Book V

449A–450B The assembled listeners redirect the conversation

450B–480A Socrates and Glaucon

Note

Socrates assumes the imagined city has served its purpose, and proceeds to use its results for an orderly examination of the kinds of bad character in human beings. But there is an uprising within the community of listeners. Polemarchus is the first to state the grievance that the commune approach to the sexual life of the guardians hasn’t been talked about in any detail. The desiring part of the listeners’ souls is asking for some attention, and it wins over both of Socrates’ spirited auxiliaries, Adeimantus first and then Glaucon too. The unanimity of the community is both announced and displayed by Thrasymachus, in his first words since the first book. He has been won over, at least on this night, from competing with others for things like gold to join them in hearing talk that has roused his interest. And the desire of the group to lead that talk toward lighter topics should not mask the fact that they have already forgotten their plan for the night, to go to a party. Socrates’ pretense of dragging his feet is his characteristic irony in its briar-patch mode. He has brought a diverse group of souls into some harmony, among themselves and within themselves, and uses the occasion to challenge some of their strongest beliefs about the sexes, the family, and what constitutes fitness to rule. The last of those topics leads to an intellectually demanding examination of the possibility that there could be knowledge and not merely opinions, and Glaucon shows himself well able to make contributions to it.

---

[449A] “Well, I call that kind of city and polity, and that kind of man, good and right, and if this sort are right, the rest are bad and wrong, in the ways the cities are managed and the way the soul’s disposition is constituted in private persons, and the badness takes four forms.”

“What sorts are they?” he said.

And I was going on to describe them in order, the way it appeared to me [449B] they change out of one another in each case, but Polemarchus, who was sitting a little way from Adeimantus, reached out his hand and grabbed him from above by his cloak at the shoulder, drew him near, stretching himself forward, and was saying something while stooping toward him, of which we heard nothing but this: “Shall we let it go, then,” he said, “or what shall we do?”

“Not in the least,” said Adeimantus, now speaking loudly.

And I said, “What in particular won’t you let go?”

“You,” he said.

[449C] “Because of what in particular?” I said.

“You seem to us to be taking the lazy way out,” he said, “and to be cheating us out of a whole form that belongs to the argument, and not the least important one, to avoid going over it, and you seem to’ve imagined you’d get away with speaking of it dismissively, saying it’s obvious, about women and children, that what belongs to friends will be shared in common.”

“And wasn’t I right, Adeimantus?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “but this ‘right’ needs explanation, like the rest of it, about what the manner of the sharing would be, since there could be many. [449D] So don’t pass over which of them you’re talking about, since we’ve been waiting all this time imagining you’d make some mention somewhere about the procreation of children, how they’ll be produced and once they’re born how they’ll be raised, and of this whole sharing of women and children you’re talking about. Because we think it has a big bearing, in fact a total impact, on whether the polity comes into being in the right way or not. But now, since you’re taking on another polity before you’ve determined these things sufficiently, it seemed right to us to do what you’ve [450A] heard, to refuse to let you go until you’ve gone over all these things just like the rest.”

“Me too,” said Glaucon; “put me down as a partner in this vote.”

“Don’t worry,” said Thrasymachus, “consider these things as having seemed good to all of us, Socrates.”

“Oh what you folks have done by ambushing me,” I said. “So much discussion about the polity you’re setting in motion again, as though from the beginning,⁷¹ when I was rejoicing at having already gotten to the end of it, feeling content if anyone would leave these things alone [450B] and accept them the way they were stated then. You have no idea what a big swarm of arguments you’ve stirred up with the things you’re now demanding; since I saw that at the time I passed it by, fearing it would cause a lot of trouble.”

“What!” said Thrasymachus. “Do you imagine these people have come this far now to fritter away their time looking for gold rather than to listen to arguments?”

“All well and good,” I said, “but within measure.”

“The measure in hearing such arguments, Socrates,” said Glaucon, “for anyone who has any sense, is a whole life. So give up on that as far as we’re concerned; just see that you don’t get tired in any way of going all through [450C] the way it seems to you about the things we’re asking, what the sharing of children and women will be among our guardians, and about the rearing of those who are still young that takes place in the time between birth and education, which seems to be the most troublesome time. So try to say in what way it needs to happen.”

“It’s not easy to go through, you happy fellow,” I said, “because it has a lot of doubtful points, even more than the things we went through before. It could even be doubted that what’s spoken of is possible, and even if it came about as much as it possibly could, there will also be doubts even in that case that this would be the best thing. That’s [450D] why there was a certain reluctance to touch on these things, for fear, dear comrade, the argument would seem to be only a prayer.”

“Don’t be reluctant at all,” he said, “since your listeners won’t be unfair or disbelieving or ill-disposed.”

And I said, “Most excellent fellow, I take it you’re saying that to give me courage?”

“I am,” he said.

“Well you’re doing exactly the opposite,” I said. “If I believed I knew what I was talking about, your pep talk would have been a beautiful one; to [450E] speak when one knows the truth, among people who are intelligent and friendly, about things that are of greatest importance and dear to us, is secure and encouraging, but to make one’s arguments at the same time one is doubtful and searching, which is exactly what I’m doing, [451A] is a frightening and perilous thing. It’s not because I’m liable to be laughed at—that’s childish—but from fear that I’ll not only tumble away myself from the truth, about things one least ought to fall down on, but that I’ll also be lying in ruins with the friends I’ve dragged down with me. So instead I’ll fall on my face in obeisance to Adrasteia,⁷² Glaucon, for her favor for what I’m about to say. I hope it’s a lesser sin to become an unwilling murderer of someone than a deceiver about what’s beautiful and good and just and lawful. That’s a risk it’s better to run among enemies rather than friends, so it’s a good thing you gave me encouragement.”

[451B] And Glaucon, with a laugh, said, “Okay, Socrates, if we experience anything discordant from what you say, we’ll release you like someone purified from being a murderer and cleared as no deceiver of us. Just speak up boldly.”

“Well, certainly someone who’s released even in that situation is purified,” I said, “as the law says, so it’s likely that if it’s that way there, it is here too.”

“Speak, then,” he said, “with that assurance.”

“It’s necessary to go back again now,” I said, “and say what probably [451C] should have been said then in the proper place. And maybe this would be the right way, after the male drama has been completely finished, to finish the female drama in turn, especially since you’re calling for it this way. To my way of thinking, for human beings born and educated in the way we went over, there is no other right way for them to get and treat children and women than to hasten down that road on which we first started them. We tried, I presume, in the argument, to set the men up like guardians of a herd.”

“Yes.”

[451D] “Then let’s follow that up by giving them the sort of birth and rearing that closely resemble that, and consider whether it suits us or not.”

“How?” he said.

“This way. Do we imagine that the females among the guard dogs ought to join in guarding the things the males guard, and hunt with them and do everything else in common, or should they stay inside the house as though they were disabled by bearing and nursing the puppies, while the males do the work and have all the tending of the flock?”

“Everything in common,” he said, “except that we’d treat the females as weaker and the males as stronger.”

[451E] “Is it possible, then,” I said, “to use any animal for the same things if you don’t give it the same rearing and training?”

“It’s not possible.”

“So if you’re going to make use of women at the same tasks as men, they’ll also have to be taught the same things.”

[452A] “Yes.”

“Music and gymnastic exercise were given to the men.”

“Yes.”

“Therefore this pair of arts needs to be made available to the women too, as well as the things connected with war, and they need to be applied in the same manner.”

“It’s likely, based on what you’re saying,” he said.

“Probably,” I said, “many of the things being talked about now would look absurd if they’re done the way they’re being described, just because they’re contrary to custom.”

“Very much so indeed,” he said.

“Do you see which of them would be most absurd?” I said. “Isn’t it obvious that it would be for the women to be exercising naked in the wrestling schools alongside [452B] the men, and not just the young ones but also those who’re already on the older side, like the old men who’re still devoted to exercising in the gyms when they’re wrinkled and not a pleasant sight.”

“By Zeus,” he said, “that would look absurd, at least the way things are at present.”

“But as long as we’ve got ourselves started talking about it, we shouldn’t be afraid, should we, of all the jokes of whatever sort from witty people at the advent such a change in both gymnastic exercise and [452C] music, and not least about having war ‘tools’ and ‘mounting’ horses?”

“You’ve got that right,” he said.

“Instead, since we have started to talk about it, we need to pass right to the tough part of the law, asking these guys not to do what properly belongs to them but to be serious, and to recall that it’s not much time since it seemed to the Greeks the way it does now to many of the barbarians, that it’s shameful and absurd to look at a naked man, and when the people of Crete first introduced gymnasiums, and then the Spartans, [452D] the fashionable people of the time took the opportunity to ridicule all that. Don’t you imagine they did?”

“I do.”

“But since it appeared to those who adopted the practice, I imagine, that it was better to uncover all such things than to hide them, what had been absurd in their eyes was stripped away by what was exposed as best in their reasoning. And this reveals that one who considers anything absurd other than what’s bad is empty-headed, as is one who tries to get a laugh by looking at any other sight as laughable than one that’s senseless and bad, or who takes seriously any mark of [452E] what’s beautiful that he’s set up other than what’s good.”

“Absolutely so,” he said.

“Well then, isn’t this the first thing that needs to be agreed about these things: whether they’re possible or not? And shouldn’t a chance for disputes be given to anyone who wants to dispute it, whether it’s someone fun-loving or the serious type, as to whether [453A] female human nature is capable of sharing in all the work that belongs to the nature of the male kind, or not in any at all, or in some sorts and not others, and whether in particular this last applies to things connected with war? Wouldn’t someone be likely to get to the end of the subject most beautifully by starting off the most beautifully in this way?”

“By far,” he said.

“Then do you want us to carry on the dispute ourselves against ourselves, on behalf of the others,” I said, “so that the opposing argument won’t be under siege undefended?”

“There’s no reason not to,” he said.

[453B] “So let’s say, on their behalf, ‘Socrates and Glaucon, there’s no need for anyone else to dispute with you, because you yourselves, at the beginning of the process of settling the city that you founded, agreed that each one person had to do the one thing that properly belonged to him by nature.’”

“Suppose we did agree to that; how could we not?”

“‘Well is there any way that a woman isn’t completely different from a man in her nature?’”

“How could she not be different?”

“‘Then isn’t it also appropriate to assign each of them different work that’s in accord with their nature?’”

“Of course.”

[453C] “‘So why aren’t you mistaken now and contradicting yourselves, when you also declare that men and women ought to do the same things, despite having the most diverse natures? Will you be able to make any defense against this, you amazing fellow?”

“Not very easily, just on the spur of the moment,” he said; “but I’ll ask you, in fact I am asking you, to be the interpreter of the argument on our side too, whatever it is.”

“This is what I was afraid of a long time ago, Glaucon,” I said, “as well as many other things I foresaw, and I was reluctant [453D] to touch on the law about the way of having and bringing up women and children.”

“No, by Zeus,” he said, “it seems like it’s no easy matter to digest.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “But it’s like this: whether one falls into a little swimming tank or into the middle of the biggest sea, all the same one just swims none the less.”

“Quite so.”

“Well then, don’t we too have to swim and try to save ourselves from the argument, and just hope for some dolphin to pick us up on his back or for some other sort of rescue that’s hard to count on?”

“It looks that way,” he said.

[453E] “Come on then,” I said, “let’s find a way out somewhere if we can. Because we’re agreed that a different nature needs to follow a different pursuit, and that a woman and a man are different in nature; but we’re claiming now that these different natures need to follow the same pursuits. Are these the things we’re accused of?”

“Precisely.”

[454A] “Oh Glaucon,” I said, “what a noble power the debater’s art has.”

“Why in particular?”

“Because many people even seem to me to fall into it unwillingly,” I said, “and imagine they’re not being contentious but having a conversation, because they’re not able to examine something that’s being said by making distinctions according to forms, but pounce on the contradiction in what’s been said according to a mere word, subjecting one another to contention and not conversation.”

“That is exactly the experience of many people,” he said, “but that surely doesn’t apply to us in the present circumstance, does it?”

[454B] “It does absolutely,” I said. “At any rate, we’re running the risk of engaging in debate unintentionally.”

“How?”

“We’re pouncing, in an altogether bold and contentious manner, on ‘the nature that’s not⁷³ the same’ as a result of a word, because that’s what’s required not to have the same pursuits, but we didn’t give any consideration whatever to what form of different or same nature we were marking off, and how far it extended, at the time when we delivered up different pursuits to a different nature and the same ones to the same nature.”

“No, we didn’t consider that,” he said.

[454C] “Well, according to that, then,” I said, “it seems like we’re entitled to ask ourselves whether it’s the same nature that belongs to bald people as to longhaired ones, and not the opposite one, and whenever we agree that it’s opposite, if bald people do leatherwork, not allow longhaired people to, or if the longhaired ones do, not allow the others.”

“That would certainly be ridiculous,” he said.

“Well is it ridiculous for any other reason,” I said, “than because we weren’t reckoning on every sort of same and different nature at the time, but only watching out for that form of otherness and [454D] likeness that was relevant to the pursuits themselves? For example, with a male doctor and a female doctor, we meant that it’s the soul that has the same nature. Don’t you think so?”

“I do.”

“But with a male doctor and a male carpenter, it’s different?”

“Completely different, I presume.”

“So,” I said, “if the men’s or women’s kind is manifestly superior in relation to any art or other pursuit, won’t we claim that this needs to be given over to that one of the two? But if they apparently differ only in that the female bears the young and [454E] the male mounts the female, we’ll claim instead that it hasn’t yet been demonstrated in any way that a woman differs from a man in respect to what we’re talking about, and we’ll still believe that our guardians and the women with them ought to pursue the same activities.”

“Rightly so,” he said.

“Now after this, don’t we invite the one who says the opposite [455A] to teach us this very thing, what art or what pursuit it is, among those involved in the setup of the city, for which the nature of a woman is not the same as but different from that of a man?”

“That’s the just thing to do, anyway.”

“And perhaps someone else as well might say the very thing you were saying a little while ago, that it’s not easy to say anything adequate on the spot, but not hard if someone has been considering it.”

“He would say that.”

“Then do you want us to ask the person who contradicts this sort of thing [455B] to follow us, if we somehow show him that no pursuit related to the running of a city is uniquely for a woman?”

“Certainly.”

“‘Come on then,’ we’ll say to him, ‘answer: is this the way you meant that one person is naturally fitted for something and another isn’t, that in it the one learns something easily, the other with difficulty? And that the one, on the basis of a brief study, would be apt to discover a lot about what he’d learned, while the other, even when he’s gotten a lot of study and practice, couldn’t even hang on to what he’d learned? And for the one, the aptitudes [455C] of his body would adequately serve the purposes of his thinking, while for the other it would be the opposite? Are there any other things than these by which you marked off the one naturally suited for each thing from the one who’s not?’”

“No one’s going to claim there’re any others,” he said.

“Then do you know of anything practiced by human beings in which the man’s kind isn’t of a condition that surpasses the woman’s in all these respects? Or shall we make a long story out of it, talking about the art of weaving, and tending to things that are baked or boiled, the activities in which [455D] the female kind is held in high repute and for which it’s most absurd of all for it to be outdone?”

“You’re telling the truth,” he said, “that the one kind is dominated by the other by far in everything, as one might put it. But many women are certainly better than many men at many things, though on the whole it’s the way you say.”

“Therefore, my friend, there isn’t any pursuit of the people who run a city that belongs to a woman because she’s a woman or to a man because he’s a man, but the kinds of natures are spread around among both kinds of animal alike, and by nature a woman takes part in all pursuits and [455E] a man in them all, but in all of them a woman is weaker than a man.”

“Quite so.”

“So are we going to assign all of them to men and none to women?”

“Really, how could we?”

“But we’ll claim, I imagine, that there’s a woman with an aptitude for the medical art and another without it, and a woman with an aptitude for music and another who’s unmusical by nature.”

“Of course.”

[456A] “Then isn’t there a woman with an aptitude for gymnastic training and warfare, and one who’s unwarlike and not fond of gymnastic exercise?”

“I imagine so.”

“What else? Is one woman philosophic and another antiphilosophic? Is one spirited and another lacking in spirit?”

“These things are possible too.”

“Then it’s also possible for there to be a woman with an aptitude as a guardian, and another without one. Wasn’t it that sort of nature we also selected as belonging to the men with an aptitude for being guardians?”

“That very sort.”

“And therefore the same nature for guardianship of a city belongs to a woman as to a man, except to the extent that one is weaker or stronger.”

“So it appears.”

“And so women of that sort need to be selected [456B] to live together and guard together with men of that sort, since they’re competent and are akin to them in their nature.”

“Entirely so.”

“And don’t the same pursuits need to be assigned to the same natures?”

“The same ones.”

“Then we’ve come back around to what we said before, and we’re agreed that it’s not contrary to nature for the women among the guardians to be assigned to music and gymnastic training.”

“Absolutely so.”

[456C] “So we weren’t legislating things that are impossible or like prayers, since we set down the law in accord with nature. But it seems instead that it’s the things that’re done now, contrary to these, that are done contrary to nature.”

“So it seems.”

“Wasn’t our question whether the things we’d be talking about are possible and best?”

“It was indeed.”

“And it’s been agreed that they’re possible?”

“Yes.”

“And that they’re best is the thing that needs to be agreed to next?”

“Clearly.”

“Now as for turning out a woman skilled at guardianship, one education won’t produce men for us and another one women, will it, especially [456D] since it gets the same nature to work with?”

“No other one.”

“Then what’s the state of your opinion about this in particular?”

“About what exactly?”

“About assuming in your own estimation that one man is better and another worse. Or do you regard them as all alike?”

“Not at all.”

“Then in the city we’ve been founding, which do you imagine would turn out as better men, the guardians, when they’ve gotten the education we went over, or the leatherworkers, educated in leathercraft?”

“You’re asking a ridiculous question,” he said.

“I understand,” I said. “What about it then? Compared to the rest of the citizens, aren’t these the best men?”

“By far.”

[456E] “And what about the women? Won’t these be the best among the women?”

“They too, by far,” he said.

“And is there anything better for a city than for the best possible women and men to arise in it?”

“There isn’t.”

“And music and gymnastic training, when they come to their aid in the way we’ve [457A] gone over, bring this about?”

“How could they not?”

“Therefore the ordinance we set down for the city is not only something possible but also the best thing.”

“So it is.”

“Then the women among the guardians need to take off their clothes, since they’re going to be clothed in virtue instead of a cloak, and they need to share in war and the rest of the guardianship connected with the city, and not engage in other activities, but less arduous parts of these same activities need to be given to the women than to the men because of the weakness of their kind. And a man who [457B] laughs at naked women engaged in gymnastic exercise for the sake of what’s best ‘plucks a laugh from his wisdom while it’s still an unripe fruit,’⁷⁴ having no idea, it seems, what he’s laughing at or what he’s doing. For the most beautiful thing that’s being said or will have been said is this: that what’s beneficial is beautiful and what’s harmful is ugly.”

“Absolutely so.”

“Then shall we claim that we’re escaping from one wave,⁷⁵ so to speak, by saying this about the law pertaining to women, so that we don’t get completely swamped when we set it down that our male and female guardians [457C] must pursue all things in common, but that in a way the argument that says that’s possible and beneficial is in agreement with itself?”

“And it’s certainly no small wave you’re escaping,” he said.

“But you’ll claim it’s no big one either,” I said, “when you see what comes after this.”

“Speak, then, and I’ll see,” he said.

“A law that goes along with this one,” I said, “and with the others that preceded it, is, as I imagine, the following.”

“What?”

“That all these women are to be shared among all [457D] these men, and none of the women is to live together privately with any of the men, and their children are to be shared too; a parent is not to know the offspring that are its own, or a child its parent.”

“This is much bigger than the former one,” he said, “in respect to doubtfulness about both what’s possible and what’s beneficial.”

“About what’s beneficial, anyway,” I said, “I don’t imagine there’d be any arguing that it’s not the greatest good for the women to be shared or for the children to be shared, if possible, but about whether it’s possible or not, I imagine there’d be a very great dispute.”

[457E] “There could very well be dispute about both,” he said.

“You’re talking about a unified front among arguments,” I said, “and here I was imagining I could run away from one of them, if it seemed to you to be beneficial, and I’d have the one about whether it’s possible or not left.”

“But you didn’t get away with running away,” he said, “so give an account of yourself on both counts.”

“I’ll have to stand trial,” I said. “Do me this much of a favor though; [458A] let me go about it holiday-style, like dawdlers who’re in the habit of feasting on their own thoughts when they’re walking by themselves. People like that, you know, before finding out how there can be some thing they desire, put that aside so they won’t wear themselves out pondering about what’s possible or not, and taking it for granted that the thing they want is already there, they’re already arranging the rest and enjoying going through the sorts of things they’ll do when it happens, and otherwise making a lazy soul even [458B] lazier. I’ve gotten soft myself by now, and on those questions I desire to put them off and consider later how they’re possible, but now, taking it for granted that they’re possible, if you let me, I’ll consider how the rulers will organize them when they happen, and what would be the most advantageous way, for both the city and the guardians, for them to be done. I’ll try together with you to consider these things first, and those later, if you give permission.”

“I do give permission,” he said; “go ahead and consider.”

“I imagine, then,” I said, “if in fact the rulers are going to be worthy [458C] of that name, and their auxiliaries by the same token worthy of theirs, the ones will wish to follow orders and the others to give them, while the latter themselves obey the laws on some matters, but imitate the laws on all the other matters that we’ll leave up to their judgment.”

“That sounds right,” he said.

“Then you,” I said, “as their lawgiver, once you’ve selected the women in the same way you also selected the men, will distribute them as far as possible to those with similar natures; and they, since they have their houses and meals in common, and none of them possesses any property of that sort privately, [458D] will be together, and while they’re mingled together in the gyms and in the rest of their upbringing, they’ll be led, I imagine, by an inborn necessity, toward mingling with each other sexually. Or do the things I’m talking about not seem necessary to you?”

“Not in the geometrical sense anyway,” he said, “but they seem to be necessities of an erotic sort, which are liable to be sharper than the former at persuading and attracting most of the populace.”

“Very much so,” I said. “But the next thing to consider, Glaucon, is that unregulated sexual contact with one another, or doing anything else at all of that sort, isn’t [458E] pious in a city of people favored by destiny,⁷⁶ and the rulers aren’t going to allow it.”

“No, it wouldn’t be just,” he said.

“So it’s clear that the next thing we’ll do is make marriages sacred to the greatest extent possible, and it’s the most beneficial ones that would be sacred.”

“Absolutely so.”

[459A] “So in what way will they be the most beneficial? Tell me this, Glaucon, because I see in your household both hunting dogs and true-bred birds in great numbers. Well, by Zeus, have you paid any attention to their matings and breeding?”

“To what sort of thing?” he said.

“First, among those of the same kind, even though they’re true bred, aren’t there some that also turn out best?”

“There are.”

“Then do you breed from all of them alike, or are you eager to breed as much as possible from the best ones?”

“From the best ones.”

[459B] “And then what? From the youngest, or from the oldest, or as much as possible from those in their prime?”

“From those in their prime.”

“And if they weren’t bred that way, do you expect the race of birds or of dogs would be much worse?”

“I do,” he said.

“And what do you suppose about horses,” I said, “and the rest of the animals? That it would be any different?”

“That would certainly be strange,” he said.

“Ayayay, dear comrade,” I said, “how greatly in need we are, then, of top-notch rulers if it’s also the same way [459C] with the human race.”

“Well it is the same way,” he said, “but what does that have to do with the rulers?”

“There’ll be a necessity,” I said, “for them to use a lot of medicines. Presumably we believe that for bodies that don’t need medicines, those of people willing to follow a prescribed way of life, even a rather ordinary doctor is sufficient; but when there’s a need to use medicine, we know that a more courageous doctor is needed.”

“True, but what point are you making?”

“This one,” I said: “our rulers are liable to need to use [459D] falsehood and deception in abundance for the benefit of those they rule. And we claimed, of course, that all that sort of thing is useful in the form of medicine.”

“And rightly so,” he said.

“Well, it seems like it’s not least in the marriages and procreation that this rightness comes into play.”

“How so?”

“It follows from the things that’ve been agreed to,” I said, “that as often as possible the best men ought to have sex with the best women, and the worst on the contrary with the worst, and the offspring of the former ought to be reared, [459E] but not those of the latter, if the flock is going to be of top quality to the highest degree possible. And all these things ought to happen without the notice of anyone except the rulers themselves, if the guardians’ herd is also going to be as free as possible of internal conflict.”

“With the utmost rightness,” he said.

“Then don’t some sort of festivals and sacrifices need to be set up by law, in which we’ll bring together the brides and grooms, and suitable hymns need to be made [460A] by our poets for the marriages that take place? We’ll make the number of marriages be up to the rulers, in order that they might preserve the same number of men as much as they can, having regard to wars, diseases, and everything of the sort, and in order that, as far as possible, our city might not become either big or little.”

“Rightly,” he said.

“I imagine some ingenious lotteries need to be made up, so that the ordinary man mentioned before will blame chance and not the rulers for each marriage pairing.”

“Very much so,” he said.

[460B] “And presumably those among the young men who are good in war or anywhere else need to be given special honors and prizes, and among other things a more unrestricted privilege to sleep with the women,⁷⁷ so that on this pretext, as great a number of children as possible would also at the same time be begotten by such people.”

“Rightly so.”

“And won’t the officials set up for this purpose take over the offspring born on each occasion, male or female officials or both, since, of course, the ruling offices are shared among the women and men?”

“Yes.”

[460C] “So I expect they’ll take those born to the good ones into the fold⁷⁸ and turn them over to some sort of nurses who live separately in a certain part of the city; but the offspring of the worse sort of people, and any of the others that might have been born with defects, they’ll hide away in a place not spoken of and not seen, as is fitting.”

“If indeed the race of the guardians is going to be pure,” he said.

“Won’t these officials also be in charge of the feeding, bringing the mothers to the fold when they’re swollen with milk, contriving every [460D] sort of means so that none of them will recognize her own child, and providing other women who have milk if they don’t have enough, and see to it that the mothers themselves suckle for a moderate time, but turn over the watchfulness and other work to wet nurses and nurses?”

“You’re describing a great ease of childbearing,” he said, “for the women among the guardians.”

“And it’s appropriate,” I said. “Let’s go on to the next thing we proposed, since we claimed that the offspring ought to be born particularly from those in their prime.”

“True.”

[460E] “Then do you share my opinion that twenty years is the average time of the prime of life for a woman, and thirty for a man?”

“Which of the years?” he said.

“Starting from her twentieth and up to her fortieth, for a woman to bear children for the city,” I said, “and for a man, once he passes his swiftest peak at running, to beget children for the city from then until his fifty-fifth.”

[461A] “For them both,” he said, “that’s certainly their prime both in body and in intelligence.”

“Then if someone older or younger than that engages in generating offspring into the community, we’ll claim it’s a transgression that’s not pious or just, since it produces for the city a child that, if it escapes notice, will have been brought forth without being born with the sacrifices and prayers that would be offered at every marriage by priestesses, priests, and the whole city together, that from good and beneficial people better and more beneficial offspring might always come forth; instead, it will have been born [461B] under cover of darkness in the presence of terrible unrestraint.”

“We’ll rightly make that claim,” he said.

“And the same law applies,” I said, “if any of the men still propagating has sexual contact with any of the women who are of childbearing age when a ruler hasn’t joined him with her; we’ll charge him with bringing a bastard child into the city, unsanctioned and unconsecrated.”

“Quite rightly,” he said.

“But, I imagine, when both the women and the men get beyond the age to reproduce, we’ll no doubt leave them free to have sex with anyone they want, except with a daughter, a mother, a [461C] daughter’s children, a mother’s parent, or the women with a son or his children or with a father or his parent, and all that only after it’s been insisted that they take the most zealous care not to bring forth even a single fetus into the light of day, if one is conceived, and if any is forced on them, to handle it on the understanding that there’s to be no raising of such a child.”

“These things too are reasonably said,” he said; “but how are they going to distinguish their fathers and daughters, and the others you just mentioned, one from another?”

[461D] “There’s no way,” I said. “But from that day on which any of them becomes a bridegroom, whatever offspring are born in the tenth month after that, or even the seventh, to all of these he’ll apply the name sons to the males and daughters to the females, and they’ll call him father, and in the same way he’ll call their offspring his grandchildren, and they in turn will call people like him grandfathers and grandmothers, and they’ll call those who were born at the same time their mothers and fathers were producing children sisters and [461E] brothers, so that, as we were just saying, they won’t have sexual contact with one another. But the law will grant brothers and sisters permission to be joined together if the lottery falls out that way and the Pythia⁷⁹ confirms it.”

“Quite rightly,” he said.

“So, Glaucon, this or something like it is the way of sharing women and children among the guardians of your city. The next thing after this ought to be to have it established out of the argument that this goes along with the rest of the polity and is by far the best way. Or how should we proceed?”

[462A] “That way, by Zeus,” he said.

“Well then, wouldn’t this be a source from which an agreement might come, that we ask ourselves what’s the greatest good we can state in the organization of a city, at which the lawgiver ought to aim in setting down the laws, and what’s the greatest evil, and then consider on that basis whether the things we were just now going over fit into the footprint of the good while they don’t fit into that of the evil?”

“That most of all would be the way,” he said.

“Then can we have any greater evil in a city than that which tears it [462B] apart and makes it many instead of one? Or a greater good than that which binds it together and makes it one?”

“No we can’t.”

“And doesn’t the sharing of pleasure and pain bind it together, when as much as possible all the citizens feel joy and pain in almost the same way at the coming into being and passing away of the same things?”

“Absolutely so,” he said.

“But the private appropriation of such things dissolves it, when some people become overwhelmed with pain and others overcome with joy at the same experiences of the city and of the people in the city?”

[462C] “How could it not?”

“And doesn’t that sort of thing come from this, that people in the city don’t utter such words as mine and not mine at the same time, and the same with somebody else’s?”

“Exactly so.”

“So isn’t that city governed best in which the most people say this mine and not mine on the same occasion about the same things?”

“Much the best.”

“And this is precisely whichever city is in a condition closest to that of a single human being?⁸⁰ For instance, whenever a finger of any of us is wounded, presumably the whole community extending from the body to the soul in a single ordering under the ruler [462D] within it would be aware of it, and it all would suffer pain as a whole together with the part that’s afflicted, and is that the sense in which we mean that a human being has a pain in his finger? And is it the same story for any other part of a human being whatever, both for a part afflicted with pain and for one that’s eased by pleasure?”

“It’s the same,” he said, “and as for what you’re asking, the best constituted city is the one situated closest to such a condition.”

“So I imagine that when one of its citizens undergoes anything at all, good or [462E] bad, such a city most of all will claim the thing that happened to him as its own, and all of it will share the pleasure or share the pain.”

“Necessarily,” he said, “if it’s one with good laws, anyway.”

“This would be the time,” I said, “for us to go back to our own city, and examine in it the things agreed in the discussion, to see whether it has them the most or some other city has them more.”

“We need to, don’t we?” he said.

[463A] “What about it, then? There are certainly both rulers and people in other cities as well as in this one, aren’t there?”

“There are.”

“And won’t all of these call one another citizens?”

“How could they not?”

“And in addition to ‘citizens’, what name do the people in other cities call their rulers by?”

“In most of them, despots,⁸¹ but in those that are democratically ruled, this very name, rulers.”

“And what about the people in our city? In addition to citizens, what will they say their rulers are?”

“Protectors and auxiliaries,” he said.

[463B] “And what will they call the people?”

“Givers of compensation and sustenance.”

“And what do the rulers in other cities call the people?”

“Slaves,” he said

“What do the rulers call one another?”

“Fellow rulers,” he said.

“And what about ours?”

“Fellow guardians.”

“And can you say whether any of the rulers in the other cities could refer to one of his fellow rulers as his kinsman and another as an outsider?”

“In fact many do.”

“And does he consider his kinsman as one of his own people and speak of him that way, and of the outsider as not one of his own?”

“In that way.”

[463C] “But what about the guardians there with you? Is there anyone at all among them who could regard or speak of any of his fellow guardians as an outsider?”

“Not at all,” he said; “any time he bumps into anyone, he’ll regard himself as meeting up with a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, or descendants or ancestors of these.”

“You put it most beautifully,” I said, “but also tell me this. Are you legislating only the names of kinship for them, or [463D] also the performing of all the actions that follow from the names, all the things custom calls for about respect for fathers and about taking care of parents and needing to be obedient to them, to avoid being on bad terms with gods and human beings because anyone who’d act otherwise would be doing things that aren’t pious or just? Will you have these things or other ones singing around their ears straight from childhood as the common sayings coming from all the citizens about fathers, [463E] whomever anyone points out to them as fathers, and about their other relatives?”

“These,” he said; “it would be ridiculous if they only uttered the names of kinship with their mouths, without the deeds.”

“Therefore in it most of all cities, when any one person is doing well or badly, people will sound out in harmony the word we were just speaking, that what’s mine is going well or what’s mine is going badly.”

“Most true,” he said.

[464A] “And weren’t we claiming that a sharing of pleasures and pains followed along with this opinion and this word?”

“And we were right in claiming it,” he said.

“Then won’t our citizens most of all share the same thing in common, the very thing they name mine? And by sharing that in that way, won’t they most of all have a sharing of pain and pleasure?”

“By far.”

“And isn’t the cause of this, in addition to the rest of the set-up, the sharing of women and children among the guardians?”

“Most of all by a long way,” he said.

[464B] “But surely we agreed that was the greatest good for a city, likening a well-governed city to the way a body stands in relation to the pain and pleasure of a part of it.”

“And we were right in agreeing to that,” he said.

“So the cause of the greatest good for the city has been revealed to us as the sharing of children and women among the auxiliaries.”

“Very much so,” he said.

“And so we’re also agreeing to the things prior to that, because we claimed, no doubt, that there had to be no private houses for them, or land, or any [464C] possession, but they were to get their sustenance from the other people as recompense for guardianship, and all consume it in common, if they were going to be guardians in their very being.”

“Rightly,” he said.

“Well then, what I mean is, don’t the things said before as well as the things being said now fashion them still more into true guardians and make them not tear apart the city by giving the name mine not to the same thing but each to something different, with one of them dragging into his own house whatever he has the power to acquire apart from the others, and another into [464D] his own house, which is a different one, and having different women and children, bringing in private pleasures and griefs for things that are private? But with one opinion about what’s their own as they all strain toward the same goal to the limit of their power, won’t they be affected alike by pain and pleasure?”

“Exactly so,” he said.

“And what about this? Won’t lawsuits and accusations against one another virtually vanish from among them because they possess nothing private but the body and everything else in common? And that’s why it belongs [464E] to them from the start to be free of divisions, all the ones human beings divide over on account of having money, children, and relatives.”

“It’s a big necessity,” he said, “that they’ll be freed from that.”

“And there couldn’t justly be any lawsuits among them even for battery or assaults, since presumably we’ll claim it’s a beautiful and just thing for anyone to defend himself against someone his own age, which will make it necessary for them to keep their bodies in shape.”

“That’s right,” he said.

[465A] “And this custom is also right in this respect,” I said: “presumably if anyone gets his spiritedness aroused against someone, he’d be less likely to come to greater divisions if he gives his angry spirit its fill in such a way.”

“Quite so.”

“And surely an older person will be assigned to rule over all the younger ones and correct them.”

“Obviously.”

“And certainly it’s likely a younger person will never raise his hand to hit or do any other violence to an older one, unless the rulers order him to, and I don’t imagine he’ll even do any other sort of dishonor to someone older, since a pair of sufficient [465B] safeguards prevent it, fear and respect, respect on the grounds that it bars him from laying a hand on parents, and fear that others would come to the defense of the one who suffered it, some as sons, some as brothers, and some as fathers.”

“It does turn out that way,” he said.

“So will the men keep peace with one another in every way as a result of the laws?”

“Very much so.”

“And if these guardians are not at faction among themselves, there’ll be no dire peril that the rest of the city will ever split into factions against them or against one another.”

“No there won’t.”

[465C] “I’m reluctant even to mention, on account of their tackiness, the most petty of the evils they’d be freed from, the flatteries of the rich by the poor, the strained circumstances and all the grief they have in raising children and getting money for the necessary subsistence of the household, making debts and repudiating them, making all sorts of shifts to save money for the women and domestic slaves, to turn over to them to manage, and all the things, dear friend, they go through over these things and those like them, obvious and [465D] degrading and not worthy of talking about.”

“They are obvious,” he said, “even to a blind person.”

“So they’ll be free of all these things, and they’ll live a more blessedly happy life than the most blessedly happy one the Olympic champions live.”

“How so?”

“Presumably the latter are considered happy on account of a small part of what belongs to these people, because the victory these people win is a more beautiful one and the provision made for them by the public is more complete.⁸² For the victory they win is the preservation of the whole city, and they’re crowned with the provision of food and of everything else needed for [465E] life for themselves and their children, and they receive honors from their city while they live and share in a worthy burial when they die.”

“And those are beautiful things,” he said.

“And do you remember,” I said, “that in the earlier discussion an argument—I don’t know [466A] whose⁸³—reprimanded us because we weren’t making the guardians happy, who, though they’d be capable of having everything that belonged to the citizens, wouldn’t have anything? I believe we said that if this fell in our way anywhere, we’d consider it at a later time, but for now we were making the guardians guardians and making the city as happy as we could, but we weren’t looking to one group in it and fashioning that to be happy.”

“I remember,” he said.

“What about it, then? If indeed the life of our auxiliaries appears as much more beautiful and better than that of Olympic champions, is there any fear of how [466B] it appears next to the life of leatherworkers or any other craftsmen or the life of farmers?”

“It doesn’t seem so to me,” he said.

“However, the just thing is to say here what I also said there, that if the guardian is going to try to become happy in such a way that he won’t even be a guardian, and a life so measured and steady, that’s also, as we’re claiming, best, won’t satisfy him, but he falls into a senseless and juvenile opinion about happiness that will drive him to taking everything in the city for his own by means of his power, [466C] he’ll know that Hesiod was wise in his being when he said that there’s a way in which ‘the half is more than the whole.’”⁸⁴

“If he asks my advice,” he said, “he’ll stay in this life.”

“Do you go along, then,” I said, “with the partnership of the women with the men, which we’ve gone over, in their education, with their children, and in guarding the other citizens, and agree that, both when they’re staying in the city and when they’re going to war, they need to guard and hunt together the way dogs do, and share everything in common in every way as far as is in their power, [466D] and that in so doing they’ll be acting in the best way and not contrary to the nature of the female in relation to the male, in the way the pair is naturally fitted to share things in common with each other?”

“I go along with that,” he said.

“Then doesn’t this remain to be determined,” I said, “whether after all it’s possible among human beings too, the way it is among other animals, for this partnership to come about, and in what way it’s possible?”

“You beat me to it,” he said, “by saying what I was just about to bring up.”

[466E] “As for what’s involved in war,” I said, “I imagine the manner in which they’ll go to war is obvious.”

“How’s that?” he said.

“They’ll take the field in common, and besides, they’ll bring as many of the children to the war as are tough, so that, just like the children of the other craftsmen, they’ll see the things they’ll need to do to work at the craft when they’re grown up. [467A] And in addition to watching, they’ll help out and take subordinate roles in all the things that have to do with war, and tend to the needs of their fathers and mothers. Or haven’t you noticed what happens with the arts, for instance with the children of potters, how long a time they spend watching as helpers before taking a hand at making pots?”

“Very much so.”

“Is it necessary for them to educate their children more carefully than the guardians do theirs by experience and observation of the things that concern them?”

“That would be totally ridiculous,” he said.

[467B] “And certainly every animal fights in an exceptional way in the presence of its young.”

“That is so, but Socrates, there’s no small risk, for those who’ve been defeated, and that sort of thing is apt to happen in war, that they’ll have lost the children in addition to themselves and make it impossible for the rest of the city to recover.”

“What you say is true,” I said; “but first of all, do you think one ought to arrange things so as never to run any risks?”

“By no means.”

“Well what about it then? If it’s necessary to take a risk, shouldn’t it be one in which they’ll be better off when they succeed?”

“Obviously.”

[467C] “Well do you imagine it makes little difference, and isn’t worth a risk, whether or not children who’re going to be competent men at warfare watch the things involved in war?”

“No, it makes a difference for what you’re talking about.”

“Then this is the way one needs to start out, by making the children observers of war, and if some additional means of safety is devised for them, things will go well, won’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And first of all,” I said, “their fathers won’t be ignorant, will they, but knowledgeable in every way human beings can be about all the things on campaigns that are dangerous or not?”

“Likely so,” he said.

[467D] “So they’ll take them to the latter and be wary of the former.”

“That’s right.”

“And presumably as rulers,” I said, “they’ll set over them people who are no slouches but are qualified by experience and age to be leaders and tutors.”

“That’s fitting.”

“But, we’ll claim, many things also turn out for many people contrary to expectation.”

“Very much so.”

“So with a view to such things, my friend, it behooves us to give them wings right away while they’re little children, so that if there’s any need they’ll escape by flying away.”

“How do you mean?” he said.

[467E] “They need to be mounted on horseback,” I said, “as young as possible, and once they’ve been taught to ride they need to be brought to the sight on horses, not on spirited or aggressive ones, but on horses as swift of foot and docile as possible. Thus, in the most beautiful way, they’ll get a look at the work that belongs to them, and in the safest way, if there’s any need, they’ll save themselves by following after older leaders.”

[468A] “You seem to me to be getting it right,” he said.

“And what about what’s involved in war?” I said. “How should your soldiers bear themselves toward one another and toward enemies? Is the way that seems evident to me the right one or not?”

“Say what it’s like,” he said.

“If one of them leaves his post,” I said, “or throws down his weapons or does anything of the sort out of cowardice, doesn’t he need to be reassigned as some sort of craftsman or farmer?”

“Very much so.”

“And if one of them is taken alive by the enemy, shouldn’t he be given [468B] as a gift to his captors, to use their catch however they want?”

“Exactly.”

“But if someone shows the highest distinction and gains a good reputation, doesn’t it seem to you that first, on the campaign, he should be crowned with wreaths by his fellow soldiers, and by each of the youths and children in turn? Or not?”

“That seems good to me.”

“And what about shaking his hand?”

“That too.”

“But I don’t imagine this too would seem good to you,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“That he kiss and be kissed by each.”

“That most of all,” he said. “And I have an addendum to the law, that as long as [468C] they’re on that campaign, no one he wants to kiss be allowed to refuse him, so that if someone happens to be in love with anyone, male or female, he’d be more zealous to carry off the highest honors.”

“Beautiful,” I said. “Because it’s already been said that marriages will be more readily arranged for someone good than for others, and selections of such people will be more frequent, beyond the others, in order that the most children possible will be born of such a person.”

“We did say that,” he said.

“And surely even according to Homer, it’s just to do honor in such ways [468D] to all those among the young who are good. For Homer also said that, when he gained a good reputation in war, ‘Ajax was rewarded with the whole back of the ox,’⁸⁵ as if the appropriate honor for someone bursting with youth and courage was that by which he’d be honored and at the same time grow in strength.”

“Most rightly,” he said.

“So we’ll be persuaded by Homer,” I said, “at least about these things. For we’ll honor good people at the sacrifices and at all such occasions, to the extent they’ve shown themselves good, both with hymns and with the things [468E] we were just now speaking of, and on top of that ‘with choice seats and meats and full wine cups,’ so that along with honoring them we’ll be forming good men and women.”

“You’re speaking most beautifully,” he said.

“Okay. Now if any of those who die on the campaign meets his death in a way that gains him a good reputation, won’t we first declare him to be of the golden race?”

“Most of all.”

“And won’t we be persuaded by Hesiod that when any people of such a race die [469A],

They become consecrated as holy divinities on earth,
Good guardians, warding off evil from humans endowed
with speech?”⁸⁶

“We’ll be persuaded.”

“Therefore, after finding out from the god⁸⁷ how one ought to bury divinities and godlike people and with what mark of distinction, won’t we also bury them in whatever way that he prescribes?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“And for the rest of time, won’t we care for their tombs and [469B] worship at them as at those of divinities? And won’t we follow these same observances when any of those judged to have been surpassingly good in their lives die, of old age or in any other manner?”

“It would be just, at any rate,” he said.

“And what about this? How will our soldiers deal with their enemies?”

“In what respect in particular?”

“In the first place, in respect to taking slaves, does it seem just for Greek cities to take Greeks as slaves, or as far as possible not even to leave them for another city to take, but to get them in the habit of sparing the Greek [469C] race as a precaution against enslavement by the barbarians?”

“Sparing them is wholly and totally better,” he said.

“Therefore they won’t possess a Greek slave themselves, and they’ll give that advice to the other Greeks?”

“Very much so,” he said; “at least that way they’d turn against the barbarians instead, and hold off from their own kind.”

“And what about stripping the dead of anything except weapons?” I said. “When they win a victory, is that a desirable practice? Or doesn’t it offer a pretext for cowards not to go up against someone who’s fighting, on the grounds that they’re performing one [469D] of their duties when they keep stooping down around a dead body, though many an army has been destroyed before now by such rapacity?”

“Quite so.”

“Doesn’t it seem unbefitting a free person and a moneygrubbing thing to strip a corpse, and a sign of a womanish and petty way of thinking to consider as the enemy the body of a dead opponent who has fluttered away, leaving behind that with which he made war? Or do you suppose those who do this are behaving any differently [469E] from dogs that take out their anger on the rocks thrown at them but don’t touch the one throwing them?”

“Not even a little differently,” he said.

“Therefore one should give up stripping corpses and preventing their recovery?”

“One should certainly give it up, by Zeus,” he said.

“And no doubt we won’t bring the captured weapons, and especially not those of Greeks, to the temples as offerings, if we have any consideration [470A] for the good will of the rest of the Greeks. Instead, we’d be afraid it would be a pollution to bring such things to the temple from our own people, unless the god particularly says something different.”

“Quite rightly,” he said.

“And what about ravaging Greek land and setting fire to the houses? Will your soldiers do anything of that sort to their enemies?”

“I’d listen with pleasure,” he said, “if you revealed your opinion.”

“Well, it seems good to me,” I said, “for them to do neither of these things, [470B] but to take away the year’s crops. Do you want me to tell you why?”

“Very much indeed.”

“It appears to me that war and civil war are two different things, just like these two names they’re called by, which apply to two kinds of division in two respective things. The two things I mean are, on the one hand, one’s own kind and kin, and on the other, what’s foreign and alien. Civil war is the name applied to hostility within one’s own kind, and war applies to hostility between foreigners.”

“And there’s certainly nothing off course about what you’re saying,” he said.

[470C] “Then see if I’m also on course when I say this: I claim that the Greek race is itself with itself its own kind and kin, but alien and foreign to a barbarian race.”

“Beautifully on course,” he said.

“Therefore when Greeks fight with barbarians and barbarians with Greeks we’ll claim they’re at war and are natural enemies, and that this hostility of theirs should be called war, but whenever Greeks do anything of the sort to Greeks we’ll claim they’re natural friends, [470D] but in such circumstances Greece is sick and divided, and that this sort of hostility should be called civil war.”

“I go along with regarding it that way,” he said.

“Consider, then,” I said, “that in the sort of civil war now acknowledged as such, wherever any such thing happens and a city is split apart, if each of the two sides ravages the land and burns the houses of the other, civil war is held to be an abomination and neither of the sides is considered loyal to the city, or they would never have dared to devastate their nurse and mother. But it seems to be within measure for those who prevail [470E] to take away the crops from those they defeat, and to think of themselves as people who are going to be reconciled and not always be at war.”

“This way of thinking is far more civilized than that other,” he said.

“What about it, then?” I said. “Won’t the city you’re founding⁸⁸ be Greek?”

“It’s bound to be,” he said.

“And won’t the people be good and civilized?”

“Emphatically so.”

“But won’t they be loyal to all things Greek? Won’t they regard Greece as their own place and participate in religious observances in common with the rest of the Greeks?”

“Emphatically so on that point too.”

[471A] “Then won’t they regard a division with Greeks, since it’s with their own people, as civil war and not even name it merely war?”

“That’s right.”

“So they’ll have their divisions in the spirit of people who’re going to be reconciled?”

“Very much so.”

“So they’ll bring their opponents back to their senses and not punish them with slavery or destruction, not being enemies but people intent on inducing moderation.”

“That’s the way,” he said.

“Therefore, being Greeks, they won’t devastate Greece, or set fire to houses, and they won’t agree with anyone who says that everyone in any city is their enemy—the men, women, and [471B] children—but hold that a few enemies are always the ones responsible for the division. For all these reasons they won’t be willing to devastate their land, since most of them are friendly, or to knock down their houses, but they’ll maintain the conflict up to that point at which the responsible parties are forced to pay the penalty by the guiltless people who’re suffering from it.”

“I agree,” he said, “that this is how our citizens ought to conduct themselves toward their opponents, but toward the barbarians they should act the way Greeks do now toward one another.”

[471C] “So shall we also impose this as a law on the guardians, not to ravage land or burn houses?”

“Let’s impose it,” he said, “and certainly these things and the ones that preceded them are all well and good, but it seems to me, Socrates, that if anyone left it to you to discuss this sort of thing you’d never remember what was pushed aside before you’d mentioned all this, the question of whether it’s possible for this type of polity to come into being and in what way it would ever be possible. Because I certainly grant that if it were to come into being, everything in the city in which it came into being would be good, even things you’re [471D] leaving out; I mean that they’d also fight their enemies best because they’d desert each other least, since they recognize their own troops as brothers, fathers, and sons and call to them by these names. And also if the female group were in combat along with them, either in the ranks themselves or drawn up in the rear, both to frighten the enemy and in case any need for assistance should arise, I know that with all this they’d be people no one could fight. And I see all the good things at home that would be to their benefit. But since I [471E] agree that there would be all these things and tens of thousands of others if this polity were to come into being, don’t keep saying more about that, but let’s try from this point on to persuade ourselves of this very thing, that it’s possible and in what way, and let the rest go with our blessings.”

[472A] “This is so sudden,” I said. “It’s as though you’ve launched an attack on my argument, and have no tolerance for me to squeeze out its last drops. Maybe you don’t realize that when I’ve hardly escaped a pair of waves you’re now bringing on the biggest and most crushing third wave; when you see and hear it, you’ll have complete sympathy, understanding that it was fitting after all that I was hesitant and fearful to state and undertake the examination of an argument so contrary to general opinion.”

“The more you say that sort of thing,” he said, “the less you’ll be let off by [472B] us from saying how it’s possible for this polity to come into being. Just speak and don’t waste any more time.”

“Well then,” I said, “isn’t this the first thing that should be recalled, that it’s because we were seeking what sorts of things justice and injustice are that we got to this point?”

“It should, but what about it?” he said.

“Nothing; except, if we find out what sort of thing justice is, will we also hold that the just man needs to be no different from that very thing, but be in every respect of the same sort that justice [472C] is? Or will we be satisfied if he’s as close to it as possible and participates in it the most in comparison with other people?”

“The latter,” he said. “We’ll be satisfied.”

“Then it was for the sake of a pattern,” I said, “that we were seeking both what sort of thing justice itself is, and the completely just man, in case one could come into being, and what he’d be like if he were to come into being, as well as injustice and the most unjust man, so that by looking off toward them to see what they appear to us to be like in relation to happiness and its opposite, we’d be constrained to agree about our own selves as well, that whoever was most [472D] similar to them would have a lot in life most similar to theirs. But it wasn’t for the sake of our demonstrating that it was possible for these things to come into being.”

“That’s true, as you say,” he said.

“Do you imagine someone would be any less good a painter, who had painted a pattern of what the most beautiful human being would be like, and had rendered everything in the picture well enough, because he wasn’t able to show that it was also possible for such a man to come into being?”

“Not I, by Zeus,” he said.

“Well then, don’t we claim that we too were making a pattern in speech of a good city?”

[472E] “Certainly.”

“Then do you imagine we’re describing it any less well on that account if we’re not able to demonstrate that it’s possible to found a city that’s the way we were describing it?”

“Surely not,” he said.

“So that’s the way the truth of it is,” I said; “but if it’s also necessary for this effort to be made for your pleasure, to demonstrate in what way most of all and as a result of what it would be most possible, then you, the same as me, should make some concessions in return for such a demonstration.”

“What sort of concessions?”

[473A] “Is it possible for anything to be done in practice the way it’s described in speech, or does action have a nature to attain to truth less than speaking does, even if it doesn’t seem that way to somebody? But do you agree or not that it’s that way?”

“I agree,” he said.

“Then don’t require this of me, to be obliged to represent the sorts of things we went through in speech as coming into being in every respect in deed as well, but if we turn out to be able to discover that a city could be founded that’s closest to the things described, then declare that we’ve found out that [473B] it’s possible for these things to come into being the way you ordered us to. Or will you not be satisfied if that happens? I’d be satisfied.”

“I would too,” he said.

“Then it looks like the next thing for us to do is try to search out and demonstrate whatever is now done badly in cities, on account of which they aren’t managed this way, and what would be the smallest change by which a city could come into this mode of political association—preferably a change of one thing, or if not that, of two, and if not that, of as few things as possible in number and the smallest in strength.”

[473C] “Absolutely so,” he said.

“Well with one change,” I said, “it seems to me we can show that it could be transformed, though it’s not a small or easy one, but it is possible.”

“What’s that?” he said.

“I’m in for it now,” I said, “up against what we likened to the biggest wave. But it’s got to be said, even if, literally just like an uproarious wave, it’s going to drown me in laughter and humiliation. Consider what I’m about to say.”

“Say it,” he said.

“Unless philosophers rule as kings in their cities,” [473D] I said, “or those now called kings and supreme rulers genuinely and adequately engage in philosophy, and this combination of political power and philosophy joins together in the same position, while the many natures that are now carried away to one of the two in isolation are forcibly blocked off from that, there is no rest from evils for the cities, dear Glaucon, or, I think, for the human race, and this polity that we’ve now gone over in speech will never before that sprout [473E] as far as it can and see the light of the sun. This is what’s been putting a reluctance to speak in me all this time, my seeing that it would be proclaimed to be far beyond belief, because it’s hard to see that in no other way would anyone be happy in private, or any city in public.”

And he said, “Oh, Socrates, what a thing you’ve blurted out, both the words and the meaning! Now that you’ve said it, you can expect a great many people after you this very instant, [474A] and no slouches, flinging off their cloaks, stripped down, grabbing up whatever weapon happens to be near each one, running full speed, ready to do amazing things. If you don’t fend them off with arguments and get away, you’ll pay the penalty by being well and truly ridiculed.”

“And don’t I have you to thank for this?” I said.

“And I’m doing a beautiful job of it,” he said. “But I won’t give you up for lost; I’ll defend you with the means in my power. And I have the power to help out with good will and by cheering you on, and maybe I’d give you replies in a more harmonious spirit than someone else [474B] would. So since you have such help, try to show the doubters that things are the way you say.”

“The attempt has to be made,” I said, “especially since you offer so formidable an alliance. Now it seems necessary to me, if we’re somehow going to dodge the people you speak of, to define for them what we mean by philosophers when we have the audacity to claim they ought to rule, so that once it becomes thoroughly clear, one will have the power to defend oneself by showing [474C] that it’s fitting by nature for them both to engage in philosophy and to take the lead in a city, and for everyone else not to engage in it and to follow a leader.”

“This would be the time to define them,” he said.

“Come then, and follow me here, if we’re somehow or other going to explain it fittingly.”

“Lead on,” he said.

“Then will it be necessary to remind you,” I said, “or do you remember that when we claim someone loves something, if it’s being said correctly, it has to be clear that he doesn’t love part of it and part not, but is devoted to it all?”

“It’s necessary to remind me, it seems,” he said, “since I have no recollection of it at all.”

[474D] “It would be fitting for someone else to say what you’re saying, Glaucon,” I said, “but it’s not fitting for an erotic man to be unmindful of the fact that all those in their first flowering in one way or another sting and arouse an erotic lover of boys, and seem to be worth paying attention to and giving a warm welcome. Don’t you people behave that way toward the beautiful? One, because he’s snub-nosed, is praised by you by being called adorable, and the hooked nose of another you folks claim is kingly, while you claim the one in the middle compared to them has [474E] proportion; you claim the dark ones look manly and the pale ones are children of the gods, and do you imagine the name “honeychild” is anything but a product of a baby-talking lover who finds a yellowish complexion easy to take if it’s in the flowering of youth? And in a word, [475A] you folks make every excuse and come out with any utterance so as not to reject anyone blossoming in the first prime of life.”

“If you want to pin it on me,” he said, “to talk about the way erotic people behave, I go along with it for the sake of the argument.”

“And what about wine-lovers,” I said; “don’t you see them doing these same things and welcoming every sort of wine on any excuse?”

“Very much so.”

“And surely you notice, I assume, that lovers of honor, if they can’t become generals, are lieutenants, and if they can’t be honored by grander and more prestigious people, are content with being honored by lesser and [475B] more ordinary ones, since they’re desirous of honor as a whole.”

“Exactly.”

“Then affirm this or deny it: when we speak of someone as desiring something, will we claim he desires all of that form, or part of it and part not?”

“All of it,” he said.

“Then won’t we claim the philosopher too is a desirer of wisdom, not of part of it and part not, but of all of it?”

“That’s true.”

“Therefore if someone’s picky about the things he learns, especially [475C] when he’s young and doesn’t yet have a rational account of what is or isn’t useful, we’ll claim that he’s no lover of learning and not philosophic, just as we’d claim that someone who’s picky about his food isn’t hungry, doesn’t desire food, and isn’t a food-lover but a bad eater.”

“And we’ll be right in claiming it.”

“But in justice, we’ll claim that person who’s readily willing to taste everything learnable and goes toward learning gladly and in an insatiable spirit is a philosopher, won’t we?”

[475D] And Glaucon said, “Then many strange people will be like that according to you. Because all those who love sights seem to me to be that way, since they take delight in studying them, and those who love listening are some of the strangest people to include among philosophers; they wouldn’t be willing to go voluntarily to discussions or any such way of passing the time, but just as if they’d hired out their ears for listening, they run around to all the choruses at the festivals of Dionysus,⁸⁹ not missing any of those in the cities or in the villages. Are we going to claim that all these and everyone else devoted to learning such things [475E] and to the superficial arts are philosophers?”

“Not at all,” I said, “just that they’re like philosophers.”

“And who do you say are the true ones?” he said.

“The lovers of the sight of the truth,” I said.

“And that would be right,” he said, “but how do you mean it?”

“Not in any way that’s easy to explain to someone else,” I said; “but I imagine you’ll grant me something like this.”

“Like what?”

[476A] “That since beautiful is the opposite of ugly, the pair of them⁹⁰ are two.”

“How could that not be so?”

“And since they’re two, each of them is also one?”

“That too.”

“And it’s the same story with just and unjust, and good and bad, and with all the forms:⁹¹ each of them itself is one, but since they make their appearance everywhere in common with actions and bodies and one another, each appears to be many.”

“You’re putting it correctly,” he said.

“That’s the way I make the distinction, then,” I said: “on one side the lovers of sights, the lovers of the arts, and the practical people you were just speaking of, and [476B] on the other side the people our discussion is about, the only ones anybody could rightly call philosophers.”

“How do you mean?” he said.

“Presumably,” I said, “the lovers of listening and of sights devote themselves to beautiful sounds and colors and shapes and everything crafted out of such things, but their thinking is incapable of seeing and devoting itself to the nature of the beautiful itself.”

“That’s exactly how it is,” he said.

“But wouldn’t those who are capable of getting to and seeing the beautiful itself, by itself, be rare?”

“Very much so.”

[476C] “But if someone believes there are beautiful things, but doesn’t believe in beauty itself, and isn’t capable of following if anyone leads him up to the knowledge of it, does he seem to you to be living in a dream or awake? Just consider; isn’t it dreaming when anyone, whether in sleep or waking, believes a likeness to something isn’t a likeness but is the thing itself that it seems like?”

“I at least would claim that such a person is dreaming,” he said.

“And what about the opposite of that, when someone believes there is a beautiful itself and is capable of catching sight of it as well as of the things that participate in it, and [476D] doesn’t think it is the things that participate or that the things that participate are it—does he seem to you to be living a waking life or a dream?”

“Very much a waking life,” he said.

“Then since he’s discerning something, wouldn’t we be right in claiming that this person’s thinking is knowledge, while that of the other person is opinion, since he’s accepting the seeming?”⁹²

“Very much so.”

“Then what if the latter, who we claim is accepting a seeming but not discerning anything, gets rough with us, and contends that we’re not telling the truth? Will we be able [476E] to calm him down in any way and persuade him gently, concealing the fact that he’s not in a healthy condition?”

“We’ll certainly have to do exactly that,” he said.

“Come on then, and consider what we’re going to say to him. Or do you want us to do it this way, to ask him questions, telling him that no one will begrudge it if he does know anything, but we’d be glad to see that he knows something? But tell us this: does someone who does discern discern something or nothing? Let’s have you answer me on his behalf.”

“I’ll answer that he discerns something,” he said.

“Something that is or is not?”

[477A] “Something that is. For how could anything that is not be discerned?”

“Then even if we might consider it in more ways, have we got this sufficiently, that what completely is is completely knowable, while what is not is unknowable in any way at all?”

“Quite sufficiently.”

“Okay; now if there is a way for something both to be and not be, wouldn’t it lie between what is purely and simply and what in no way is?”

“Between.”

“Then since knowledge applied to what is, and what applied to what is not was by necessity ignorance, doesn’t one need to look for something in between ignorance [477B] and knowledge, if there happens to be any such thing, to apply to this in-between kind?”

“Very much so.”

“Don’t we say opinion is something?”

“How could it not be?”

“A capacity different from knowledge, or the same?”

“Different.”

“Therefore opinion is directed at one thing and knowledge at another, each in accord with its own capacity.”

“That’s the way it is.”

“And doesn’t knowledge naturally apply to what is, to discern the way what is is? But it seems to me to be necessary instead to make a distinction in this way first.”

“How so?”

[477C] “We’ll assert that capacities are a certain class of beings by which we, and everything else that might have any power, have the power to do what we’re capable of; I’m speaking of sight and hearing, for example, as being among the capacities, if that lets you understand what the form is that I mean to describe.”

“I do understand,” he said.

“Then hear what appears to me about them. In a capacity I don’t see any color or shape or any of the many other things of that sort that I look to when I distinguish for [477D] myself that some are one thing and others another. In a capacity I look only at what it’s directed to and what it accomplishes, and by that I call each of them a capacity, and that which is directed at the same thing and accomplishes the same thing I call the same capacity, while I call that which is directed at something different and accomplishes something different a different capacity. What about you? What do you do?”

“The same,” he said.

“Then direct yourself here again, most excellent fellow,” I said. “Do you claim that knowledge is some sort of capacity, or what class do you put it in?”

[477E] “In this one,” he said, “as, in fact, the most potent of all capacities.”

“And what about opinion? Is it in with capacities or shall we carry it over to another form?”

“Not at all,” he said, “since opinion is nothing other than that by which we’re capable of accepting a seeming.”

“But just a little while ago you agreed that knowledge and opinion aren’t the same.”

“How could anyone with any sense,” he said, “ever posit that something infallible is the same as something not infallible?”

[478A] “A beautiful point,” I said, “and it’s clear that it’s agreed by us that opinion is something different from knowledge.”

“It’s a different thing.”

“Therefore, since each of them is a different capacity, each is of such a nature as to be directed at something different?”

“Necessarily.”

“And knowledge is presumably directed at what is, to discern the way what is is?”

“Yes.”

“And we claim opinion accepts a seeming”

“Yes.”

“Is that the same thing that knowledge discerns? And will the same thing be both knowable and a matter of opinion? Or is that impossible?”

“It’s impossible,” he said, “based on the things that have been agreed; if indeed a different capacity is of such a nature as to be directed at something different, and the pair of them together are capacities, opinion [478B] and knowledge, and each of them a different capacity, as we claim, then based on these things, there’s no room for what’s knowable and what’s a matter of opinion to be the same.”

“Then if what’s knowable is what is, what’s a matter of opinion would be something other than what is?”

“Something other.”

“Then does one accept a seeming of what is not? Or is it impossible at any rate for what is not even to have a seeming? Think about it. Doesn’t someone who accepts a seeming refer his opinion to something? Or is it possible to accept a seeming when there’s nothing to accept a seeming of?”

“It’s impossible.”

“But someone who accepts a seeming accepts a seeming of some one thing?”

“Yes.”

“But surely what is not would not be spoken of in the most correct way as some one thing but as [478C] nothing?”

“Certainly.”

“And by necessity, we assigned ignorance to what is not, and knowledge to what is?”

“Rightly,” he said.

“Therefore one doesn’t accept a seeming of what is or of what is not?”

“No.”

“And therefore opinion would be neither ignorance nor knowledge?”

“It seems not.”

“So then is it outside these, surpassing either knowledge in clarity or ignorance in absence of clarity?”

“Neither.”

“But then,” I said, “does it appear to you that opinion is something darker than knowledge but brighter than ignorance?”

“Very much indeed,” he said.

[478D] “And it lies inside the pair of them?”

“Yes.”

“Therefore opinion would be in between this pair?”

“Exactly so.”

“Well, weren’t we claiming in the earlier discussion that if anything would come to light as a sort of thing that is and is not at the same time, such a thing would lie between what is purely and simply and what in every way is not, and that neither knowledge nor ignorance would be directed at it, but instead something that came to light as between ignorance and knowledge?”

“Rightly so.”

“And now the very thing we call opinion has come to light in between this pair?”

“It has come to light.”

[478E] “So what would be left, it seems, is for us to find that thing that participates in both being and not being, and isn’t rightly referred to in either way purely and simply, so that if it comes to light, we could in justice refer to it as being what opinion is about, assigning the extremes to the extremes and the in-betweens to the in-betweens. Isn’t that the way it is?”

“That’s the way.”

“So with these things as a foundation, let him tell me, I’ll say, and let him give an answer, [479A] that good fellow who believes there isn’t any beautiful itself or any sort of form of beauty itself that’s always the same in the same respects, but does believe in the many beautiful things, that lover of sights who doesn’t stand for it in any way when anyone claims that the beautiful is a single thing, or the just, or the other things like that. ‘Now, most excellent fellow,’ we’ll say, ‘is there any of these many beautiful things that won’t also show itself to be ugly? Or any of the just things that’s not unjust? Or any of the pious things that’s not impious?’”

“No,” he said, “it’s necessary for them to show themselves as both beautiful and [479B] ugly in some way, and for all the other things you’re asking about as well.”

“And what about the many double-sized things? Do they show themselves any the less as halves than as doubles?”

“Not that either.”

“And things that we’ll claim are big or little, and light or heavy—will these names be applied to them any more than their opposites will?”

“No,” he said, “but each of them will always have a share of both.”

“So is each of the many things that which anyone claims it is more than it isn’t that?”

“It’s like the plays on words at dinner parties,” he said, “and [479C] the children’s riddle, the one about the eunuch, about throwing something at a bat, and they make a riddle out of what he threw and what it was on.⁹³ Because these many things too have double meanings, and it’s not possible to think of any of them in a fixed way as being or not being, or as both or neither.”

“Do you have any way you can handle them then,” I said, “or any more beautiful place where you could put them than in between being, proper, and not being? Because presumably nothing will show itself to be darker than what is not in order to not-be more than it, or brighter than being in order to be more.”

[479D] “Most true,” he said.

“Then it seems we’ve made the discovery that the many things most people customarily believe about what’s beautiful and the other things are rolling around between what is not and what is purely and simply.”

“We’ve made that discovery.”

“And we agreed beforehand that if any such thing would come to light, it would need to be said that it’s what opinion is about but isn’t knowable, a wandering, in-between thing captured by the in-between capacity.”

“We are in agreement.”

“Then as for those who gaze upon many beautiful things but don’t see the beautiful [479E] itself, and aren’t even capable of following someone else who leads them to it, and upon many just things but not the just itself, and all the things like that, we’ll claim that they accept the seeming of everything but discern nothing of what they have opinions about.”

“Necessarily,” he said.

“And what in turn about those who gaze upon each of the things themselves, that are always the same in the same respects? Won’t we claim that they discern them and don’t have opinion about them?”

“That too is necessary.”

“And won’t we also claim that these people devote themselves to and love [480A] those things at which knowledge is directed, while the former devote themselves to and love those things at which opinion is directed? Or do we not recall that we claimed they love and gaze upon beautiful sounds and colors and that sort of thing, but can’t stand for the beautiful itself to be anything?”

“We remember.”

“So we won’t be hitting any false note in calling them lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom? And will they get violently angry with us if we speak of them that way?”

“Not if they’re persuaded by me,” he said, “since no one has a right to be angry with the truth.”

“Therefore those who devote themselves to each thing itself that is ought to be called philosophers and not lovers of opinion?”

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”