having drawn a lot in the middle range, the soul of Atalanta, catching sight of great honors belonging to an athletic man, was unable to pass them by and took them. Next [620C] he saw the soul of Epeius, son of Panopeus, going into the nature of an artistic woman. And far back among those bringing up the rear he saw the soul of Thersites, who’d do anything for a laugh, slipping into a monkey. By chance the soul of Odysseus went to make its choice after drawing the last of all the lots; it had found relief from its love of honor by the memory of its earlier labors, and went around for a long time looking for a quiet life of a private man, and with some trouble it found one lying somewhere that had been ignored by everyone else. And [620D] it said when it saw it that it was delighted to choose it, and would have done the same even if it had drawn the first lot. And from the other animals, souls passed in the same way into human beings and into one another, unjust ones changing into wild animals and just ones into tame, and they got mixed in every sort of mixture.
“Now when all the souls had chosen lives, in the same order they’d drawn their lots, they went up to Lachesis, and she sent along with each the deity it had chosen, as a guardian of its [620E] life and to fulfill what it had chosen. It led the soul to Clotho first, under her hand as it was turning the whirl of the spindle, to ratify the destiny it had chosen after it drew its lot; when it had been touched by her, it was led next to the spinning of Atropos, to make the thread that was spun irreversible. From that point on it didn’t turn around, and passed beneath [621A] the throne of Necessity. And once they’d come out through there, when the others had come out too, they all made their way into the plain of Lethe through terrible, scorching, stifling heat, since it was barren of trees and of everything else that grows in the earth.199 Then, since evening was already coming on, they made camp beside the river of Heedlessness, whose waters no container can hold. It was necessary for them all to drink a certain amount of the water, and those who were not saved from it by good sense drank [621B] more than that amount, but in each case, the one who drank it forgot everything. When they’d fallen asleep and midnight came, there came thunder and an earthquake, and suddenly each was borne away from there in a different direction, up to its birth, darting like shooting stars. Er himself had been prevented from drinking any of the water, but by what means and in what manner he got back into his body, he didn’t know; he just suddenly had his sight again and saw himself lying at dawn on his funeral pyre.
“And so, Glaucon, the tale was saved and didn’t die; [621C] it could save us too, if we’re persuaded by it, and we’ll get past the river Lethe in good shape without a stain on our soul. If we’re persuaded by me and believe the soul is immortal and able to keep itself intact in the face of every evil, and every good as well, we’ll always keep to the higher road and pursue justice with good sense in every way, so that we might be friends to ourselves and to the gods, both while we remain here in this place and when we [621D] carry off the rewards for it like athletes on their victory laps. Both here and in the thousand-year journey we’ve been going through, we will do well.”