357A–362D Socrates and Glaucon
362D–372C Socrates and Adeimantus
372C–376D Socrates and Glaucon
376D–382C Socrates and Adeimantus
Note
In this book Socrates begins the project of finding the justice in a human soul by first looking for it in a nascent city. The city is understood to be the natural form of a self-sufficient political community. The development of it considered here is not an imagined history, but an attempt to uncover the deepest causes that are always at work. As Thrasymachus became a test case in Book I for the possibility of human co-operation, Glaucon and Adeimantus in Book II are examples of the raw human materials out of which a good community might be made. Thrasymachus was compared to a wolf, a lion, or a snake in need of taming or charming. Plato’s two brothers are reflected in the images of well born and well bred puppies or young horses whose eager spiritedness needs to be given direction. The search for the best city is quickly transformed into a search for the best education.
[357A] Now when I said these things, I imagined I’d be released from discussion, but as it seems, it was just a prologue. For Glaucon is always most courageous in confronting everything, and in particular he wouldn’t stand for Thrasymachus’s giving up, but said “Socrates, do you want to seem to have persuaded us or [357B] truly persuade us that in every way it’s better to be just than unjust?”
“If it would be up to me,” I said, “I’d choose truly.”
“Then you’re not doing what you want. For tell me, does it seem to you there’s a certain kind of good that we’d take hold of not because we desire its consequences, but to embrace it itself for its own sake, such as enjoyment and any of the pleasures that are harmless and from which nothing comes into the succeeding time other than to enjoy having them?”
[357C] “It seems to me,” I said, “that there is such a thing.”
“Then what about the kind that we love both itself for its own sake and for the things that come from it, such as thinking and seeing and being healthy? For presumably we embrace such things for both reasons.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And do you see a third form of good,” he said, “in which there’s gymnastic exercise, and being given medical treatment when sick, and giving medical treatment, as well as the rest of moneymaking activity? Because we’d say these are burdensome, but for our benefit, and we wouldn’t take hold of them for their own sake, [357D] but we do for the sake of wages and of all the other things that come from them.”
“There is also this third kind,” I said, “but what about it?”
“In which of these kinds,” he said, “do you put justice?”
[358A] “I imagine in the most beautiful kind,” I said, “which must be loved both for itself and for the things that come from it by someone who’s going to be blessedly happy.”
“Well it doesn’t seem that way to most people,” he said, “but to belong to the burdensome kind that ought to be pursued for the sake of the wages and reputation that come from opinion, but ought to be avoided itself on its own account as being something difficult.”
“I know it seems that way,” I said, “and a while ago it was condemned by Thrasymachus as being that sort of thing, while injustice was praised, but, as it seems, I’m a slow learner.”
[358B] “Come then,” he said, “and listen to me, if the same things still seem true to you, because Thrasymachus appears to me to have been charmed by you like a snake, sooner than he needed to be. But to my way of thinking, no demonstration has taken place yet about either one, since I desire to hear what each of them is and what power it has itself by itself when it’s present in the soul, and to say goodbye to the wages and the things that come from them.
“So I’m going to do it this way, if that seems good to you too: I’ll revive [358C] Thrasymachus’s argument, and I’ll say first what sort of thing people claim justice is and where they say it comes from, and second that everyone who pursues it pursues it unwillingly as something necessary but not good, and third that they do it fittingly since the life of someone who’s unjust is much better than that of someone who’s just—as they say, since it doesn’t seem that way to me at all, Socrates, though I’m stumped as my ears are talked deaf when I listen to Thrasymachus and tens of thousands [358D] of other people, while I haven’t yet heard the argument on behalf of justice, that it’s better than injustice, from anyone in the way I want it. I want to hear it itself by itself praised, and I assume that I’d hear this most of all from you.
“That’s why I’ll strain myself to speak in praise of the unjust life, and as I speak I’ll point out to you in what way I want to hear you in turn condemn injustice and praise justice. But see if what I’m saying is to your liking.”
“Most of all,” I said, “for what would anyone who has any sense [358E] enjoy more to talk about and hear about repeatedly?”
“You’re speaking most beautifully,” he said. “Listen then to what I said I’d talk about first, what sort of thing justice is and where it comes from. People claim that doing injustice is by its nature good and suffering injustice is bad, but that suffering injustice crosses over farther into bad than doing injustice does into good, so that when people both do injustice to and suffer it from each other and get a taste of both, it seems profitable [359A] to the ones who don’t have the power to avoid the latter and choose the former to make a contract with each other neither to do injustice nor suffer it. And from then on they begin to set up laws and agreements among themselves and to name what’s commanded by the law both lawful and just, and so this is the origin and being of justice, being in the middle between what is best, if one could do injustice and not pay a penalty, and what is worst, if one were powerless to take revenge when suffering injustice. What’s [359B] just, being at a mean between these two things, is something to be content with not as something good, but as something honored out of weakness at doing injustice, since someone with the power to do it and who was truly a man would never make a contract with anyone neither to do nor suffer injustice. He’d be insane.
“So, Socrates, it’s the nature of justice to be this and of this sort, and these are the sorts of things it comes from by its nature, as the argument goes. The fact that those who pursue it pursue it unwillingly from a lack of power to do injustice, we might perceive most clearly if we were to do something like this in our [359C] thinking: by giving to each of them, the just and the unjust, freedom to do whatever he wants, we could then follow along and see where his desire will lead each one. Then we could catch the just person in the act of going the same route as the unjust one because of greed for more, which is what every nature, by its nature, seeks as good, though it’s forcibly pulled aside by law to respect for equality.
“The sort of freedom I’m talking about would be most possible if the sort of power [359D] ever came to them that people say came to the ancestor of Gyges the Lydian. They say he was a shepherd working as a hired servant to the one who then ruled Lydia, when a big storm came up and an earthquake broke open the earth, and there was a chasm in the place where he was pasturing the sheep. Seeing it and marveling, he went down and saw other marvels people tell legends about as well as a bronze horse, hollowed out, that had windows in it, and when he stooped down to look through them he saw a dead body inside that appeared bigger than a human being. And this body [359E] had on it nothing else but a gold ring around its finger, which he took off and went away.
“And when the customary gathering of the shepherds came along, so that they could report each month to the king about his flocks, he too came and had on the ring. Then while he was sitting with the others, he happened to turn the stone setting of the ring around toward himself into the inside of his hand, and when this [360A] happened he became invisible to those sitting beside him, and they talked about him as though he’d gone away. He marveled, and running his hand over the ring again he twisted the stone setting outward, and when he had twisted it he became visible. And reflecting on this, he tried out whether the ring had this power in it, and it turned out that way for him, to become invisible when he twisted the stone setting in and visible when he twisted it out. Perceiving this, he immediately arranged to become one of the messengers attending the [360B] king, and went and seduced the king’s wife, and with her attacked and killed the king and took possession of his reign.
“Now if there were a pair of rings of that sort, and a just person put on one while an unjust person put on the other, it would seem that there could be no one so inflexible that he’d stand firm in his justice and have the fortitude to hold back and not lay a hand on things belonging to others, when he was free to take what he wanted from the marketplace, [360C] and to go into houses and have sex with anyone he wanted, and to kill and set loose from chains everyone he wanted, and to do everything he could when he was the equal of a god among human beings. And in acting this way, he would do nothing different from the other, but both would go the same route.
“And surely someone could claim this is a great proof that no one is just willingly, but only when forced to be, on the grounds that it is not for his private good, since wherever each one imagines he’ll be able to do injustice he does injustice. [360D] Because every man assumes that injustice is much more profitable to him privately than justice, and the one saying the things involved in this sort of argument will claim that he’s assuming the truth, because if anyone got hold of such freedom and was never willing to do injustice or lay a hand on things belonging to others, he’d seem to be utterly miserable to those who observed it, and utterly senseless as well, though they’d praise him to each other’s faces, lying to one another from fear of suffering injustice.
“So that’s the way that part goes. But as for the choice itself of the life of [360E] the people we’re talking about, we’ll be able to decide it correctly if we set the most just person opposite the most unjust; if we don’t, we won’t be able to. What then is the way of opposing them? This: we’ll take nothing away either from the injustice of the unjust person or from the justice of the just person, but set out each as complete in his own pursuit. First, then, let the unjust one do as clever workmen do; a top helmsman, for instance, or doctor, distinguishes clearly between [361A] what’s impossible in his art and what’s possible, and attempts the latter while letting the former go, and if he still slips up in any way, he’s competent to set himself right again. So too, let the unjust person, attempting his injustices in the correct way, go undetected, if he’s going to be surpassingly unjust. Someone who gets caught must be considered a sorry specimen, since the ultimate injustice is to seem just when one is not.
“So one must grant the completely unjust person the most complete injustice,10 and not take anything away but allow him, while doing the greatest injustices, [361B] to secure for himself the greatest reputation for justice; and if thereafter he slips up in anything, one must allow him to have the power to set himself right again, and to be competent both to speak so as to persuade if he’s denounced for any of his injustices, and to use force for everything that needs force, by means of courage and strength as well as a provision of friends and wealth. And having set him up as this sort, let’s stand the just person beside him in our argument, a man simple and well bred, wishing not to seem but be good, as Aeschylus puts it.11
[361C] “So one must take away the seeming, for if he’s going to seem to be just there’ll be honors and presents for him as one seeming that way. Then it would be unclear whether he would be that way for the sake of what’s just or for the sake of the presents and honors. So he must be stripped bare of everything except justice and made to be situated in a way opposite to the one before, for while he does nothing unjust, let him have a reputation for the greatest injustice, in order that he might be put to the acid test for justice: its not being softened by bad reputation and the things that come from that. Let him go unchanged until [361D] death, seeming to be unjust throughout life while being just, so that when both people have come to the ultimate point, one of justice and the other of injustice, it can be decided which of the pair is happier.”
“Ayayay, Glaucon my friend,” I said, “how relentlessly you scrub each of them pure, like a statue, for the decision between the two men.”
“As much as is in my power,” he said, “and now that the two are that way, there’s nothing difficult any more, as I imagine, about going on through in telling the sort of life that’s in store for [361E] each of them. So it must be said, and if in fact it’s said too crudely, don’t imagine I’m saying it, Socrates, but the people who praise injustice in preference to justice.
“They’ll say this: that situated the way he is, the just person will be beaten with whips, stretched on the rack, bound in chains, have both eyes burned out, [362A] and as an end after suffering every evil he’ll be hacked in pieces, and know that one ought to wish not to be but seem just. And therefore the lines of Aeschylus would be much more correct to speak about the unjust person, since they’ll claim that the one who is unjust in his being, inasmuch as he’s pursuing a thing in contact with truth and not living with a view to opinion, wishing not to seem but be unjust
Gathers in the fruit cultivated deep in his heart [362B]
From the place where wise counsels breed.
In the first place, he rules in his city as one who seems to be just; next, he takes a wife from wherever he wants, and gives a daughter to whomever he wants; he contracts to go in partnership with whomever he wishes; and besides benefiting from all these things, he gains by not being squeamish about doing injustice. So when he goes into competition both in private and in public, he overcomes his enemies and comes out with more, and since he has more he is rich and [362C] does good to his friends and damages his enemies. And to the gods he makes sacrifices in an adequate way and dedicates offerings in a magnificent way, and does much better service to the gods, and to the human beings it pleases him to, than the just person does, so that in all likelihood it’s more suitable for him, rather than the just person, to be dearer to the gods.
“In that way, Socrates, they claim that, on the part of both gods and human beings, a better life is provided for the unjust person than for the just.”
[362D] When Glaucon had said these things, I had something in mind to say in response to them, but his brother Adeimantus said “You surely don’t imagine at all, Socrates, that what has to do with the argument has been sufficiently stated?”
“But why?” I said.
“The very thing that most needed to be stated was not mentioned,” he said.
“Well,” I said, “the saying goes ‘a brother should be beside a man,’ and so you too, if this one here is leaving anything out, should come to his defense. And yet, even the things said by him are sufficient to pin me to the mat and make me [362E] powerless to give any aid to justice.”
And he said “You don’t mean that at all, so just listen to these things too. Because it’s necessary for us also to go through the arguments opposite to the ones he stated, that praise justice and condemn injustice, in order for the thing that Glaucon seems to me to want to say to be clearer.
“Certainly fathers tell their sons that one ought to be just, [363A] as all those who are in charge of anyone do, and exhort them, not by praising it, justice, but the good opinions that result from it, in order that ruling offices and marriages and all the things Glaucon went through just now should come as a result of that opinion to someone who seems to be just, things that belong to the just person as a result of his being well thought of.
“And these people go farther with the things they say come from opinions, for by throwing in the favorable opinions from the gods they have a bounty of good things to tell of for those who are pious, which they, like the noble Hesiod and Homer, claim [363B] the gods give them. The one says that for the just the gods make
Oak trees bear acorns aloft and honeybees in their midst,
And fleecy sheep go heavy laden with wool,12
and many other good things annexed to these. And the other says just about the same thing too, how
For some blameless, god-fearing king, who [363C]
Upholds righteousness, the black earth bears
Wheat and barley and trees laden with fruit, and
Sheep bear young without fail, and the sea yields fish.
“And Musaeus and his son give the just more childish goods than these, for in their verse they bring them to Hades’ realm and recline them on couches, crowned with wreaths, [363D] and set up a drinking party for the pious, and make them go through all time from then on drunk, considering the most beautiful reward for virtue to be perpetual drunkenness. And others stretch out the wages paid by the gods still more distantly than these, since they claim children’s children and a race are left down the generations by one who’s pious and faithful to his oaths.
“So with these things and others of the sort they extol justice, but those who are impious and unjust, on the other hand, they bury in some sort of muck in Hades, or force them to carry water in a strainer, and while they’re still [363E] living they bring them bad reputations. The same punishments Glaucon went through for just people reputed to be unjust, they say are the punishments for unjust people, and they have no others.
“So this is their praise and blame for each sort. And on top of these things, Socrates, consider next another form of speaking about justice and injustice used both ordinarily and by [364A] poets. From one mouth they all sing the hymn that moderation and justice are beautiful but hard and burdensome while intemperance and injustice are sweet and easy to fall into one’s grasp, and ugly only by opinion and law. They say that for the most part unjust actions are more profitable than just ones, and they’re willing readily in public as well as private to congratulate dishonest people who are rich, or have other sorts of power, on their happiness, and to give them honor, but [364B] to slight and disregard those who might be in any way weak or poor, while granting that they’re better people than the others.
“But of all these things they say, the ones that are most to be wondered at are said about the gods and virtue, that after all, the gods also allot misfortunes and a bad life to many good people, and an opposite destiny to people of the opposite sort. Beggars and fortune-tellers who go to the doors of the rich persuade them that they have a power from the gods at their disposal, made available through sacrifices and incantations, and if there has been any injustice [364C] on his part or that of his ancestors, it can be atoned for with pleasures and feasts, or if he desires to ruin some enemy with little cost, a just person the same as an unjust one, he can do him damage by means of certain supplications and binding spells with which they, as they claim, persuade the gods to do their service.
“And as witnesses to all these things they say about vice, those who attribute an effortlessness to it bring forward poets to say how
Vices in droves are chosen lightly. [364D]
Smooth is the road and it dwells very near.
But the gods have put sweat in the way of virtue,13
and a long, rough, steep road. And those who say the gods are swayed by human beings call Homer as a witness, because he too said
Even the gods themselves are moved by prayer,
And with sacrifices and gentle vows [364E]
Humans turn them from wrath by libations and burnt offerings
As they pray, when anyone transgresses and sins.
And they produce a racket of noise out of the books of Musaeus and Orpheus, descendants, they claim, of the Moon and the Muses, by whose prescriptions they keep busy with sacrifices, persuading not only private persons but even cities that, for those still living, there is absolution and purification from injustices by means of sacrifices [365A] and festive pleasures, and there are even rites for those who die, which they call mysteries, that absolve us from the evils hereafter, while terrible ones await those who’ve made no sacrifices.
“Socrates, my friend,” he said, “when all these things of such a kind and in such quantity are said about virtue and vice, the sort of esteem in which human beings and gods hold them, what do we imagine it does to the souls of young people who hear them, all those with good natures and equal to the task, as if they were floating above all the things that are said in order to gather from them what sort of person [365B] to be and how to make one’s way through life so that one might go through it the best possible way? From what seems likely, that person would speak to himself as Pindar wrote, ‘Is it by justice or by crooked tricks that I make the wall rise higher’ so as to fortify myself to live my life? For the things that are said claim there’s no benefit for me to be just if I don’t also seem to be, but obvious burdens and penalties, while they describe a divine-sounding life for an unjust person provided with a reputation for justice. [365C] So, since, as those who’re wise show me, ‘the seeming overpowers even the truth’ and is what governs happiness, one should turn completely to that. It’s necessary for me to draw a two-dimensional illusion of virtue in a circle around myself as a front and a show, but drag along behind it the cunning and many-sided fox of the most wise Archilochus.14
“‘But,’ someone says, ‘it’s not easy always to go undetected in being evil.’ Well, we’ll tell him that no other great thing falls into one’s lap either, but [365D] still, if we’re going to be happy, this is the direction we’ve got to go, where the tracks of the argument take us. To go undetected, we’ll band together in conspiracies and secret brotherhoods, and there are teachers of persuasion who impart, for money, skill at speaking to assemblies and law courts, by means of which we’ll use persuasion about some things, but we’ll use force about others, so as to get more than our share of things without paying the penalty.
“‘But no power can escape the notice of the gods, or use force on them.’ So, if there are no gods, or nothing among human things is of concern to them, why should we even be concerned about escaping their notice? And if there are gods and [365E] they are concerned, we certainly don’t know about them and haven’t heard anything about them from anyplace other than the laws and the poets who gave their genealogies, and these are the very ones who say they’re the sort to be swayed when persuasion is applied through ‘sacrifices and gentle vows’ and dedicated offerings; one has to believe them either on both counts or neither. So if they’re to be believed, one should do injustice [366A] and offer sacrifices out of the things unjustly acquired. Because by being just, we’ll only be unpunished by the gods, and we’ll be rejecting the gains from injustice, but by being unjust, we’ll have the gains, and by praying when we transgress and sin, we’ll get off unpunished by persuading them.
“‘But we’ll pay the penalty in Hades for the things we did unjustly here, either ourselves or our children’s children.’ ‘But friend,’ the one who’s doing the calculation will say, ‘the mystery rites too have great power, as well as the gods who give absolution from sin, [366B] as the greatest cities tell us, and so do the children of the gods who’ve become poets and prophets, who give us the revelation that this is how these things are.’
“By what argument, then, could we still choose justice in preference to the greatest injustice? If we get hold of the latter with a deceitful outward show, we’ll achieve our purpose with both gods and humans while we’re living and when we’re dead, according to the word declared by most people and also by the top people. Out of all that’s said, [366C] Socrates, what contrivance could there be for anyone to be willing to respect justice, anyone who has any power of soul, body, money, or family, and not instead laugh when he hears it praised? So surely, if anyone can demonstrate that what we’ve said is false, and has discerned adequately that justice is best, he no doubt has great sympathy for those who are unjust and isn’t angry at them, since he knows that unless someone scorns doing injustice out of a god given nature, or refrains from it because he’s gained knowledge, [366D] no one else is willingly just, but from lack of courage or from old age or some other weakness someone condemns injustice because he’s powerless to do it. It’s clear this is so, since the first person of that sort who comes into any power is the first to do injustice, to the extent he’s able.
“And there is nothing else responsible for all these things than that very thing that set in motion all this argument directed at you by this fellow and me, Socrates, and moved us to say ‘You strange man, of all of you who [366E] claim to be admirers of justice, starting from the heroes at the beginning whose sayings are left to us, down to people nowadays, no one has ever yet condemned injustice or praised justice other than for reputations and honors and presents that come from them. But each one of them itself, with its own power when it’s present in the soul of the person who has it, and unnoticed by gods or humans, no one has ever yet, in poetry or in ordinary speech, gone over thoroughly in an adequate discussion how the one is the greatest of all the evils a soul has [367A] within itself, and justice is the greatest good. Because if it had been explained that way from the beginning by all of you, and you had persuaded us from our youth, we wouldn’t be guarding one another against doing injustice, but instead each of us ourselves would be his own best guardian, fearing that by doing injustice he’d be sharing living quarters with the greatest evil.’
“These are the things, Socrates, and perhaps even still more things than these, that Thrasymachus and no doubt some other person might say about justice and injustice, twisting the power of the two around [367B] in a vulgar way as it seems to me. But I, since I have no need to hide anything from you, am straining myself to state it to the utmost of my power, longing to hear the opposite from you. So don’t just show us by your argument that justice is more powerful than injustice, but what each of them itself, by itself, does to the person who has it so that the one is bad and the other good. And take away the reputations, as Glaucon urged, because if you don’t take the true ones away from each of them and attach the false ones, we’ll say you’re not praising justice but its [367C] seeming, and not condemning injustice but its seeming, and that you’re exhorting us to be unjust without being detected, and agreeing with Thrasymachus that what’s just is someone else’s good, what’s advantageous to the stronger, while what’s unjust is advantageous and profitable to oneself, but disadvantageous to the weaker.
“So since you agreed that justice is one of the greatest goods, which are worth possessing both for the sake of the things that come from them and, much more, themselves for themselves, like seeing, hearing, thinking, being healthy, and all the other good things that are true-born [367D] from their own nature and not from opinion, praise justice for this very thing, what it itself by itself does to help the one who has it and injustice does to harm him. But leave wages and reputations for others to praise, since I could stand for others to praise justice and condemn injustice in that way, singing their praises and delivering their abuse about them for reputations and wages, but not from you, unless you were to insist on it, because you’ve gone through all your life examining [367E] nothing other than this. So don’t just show us by your argument that justice is more powerful than injustice, but also what each of them itself, by itself, does to the person who has it, whether or not he goes unnoticed by gods and humans, so that the one is good and the other bad.”
And as I listened, though I had always admired the nature of Glaucon and Adeimantus, I was completely delighted then [368A] and said, “The way Glaucon’s lover saluted you, children of that man, 15 wasn’t bad, when you had won a good reputation at the battle at Megara, and he made the beginning of his poem call you
Children of Ariston, godlike progeny of an illustrious man.
To me, dear friends, that seems to be well put, since you’ve experienced something godlike if you haven’t been persuaded that injustice is better than justice, though you have the power to speak that way on behalf of it. And you seem to me truly not [368B] persuaded, but I gather this from other indications of your disposition, since from your arguments I’d distrust you. But to the degree that I trust you more, I’m that much more stumped as to how I can be of use, and I have no way to help out, since I seem to myself to be powerless. A sign of this for me is that I imagined what I said to Thrasymachus demonstrated that justice is better than injustice, but you didn’t let my argument stand. But neither is there any way for me not to help out, since I’m afraid [368C] that it would be irreverent to be standing by while justice is being defamed and not help out as long as I’m still breathing and have the power to utter a sound. So what has the most force is for me to come to its defense in whatever way is in my power.”
Then Glaucon and the others begged me in every way to help out and not give up the argument, but to track down what each of them is and what the truth is about the sort of benefit that goes with the two of them. So I said exactly what seemed to me the case: “The inquiry we’re setting ourselves to is no inconsiderable thing, but for someone sharp-sighted, as it appears to me. [368D] So since we aren’t clever,” I said, “the sort of inquiry for us to make about it seems to me exactly like this: if someone had ordered people who were not very sharp-sighted to read small print from a distance, and then it occurred to someone that maybe the same letters are also somewhere else, both bigger and on something bigger, it would plainly be a godsend, I assume, to read those first and examine the smaller ones by that means, if they were exactly the same.”
“Certainly,” Adeimantus said, “but Socrates, [368E] what have you spotted in the inquiry about justice that’s of that sort?”
“I’ll tell you,” I said. “There’s justice, we claim, of one man, and there’s presumably also justice of a whole city?”
“Certainly,” he said.
“Isn’t a city a bigger thing than one man?”
“It’s bigger,” he said.
“Then maybe more justice would be present in the bigger thing, and it would be [369A] easier to understand it clearly. So if you people want to, we’ll inquire first what sort of thing it is in cities, and then we’ll examine it by that means also in each one of the people, examining the likeness of the bigger in the look of the smaller.”
“You seem to me to be saying something beautiful,” he said.
“Then if we were to look at a city as it comes into being in speech,” I said, “would we see the justice and injustice that belong to it coming into being as well?”
“Probably so,” he said.
[369B] “And then, once it has come into being, is there a hope of seeing what we’re looking for more readily?”
“Very much so.”
“Does it seem good, then, that we should try to accomplish this? Because I imagine it’s not a small task, so you people consider it.”
“It’s been considered,” Adeimantus said. “Don’t do anything else.”
“Okay,” I said. “A city, as I imagine, comes into being because it happens that each of us is not self-sufficient, but needs many things. Or do you imagine a city is founded from any other origin?”
“None at all,” he said.
[369C] “So then when one person associates with another for one use, and with another for another use, since they need many things, and many people assemble in one dwelling place as partners and helpers, to this community we give the name city, don’t we?”
“Certainly.”
“And they share things one with another, if they give or take shares of anything, because each supposes it to be better for himself?”
“Certainly.”
“Come then,” I said, “and let’s make a city from the beginning in our speech. And it seems like what will make it will be our need.”
“What else could it be?”
[369D] “But surely the first and greatest of needs is the provision of food for the sake of being and living.”
“Absolutely.”
“And second is the need for a dwelling place, and third for clothes and such things.”
“That’s so.”
“Well then,” I said, “how big a city will be sufficient to provide this much? Is it anything else than one person as a farmer, another a housebuilder, and some other a weaver? Or shall we add to it a leatherworker or someone who attends to something else for the body?”
“Certainly.”
“And the city that’s most necessary anyway would consist of four or five [369E] men.”
“So it appears.”
“And then what? Should each one of these put in his own work for them all in common, with the farmer, say, who is one, providing food for four and spending four times the time and effort in the provision of food for the others too to share, or paying no attention to that, make a fourth part of this food for himself [370A] alone in a fourth part of the time and devote one of the other three to providing for a house, another to a cloak, and the other to shoes, and not have the trouble of sharing things with others but do himself, by himself, the things that are for himself?”
And Adeimantus said, “Probably, Socrates, the first way would be easier than that one.”
“And by Zeus, there’s nothing strange about that,” I said. “For I’m thinking too myself, [370B] now that you mention it, that in the first place, each of us doesn’t grow up to be entirely like each, but differing in nature, with a different person in practice growing toward a different sort of work. Or doesn’t it seem that way to you?”
“It does to me.”
“Then what? Would someone do a more beautiful job who, being one, worked at many arts, or when one person works at one art?”
“When one person works at one art,” he said.
“And I assume this too is clear, that if anyone lets the critical moment in any work go by, it’s ruined.”
“That’s clear.”
“Because I don’t imagine the thing that’s being done is willing to wait for the leisure of [370C] the person who’s doing it, but it’s necessary for the one doing it to keep on the track of the thing he’s doing, not when the turn comes for a sideline.”
“That’s necessary.”
“So as a result of these things, everything comes about in more quantity, as more beautiful, and with more ease when one person does one thing in accord with his nature and at the right moment, being free from responsibility for everything else.”
“Absolutely so.”
“So there’s need for more than four citizens, Adeimantus, for the provisions we were talking about, since the farmer himself, as seems likely, won’t make his own plow, if it’s going to be beautifully made, [370D] or his pickax, or any of the other tools for farming. And neither will the housebuilder, and there’s need of many things for that, and likewise with the weaver and the leatherworker.”
“That’s true.”
“So with carpenters and metalworkers and many such particular kinds of craftsmen coming in as partners in our little city, they’ll make it a big one.”
“Very much so.”
“But it still wouldn’t be a very big one if we add cattlemen and shepherds to them, and other herdsmen, so that the [370E] farmers would have oxen for plowing, and the housebuilders along with the farmers could use teams of animals for hauling, and the weavers and leatherworkers could use hides and wool.”
“It wouldn’t be a small city either,” he said, “when it had all these.”
“But still,” I said, “even to situate the city itself in the sort of place in which it won’t need imported goods is just about impossible.”
“It’s impossible.”
“Therefore there’s still a further need for other people too who’ll bring it what it needs from another city.”
“There’ll be a need.”
“And if the courier goes empty-handed, carrying nothing those people [371A] need from whom ours will get the things for their own use, he’ll leave empty-handed, won’t he?”
“It seems that way to me.”
“Then they’ll need to make not only enough things to be suitable for themselves, but also the kinds and quantity of things suitable for those people they need things from.”
“They’ll need to.”
“So our city will need more of the farmers and other craftsmen.”
“More indeed.”
“And in particular other couriers no doubt, who’ll bring in and carry away each kind of thing, and these are commercial traders aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“So we’ll also need commercial traders.”
“Certainly.”
[371B] “And if the commerce is carried on by sea, there’ll be an additional need for many other people gathered together who know the work connected with the sea.”
“Very many.”
“And how about in the city itself? How are they going to share out with each other the things each sort makes by their work? It was for the sake of this that we even went into partnership and founded the city.”
“It’s obvious,” he said: “by selling and buying.”
“So a marketplace will arise out of this for us, and a currency as a conventional medium of exchange?”
“Certainly.”
[371C] “But if, when the farmer or any other workman has brought any of the things he produces into the marketplace, he doesn’t arrive at the same time as those who need to exchange things with him, is he going to stay unemployed at his craft sitting in the marketplace?”
“Not at all,” he said, “but there are people who, seeing this, take this duty on themselves; in rightly managed cities it’s pretty much for the people who are weakest in body and useless for any other work to do. Because there’s a need for it, so they stay around [371D] the marketplace to give money in exchange to those who need to sell something and to exchange in turn for money with all those who need to buy something.”
“Therefore,” I said, “this useful service makes for the origin of retail tradesmen in the city. Don’t we call people retail tradesmen who are set up in the marketplace providing the service of buying and selling, but call those who travel around to cities commercial traders?”
“Certainly.”
“And as I imagine, there are still certain other serviceable people, who [371E] don’t entirely merit sharing in the partnership for things that involve thinking but have sufficient strength of body for labors, so since they sell the use of their strength and call this payment wages, they are called, as I imagine, wage laborers, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“And the wage laborers, as seems likely, are the component that fills up the city?”
“It seems that way to me.”
“Well then Adeimantus, has our city already grown to be complete?”
“Maybe.”
“Then where in it would the justice and the injustice be? And together with which of the things we examined did they come to be present?”
[372A] “I have no idea, Socrates,” he said, “unless it’s somewhere in some usefulness of these people themselves to each other.”
“And maybe you’re putting it beautifully,” I said. “We need to examine it though and not be shy about it. So first, let’s consider what style of life people will lead who’ve been provided for in this way. Will they do otherwise than produce grain and wine and cloaks and shoes? And when they’ve built houses, by summer they’ll work at most things lightly clad and barefoot, but in winter adequately clothed [372B] and in shoes. And they’ll nourish themselves by preparing cereal from barley and flour from wheat, baking the latter and shaping the former by hand, and when they’ve set out fine cakes of barley meal and loaves of wheat bread on some sort of straw or clean leaves, reclining on leafy beds spread smooth with yew and myrtle, they and their children will feast themselves, drinking wine to top it off, while crowned with wreaths and singing hymns to the gods, joining with each other [372C] pleasurably, and not producing children beyond their means, being cautious about poverty or war.”
And Glaucon broke in, saying “It looks like you’re making your men have a feast without any delicacies.” 16
“That’s true,” I said. “As you say, I forgot that they’ll have delicacies too, salt obviously, as well as olives and cheese, and they’ll boil up the sorts of roots and greens that are cooked in country places. And as sweets we’ll doubtless set out for them some figs and [372D] chickpeas and beans, and at the fire they’ll roast myrtle berries and acorns, while sipping wine in moderation. And in this way it’s likely that, going through life in peace combined with health and dying in old age, they’ll pass on another life of this sort to their offspring.”
And he said, “And if you were making provisions for a city of pigs, Socrates, what would you fatten them on besides this?”
“But how should they be provided for, Glaucon?” I said.
“With the very things that are customary,” he said. “I assume they’ll lie back on couches so they won’t get uncomfortable, and take their meals [372E] from tables, and have exactly those delicacies and sweets that people do now.”
“Okay, I understand,” I said. “We’re examining, it seems, not just how a city comes into being, but a city that lives in luxury. And maybe that’s not a bad way to do it, since by examining that kind of city we might quickly spot the way that justice and injustice take root in cities. Now it seems to me though that the true city is the one we’ve gone over, just as it’s a healthy one. But if you want us also to look in turn at an infected city, nothing prevents it. For [373A] these things, it seems, aren’t sufficient for some people, and neither is this way of life, but couches and tables and the other furnishings will be added, and especially delicacies as well as perfumed ointments and incense and harem girls and pastries, and each of these in every variety. And so it’s no longer the necessities we were speaking of at first—houses, cloaks, and shoes—that have to be put in place, but painting and multicolored embroidery have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all that sort of thing have to be acquired, don’t they?”
“Yes,” he said.
[373B] “Isn’t there a need then to make the city bigger again? Because that healthy one isn’t sufficient any longer, but is already filled with a mass of things and a throng of people, things that are no longer in the cities for the sake of necessity, such as all the hunters as well as the imitators, many of whom are concerned with shapes and colors, many others with music, and also the poets and their assistants, the reciters, actors, dancers, theatrical producers, and craftsmen for all sorts of gear, [373C] including makeup for women and everything else. And we’ll especially need more providers of services, or doesn’t it seem there’ll be a need for tutors, wet nurses, nannies, beauticians, barbers, and also delicacy-makers and chefs? Furthermore, there’ll be an extra need for pig farmers; this job wasn’t present in our earlier city because there was no need for it, but in this one there’s the extra need for this too. And there’ll be a need for a great multitude of other fattened livestock too, if one is going to eat them. Isn’t that so?”
“How could it be otherwise?”
[373D] “Then won’t we be much more in need of doctors when people live this way instead of the earlier way?”
“Very much so.”
“And doubtless the land that was sufficient then to feed the people then will now have gone from sufficient to small. Or how do we put it?”
“That way,” he said.
“Then does something have to be cut off by us from our neighbors’ land if we’re going to have enough to graze on and plow, and by them in turn from ours if they too give themselves over to the unlimited [E] acquisition of money, exceeding the limit of necessities?”
“That’s a great necessity, Socrates,” he said.
“So what comes after this, Glaucon, is that we go to war? Or how will it be?”
“That way,” he said.
“And let’s say nothing yet, at any rate,” I said, “about whether war accomplishes anything bad or good, but only this much, that we have discovered in its turn the origin of war, in those things out of which most of all cities incur evils both in private and in public, when they do incur them.
“Very much so.”
“So, my friend, there’s a need for the city to be still bigger, not by a small amount [374A] but by a whole army, which will go out in defense of all their wealth and in defense of the things we were just now talking about, and do battle with those who come against them.”
“Why’s that?” he said. “Aren’t they themselves sufficient?”
“Not if it was beautifully done,” I said, “for you and all of us to be in agreement when we were shaping the city; surely we agreed, if you recall, that one person has no power to do a beautiful job at many arts.”
“What you say is true,” he said.
[374B] “Then what?” I said. “Does the contest involved in war not seem to you to require art?”
“Much of it,” he said.
“So is there any need to go to more trouble over leatherworking than over warfare?”
“By no means.”
“But that’s the very reason we prevented the leatherworker from attempting at the same time to be a farmer or a weaver or a housebuilder, but just be a leatherworker, so that the work of leathercraft would be done beautifully for us, and in the same way we gave out one job to one person for each of the others, [374C] the job into which each had grown naturally and for which he was going to stay at leisure from the other jobs, working at it throughout life and not letting the critical moments slip by to accomplish it beautifully. But isn’t it of the greatest consequence that the things involved in war be accomplished well? Or are they so easy that even some farmer is going to be skilled at warfare at the same time, or a leatherworker or anyone working at any other art whatever, while no one could become sufficiently skillful at playing checkers or dice who didn’t practice that very thing from his youth but treated it as a sideline? And someone who picks up a shield [374D] or any other weapon or implement of war, on that very day is going to be an adequate combatant in heavy-armor fighting or any other sort of battle that’s needed in war, when no other implement that’s picked up is going to make anyone a craftsman or fighter or even be usable to someone who hasn’t gotten any knowledge about it or been supplied with adequate training?”
“Those implements would be worth a lot,” he said.
[374E] “So then,” I said, “to the extent that the work of the guardians is the most important, would it also be in need of the most leisure compared to other pursuits, as well as of the greatest art and care?”
“I certainly imagine so,” he said.
“So wouldn’t it also need a nature adapted to that very pursuit?”
“How could it not?”
“So it would be our task, likely, if we’re going to be capable of it, to pick out which and which sort of natures are adapted to the guarding of the city.”
“Ours indeed.”
“By Zeus,” I said, “it’s no light matter we’ve called down as a curse on ourselves. Still, it’s not something to run away from in fear, at least to the extent our power permits.”
[375A] “Certainly not,” he said.
“So do you imagine that for guarding” I said, “there’s any difference in nature between a pure bred puppy and a well bred young man?”
“What sort of nature are you talking about?”
“For instance, each of the pair, I suppose, needs to be sharp at perceiving things, nimble at pursuing what it perceives, and also strong, if it needs to fight when it catches something.”
“There is certainly a need for all these things,” he said.
“And to be courageous too, if it’s going to fight well.”
“How could it be otherwise?”
“But will a horse or a dog or any other animal whatever that’s not spirited [375B] be likely to be courageous? Or haven’t you noticed how indomitable and invincible spiritedness is, and how, when it’s present, every soul is both fearless and unyielding against everything?”17
“I’ve noticed.”
“And surely it’s obvious what the guardian needs to be like in the things that belong to his body.”
“Yes.”
“And particularly in what belongs to the soul, that he has to be spirited.”
“That too.”
“Then how, Glaucon,” I said, “when they’re that way in their natures, will they not be fierce toward each other and toward the other citizens?”
“By Zeus,” he said, “not easily.”
[375C] “But surely they need to be gentle toward their own people but rough on their enemies, and if they aren’t, they won’t wait for others to destroy them but do it first themselves.”
“True,” he said.
“So what will we do?” I said. “Where are we going to find a character18 that’s gentle and high-spirited at the same time? For presumably a gentle nature is opposite to a spirited one.”
“So it appears.”
“But surely if someone lacks either one of these things, he won’t become a good guardian. But these things seem like impossibilities, and so [375D] it follows that a good guardian becomes an impossibility.”
“It’s liable to be that way,” he said.
I too was stumped and was thinking over what had been said before, and I said, “Justly are we stumped, my friend, because we’ve gotten away from the image we were setting up.”
“How do you mean that?”
“We didn’t notice that there are natures, after all, of the sort we were imagining there aren’t, that have these opposites in them.”
“But where?”
“One might see it in other animals too, though not least in the one we set beside the guardian for comparison. Because you know, no doubt, about pure bred [375E] dogs, that this is their character by nature, to be as gentle as possible with those they’re accustomed to and know, but the opposite with those they don’t know.”
“Certainly I know it.”
“Therefore,” I said, “this is possible, and it’s not against nature for the guardian to be of the sort we’re looking for.”
“It doesn’t seem like it.”
“Well then, does it seem to you that there’s still a further need for this in the one who’ll be fit for guarding, that in addition to being spirited he also needs to be a philosopher by nature?”
[376A] “How’s that?” he said. “I don’t get it.”
“You’ll notice this too in dogs,” I said, “which is also worth wondering at in the beast.”
“What sort of thing?”
“That when it sees someone it doesn’t know, it gets angry, even when it hasn’t been treated badly by that person before, while anyone familiar it welcomes eagerly, even when nothing good has ever been done to it by that one. Or haven’t you ever wondered at this?”
“Till this moment,” he said, “I haven’t paid it any mind at all. That they do this, though, is certainly obvious.”
[376B] “But surely it shows an appealing attribute of its nature and one that’s philosophic in a true sense.”
“In what way?”
“In that it distinguishes a face as friend or enemy,” I said, “by nothing other than the fact that it has learned the one and is ignorant of the other. And indeed, how could it not be a lover of learning when it determines what’s its own and what’s alien to it by means of understanding and ignorance?”
“There’s no way it couldn’t,” he said.
“But surely,” I said, “the love of learning and the love of wisdom are the same thing?”
“They’re the same,” he said.
“Then shall we have the confidence to posit for a human being too,19 that if he’s going [376C] to be at all gentle to his own people and those known to him, he needs to be by nature a lover of wisdom and of learning?”
“Let’s posit it.”
“So someone who’s going to be a beautiful and good guardian of our city will be philosophic, spirited, quick, and strong by nature.”
“Absolutely so,” he said.
“So he’d start out that way. But now in what manner will they be brought up and educated by us? And if we examine it, is there anything that gets us forward toward catching sight of the thing for the sake of which [376D] we’re examining all this, the manner in which justice and injustice come into being in a city? The point is that we might not allow enough discussion, or we might go through a long one.”
And Glaucon’s brother said, “For my part, I expect this examination to be one that gets us very far along into that.”
“By Zeus, Adeimantus my friend,” I said, “it’s not to be given up then, even if it happens to be overlong.”
“Not at all.”
“Come then, and just as if they were in a story and we were telling the story and remaining at leisure, let’s educate the men in our speech.”
“We should do just that.”
[376E] “So what is the education? Isn’t it hard to find a better one than what has been discovered by the passage of much time? And that, presumably, is gymnastic exercise for bodies and music20 for a soul.”
“That’s it.”
“Won’t we start educating them with music before gymnastic exercise?”
“How could we not?”
“And in music,” I said, “do you put speeches, or not?”
“I do.”
“And of speeches, is there a double form, one true, the other false?”
“Yes.”
[377A] “Are they to be educated in both, but first in the false?”
“I don’t understand how you mean that,” he said.
“Don’t you understand,” I said, “that at first we tell children stories? And this is doubtless, to speak of the whole, something false, but in it there’s also something true. But we use stories for children before gymnastic exercises.”
“These things are so.”
“And that’s what I meant, that music is to be taken up before gymnastic exercise.”
“That’s correct,” he said.
“You know, don’t you, that the beginning is the most important thing in every work, in other cases too, but especially [377B] with anything young and tender? For then most of all each one is molded, and pressed into the shape anyone wants to stamp onto it.”
“That’s exactly so.”
“Then shall we so easily permit the children to listen to haphazard stories made up by haphazard people and take into their souls opinions that are on the whole opposite to those we’ll imagine they ought to have when they’re full grown?”
“Under no circumstances will we permit it.”
[377C] “So the first thing for us to do, as it seems, is to take charge of those who make up the stories, and what they compose that’s beautiful is to be accepted, but what isn’t is to be rejected. And those that are accepted, we’ll persuade the nurses and mothers to tell their children, and mold their souls with stories much more than they massage their bodies with their hands. But most of those they tell now are to be eliminated.”
“What sort exactly?” he said.
“In the greater stories,” I said, “we’ll see the lesser ones, since the greater and the lesser ones need to be of the same stamp and have the same power. Don’t you think so?”
[377D] “I do,” he said, “but I have no idea what you mean by the greater ones.”
“The ones the pair21 Hesiod and Homer told us,” I said, “and other poets too. They certainly used to tell people false stories they had contrived, and they go on telling them.”
“But what sort of stories,” he said, “and what in them do you mean to blame?”
“The very thing that one ought to blame first and most of all,” I said, “both for other reasons and especially if someone tells a lie in an unbeautiful way.”
“What’s that?”
[377E] “When someone in his speech makes a bad likeness of the sorts of beings gods and heroes are, as if a painter painted things not at all resembling the ones he wanted to depict a likeness of.”
“It is in fact right to blame things of that sort,” he said. “But how do you mean it exactly and what sort of things are you talking about?”
“First of all,” I said, “the one who told the greatest lie, and about the greatest beings, didn’t tell his lie beautifully,22 how Uranus carried on the way Hesiod said he did, and how Cronos in turn [378A] got revenge on him. And as for the deeds of Cronos in particular, and the things done to him by his son, even if they were true I wouldn’t imagine one should tell them so readily to those who are without judgment and young, but best of all should leave them in silence, or if there were any necessity to speak of them, as few people as possible should hear them as secrets not to be repeated, after sacrificing not a suckling pig but some great and scarce offering, in order that they end up with the least people hearing them.”
“Indeed,” he said, “these passages are hard to take.”
[378B] “And not to be spoken, Adeimantus,” I said, “in our city. Nor should it be said in the hearing of a young person that in doing the extremes of injustice, or in punishing an unjust father by every means, he would be doing nothing to be wondered at, but would do the very same things the first and greatest gods did.”
“By Zeus, no,” he said, “it doesn’t seem to me fit to speak of it either.”
“And,” I said, “it’s absolutely not fit to say that gods make war on gods [378C] and plot against them and fight them, since it’s not even true, but in any case if there’s a need for those who’ll guard our city to regard it as most shameful to be at odds with each other easily, far from needing to have stories told and embroidered about battles of gods and giants and many other hostilities of all sorts of gods and heroes toward their families and their own people. But if we’re going to persuade them somehow that one citizen would never be at odds with another, and that this is impious, things like that should be said to the children instead right from the start [378D] by the old men and old women, and as the children grow older, the poets too need to be required to compose stories in these areas. But the chains put on Hera by her son, and the hurling down of Hephaestus by his father when he was about to defend his mother who was being beaten, and all the battles of gods Homer has made up are not to be allowed into the city, whether they’ve been made with or without deeper meanings. A young person isn’t able to discern what’s a deeper meaning and what’s not, but what he takes in [378E] among his opinions when he’s that age tends to become hard to rub off and impossible to change. So on account of this, one probably ought above all to make what they hear first the most beautiful storytelling about virtue that it’s possible to hear.”
“That does make sense,” he said. “But if someone were to ask us next what particular things these are and what stories tell them, what would we say?”
And I said, “Adeimantus, you and I aren’t poets [379A] at present but founders of a city. And it’s appropriate for founders to know the general outlines along which the poets need to tell stories; if they compose things outside these, they’re not to be accepted, but it doesn’t belong to the founders themselves to make up stories.”
“That’s correct,” he said. “But that’s the very point: what would be the general outlines for talk about the gods?”
“No doubt some such ones as these,” I said; “the god, presumably, always needs to be represented as exactly the sort of being he is, whether anyone depicts him in epics, in lyric poetry, or in tragedies.”
“He needs to be.”
[379B] “Then certainly the god is good in his very being and needs to be spoken of as such?”
“What else could he be?”
“But surely none of the good things is harmful; or is it?”
“It doesn’t seem so to me.”
“So does what is not harmful do any harm?”
“Not at all.”
“And what does no harm, does it do anything bad at all?”
“Not that either.”
“And what does nothing bad, could it even be responsible for anything bad?”
“How could it be?”
“What, then? What’s good is beneficial?”
“Yes.”
“Therefore it’s responsible for things that go well?”
“Yes.”
“Therefore what’s good isn’t responsible for all things, but is responsible for things in a good condition while it’s not responsible for things in a bad condition.”
[379C] “That’s totally so,” he said.
“Nor, therefore,” I said, “could the god, since he’s good, be responsible for all things, as most people say, but responsible for a few things among human beings and not responsible for many, because there are a lot less good things among us than bad ones. So while no one else should be given the credit for the good things, some other causes need to be sought for the bad ones, but not the god.”
“You seem to me to be saying something most true,” he said.
“Then it shouldn’t be accepted,” I said, “either from Homer or from any other [379D] poet,23 if he foolishly makes this mistake about the gods, going astray in saying that two urns
rest on Zeus’s doorstep
Full of fates, one filled with good, but the other with miseries,
and for someone to whom Zeus, mixing them, doles out from both urns,
Sometimes he meets up with bad, sometimes with good,
but anyone he doesn’t mix them for, but gives the second ones pure,
Him a grinding evil misery drives across the sacred earth, [379E]
nor if he says that Zeus serves out to us
Both the good and the bad that come to pass.
And if anyone says the confounding of the oaths and truces that Pandarus violated was brought about by Athena and Zeus, we won’t [380A] approve of it, and the young are not to be allowed to hear that strife and conflict of the gods were the doing of Themis and Zeus, or in turn, as Aeschylus says, that
A god engenders the cause in mortals
When he wants to ruin a house entirely.
And if anyone composes a work about the sufferings of Niobe, like the one these verses are in, or those of the family of Pelops or the Trojans or anything else of that sort, he’s either not to be allowed to say they’re the deeds of a god, or if they are from a god, he needs to find an explanation for them pretty much like the one we’re now seeking. And [380B] he needs to say that the god brings about things that are just and good and the people are helped by being punished, but the poet is not to be allowed to say that the people who pay the penalty are in misery and the one doing that to them is a god. If he were to say, though, that they were in need of punishment because those who are bad are in misery, and by paying the penalty they are benefited by the god, that is to be allowed, but as for claiming that a god, who is good, comes to be responsible for what is bad for anyone, one needs to do battle in every way for no one to say these things in one’s own city, if [380C] it’s going to be law-abiding, and no one, either younger or older, to hear them told in stories either in meter or without meter, because if they were said they would be neither pious things to say nor things of any advantage to us nor things themselves in harmony with themselves.”
“I cast my vote with you for this law,” he said, “and it is accepted by me.”
“So this,” I said, “would be one of the laws and general outlines about gods within which those who talk about them will need to talk and those who write poems will need to write them: the god is responsible not for all things but for the good.”
“And a very satisfactory one it is,” he said.
[380D] “And what about this for the second one? Do you imagine that the god is a sorcerer and the sort of being that schemes to become visible in a different look at a different time, sometimes himself fluctuating and changing his form into many shapes, and other times tricking us and making that sort of thing seem to happen to him, or that he is unitary and least of all the sort to move out of his own look?”
“I don’t have the ability right now to say how that is,” he said.
“Then what about this? Isn’t it necessary, if anything could be displaced from its own [380E] look, for it to be changed either by itself or by something else?”
“It’s necessary.”
“But aren’t things that are in the best condition the ones that are least altered and moved by anything else? For instance a body is altered by foods and drinks and labors, and every sort of plant by the heat of the sun and by winds and such things that it undergoes, but isn’t the healthiest and strongest one [381A] altered least?”
“How could it be otherwise?”
“And isn’t it the most courageous and thoughtful soul that some external experience would disturb and alter the least?”
“Yes.”
“And surely for all artificial things too, furniture and houses and clothes, by the same argument the ones with good workmanship and in good condition are the least altered by time and other things that happen to them.”
“These things are so.”
[381B] “So everything in a beautiful condition, whether by nature or by art or by both, least admits of change by anything else.”
“It looks like that.”
“But surely the god and the things that belong to the god are best in every way.”
“How could they not be?”
“So in this respect, the god least of all would have many shapes.”
“Least indeed.”
“But would he himself change and alter himself?”
“It’s clear that he would,” he said, “if he were altered.”
“Then is the change to something better and more beautiful or to something worse and uglier than himself?”
“Necessarily to something worse,” he said, “if he is altered. For certainly we’re not [381C] going to say the god is lacking in beauty or virtue.”
“You’re speaking most correctly,” I said. “And does it seem to you that anyone whatever in this condition, whether among gods or humans, would willingly make himself worse?”
“Impossible,” he said.
“Therefore it’s impossible too,” I said, “for a god to be willing to alter himself, but it looks like, since they are the most beautiful and the best it’s possible to be, each of them simply remains always in his own shape.”
“That seems entirely necessary to me,” he said. [381D]
“Therefore, most excellent fellow,” I said, “let none of the poets tell us that
Gods looking like strangers from foreign lands,
Turning into every kind, often come into cities,24
and let none lie about Proteus and Thetis, or introduce a transformed Hera in tragedies or in any other poems as a priestess begging on behalf of
The life-bringing sons of Argos’s river Inachus,
[381E] or tell us the many other lies of that sort they tell. And let the mothers in their turn, when they’ve been persuaded by these things, not scare their children by telling stories that are bad to tell, about how certain gods prowl around at night looking like a lot of foreigners of all sorts, so that they won’t speak blasphemy against the gods and at the same time make their children more cowardly.”
“Let them not indeed,” he said.
“But then,” I said, “while the gods themselves are the sort that don’t change, do they make it seem to us that they appear in all ways by tricking and bewitching us?”
“Maybe,” he said.
[382A] “What then?” I said. “Would a god be willing to lie in word or deed by putting out a false appearance?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Don’t you know,” I said, “that all gods and humans hate the true lie, if it’s possible to speak that way?”
“How do you mean it,” he said.
“This way,” I said: “that no one willingly desires to tell a lie to what is presumably most authoritative in himself about the most authoritative things, but fears most of all things to let it get in there.”
“I still don’t understand now,” he said.
[382B] “Because you imagine I’m saying something elevated. But I mean that everyone would least of all stand for telling and having told a lie to the soul about the things that are, and to be ignorant and to have and hold the lie there, and hates it most in such a case.”
“Very much,” he said.
“But surely what I was talking about just now would most correctly be called a true lie, and this is the ignorance in the soul of someone who’s been lied to, since the lie in words is a sort of imitation of [382C] the experience in the soul, an image that comes afterward, and not a completely unmixed lie. Isn’t that so?”
“Very much so,” he said.
“So a lie in its very being is hated not only by gods but also by human beings.”
“It seems so to me,” he said.
“So what then about the lie in words? When and to whom is it something useful, so that it doesn’t deserve to be hated? Wouldn’t it be against enemies and for those calling themselves friends when, on account of insanity or some senselessness they try to do something bad? Then, for the sake of a preventive measure like a medicine [382D] it becomes useful. And in the circumstances we were just now talking about, the telling of stories, on account of not knowing where the truth is about ancient things, is it by making the lie as much as possible like the truth that we make it useful?”
“That’s very much the way it is,” he said.
“So then in which of these cases is a lie useful to the god? Would he lie by making a likeness of ancient things because of not knowing them?”
“That would surely be ridiculous,” he said.
“Therefore a god doesn’t have it in him to be a lying poet.”
“It doesn’t seem so to me.”
“But would he lie from being afraid of enemies?”
[382E] “Far from it.”
“But because of the senselessness or insanity of his own associates?”
“But no one senseless or insane is a friend of a god,” he said.
“Therefore there isn’t anything for the sake of which a god would lie.”
“There isn’t.”
“Therefore a divine messenger and a divine being are free of lies in every respect.”
“Entirely so,” he said.
“Therefore the god is something absolutely straightforward and truthful in deed and word, and doesn’t transform himself or trick others by false appearances or by words or by sending signs in either a waking vision or a dream.”
[383A] “It appears that way to me too now that you speak of it.”
“Then do you go along with it,” I said, “for this to be a second general outline within which one needs to talk about the gods and compose things about them, that they aren’t sorcerers who change themselves and they don’t mislead us by lies in word or in deed?”
“I go along with it.”
“Then while approving of many other things from Homer, we won’t approve of him for this, the sending of the dream by Zeus to Agamemnon,25 or of this from Aeschylus, when Thetis claims that Apollo, singing at her [383B] wedding, dwelt on her blessings in her children,
Who’d suffer no diseases and live long lives.
He called all my fortunes dear to the gods,
And sang a hymn of praise that heartened me,
And I had confidence in Phoebus’ divine mouth,
Filled with the art of prophecy, to be free of lies.
But he, the very one who sang, the very one there at the feast,
The very one who told these things, is the very one
Who killed my son.
[383C] Whenever anyone says such things about gods we’ll be severe and not sponsor a chorus, and not allow teachers to use them for the education of the young, if our guardians are going to be reverent toward the gods and become godlike to the greatest extent possible for a human being.”
“I go along completely with these guidelines,” he said, “and I would use them as laws.”